I've just read the above mentioned tome, a delicious slice of
homegrown Aussie noir from the 50's. Bant Singer (aka Charles
Shaw) is probably best known as the author of HEAVEN KNOWS,
MR ALISON (subsequently filmed by John Huston, starring Bob
("The Man") Mitchum & Deborah Kerr). YOU'RE WRONG,
DELANEY is the first of the 4 novels about Delaney, known as
Del to his mates. Aside from the fact that it's a good book
anyway I'm particularly chuffed because it's the first truly
Australian hardboiled or noir I've read. This is not to put
down authors such as Peter Corris
& Gary Disher but with authors such as these guys I feel
I'm getting something more American than Australian, despite
the local colour. YOU'RE WRONG, DELANEY, although undeniably
influenced by American hardboiled, is quintessentially
Australian in its language and milieu as well as the
personality of the protagonist. In some ways, Del is a
standard figure in hardboiled, especially of the 50's - he's
an ex-WWII vet, in fact an ex-commando who had fought the
Japanese in New Guinea
(they're pretty heavy credentials in any one's book, I would
think, especially anyone familiar with WWII military history)
but he is far from an invincible Mike Hammer type. He doesn't
carry a gun, being just a small-time grifter & unemployed
printer. Gun toting sociopaths frighten him as much as they
would me. When he cops a beating he gets hospitalised. His
ethical standards are very flexible, short of murder and
intentional mayhem; he's not above a bit of blackmail when
he's short of a quid & opportunity knocks - he's also
willing to make himself a suspect to a murder to draw
suspicion away from the mate who saved his life in New
Guinea. (Particularly in the wake of 2 world wars, mateship
was practically a religion in Australia.) In other words, Del
Delaney is a complicated character although a very
recognisable type of Aussie male of the WWII generation.
Charles Shaw died in 1955.
I'm keeping my eyes out for the other Delaney books.
The first one was published in a US paperback ed. in the
1950's by Pyramid. Anyone, like Bill Crider, fer instance,
read this? If not, I recommend you grab it if you see it
around, if you can put up with the Aussie colloquial 1st
person narration (although I notice that even back then the
Australian dialect was using quite a few Americanisms, very
much of the hardboiled variety, see? Del also kills time by
going to see a movie at one point - CRY OF THE CITY,IIRC, an
old film noir with Victor Mature, again assuming proper
memory function). Not exactly British noir (a topic that
doesn't really seem to have inspired a frenzy of postings)
but I guess it's British Commonwealth noir. It's always so
exciting to discover new authors - it's amazing that you can
read widely in a genre for over 20 years & still find
something completely new (to me, anyway). All the Delaney
were published in the UK as hardbacks, so they may be easy to
find in the UK at least, if anyone is interested enough to
check them out. The one I read is kinda like an Aussie
parallel to those Gold Medal novels set in small towns such
as some by Gil Brewer, Day Keene, Charles Williams etc,
rather than being influenced by these books, I would think.
(The 1st Delaney book was printed in 1952).
Rene
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