RARA-AVIS: Carroll John Daly

From: Enrique Bird ( ebird@gmgroup.com)
Date: 28 Apr 2000


Friends,

In his essay on hardboiled fiction in Howard Haycraft's "The Art of the Mystery Story", Erle Stanley Gardner credits Daly as one of the founders, if not the founder, of the hardboiled genre. I just re-read this essay for the first time in over 30 (!!) years and found it very well written and interesting.

I read a Daly book in 1980 or 81 (possibly "The Snarl of the Beast") and, though not remarkable, found it likable. If one takes into consideration when it was written, it is remarkable! Not boring nor slow, as so many of his modern successors.

Enrique F. Bird Pic󊼂R>

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Keith Alan Deutsch [SMTP: keithdeutsch@earthlink.net]
> Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2000 5:21 PM
> To: rara-avis@icomm.ca
> Subject: RARA-AVIS: Carroll John Daly
> Importance: High
>
> Dear Bob,
>
>
> Yes Daly is a hack, but a brilliant hack. Almost every cliche about the
> "classic hard boiled detective" was invented ab ovum by Daly. Mike Hammer
> and
> Race Williams (or Three-Gun Terry) are obviously blood brothers (and
> Spillane
> admitted as much.) By the way, I realy enjoy Spillane, for awhile he was
> the
> most popular writer in America (by sales); but he often makes the same
> "terrible
> writing mistakes of excess" that Daly does. With the right attitude, Daly
> is a
> lot fun. Vigoruos, silly, but engaging first person narration.
>

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