It occurs to me that the Cold War is a frequent theme in '50s
hard-boiled crime fiction. Of course, spy stories start to
proliferate in the '50s (James Bond and Sam Durrell make
their debuts in '54 and '55 respectively, for example), but
even in books about characters who aren't espionage
professionals, the Red Menace is a frequent theme. Private
eye stories like Spillane's ONE LONELY NIGHT or Prather's
PATTERN FOR PANIC, for example.
What strikes me as particularly remarkable is that the Cold
War seems much more prevalent in '50s HB than WW2 was in '40s
crime fiction. When the war impinged, it was usually
off-stage. Two of Erle Stanely Garnder's series characters,
for example, Donald Lam and small-town DA Doug Selby, both
enter the military, but their service in the Armed Forces
occurs between books.
Of all the books members mentioned as their favorite
'40s entries, I can't recall that any of them used a wartime
plot. And offhand, the only marginally hard-boiled character
who we actually see serving in the military is Archie
Goodwin, who's an Army officer in three Nero Wolfe short
stories.
I'm sure there are others, but they don't occur to me right
off-hand.
Perhaps the whole "sub rosa" nature of the Cold War made it a
subject that was more amenable to crime plots. Or perhaps it
was because, in the US at least, the actual war was happening
somewhere else during the
'40s, while (we were told at least) the commies who would end
our Way of Life were Right Here in the '50s.
JIM DOHERTY
PS
My Mom's surgery had to be postponed. It looks like it will
happen this Friday (24 Jan.). You continued prayers are
greatly appreciated (my Mom got a kick out of knowing that
I'd added Rara-Avis to my prayer network).
Contact me off-list if you want more details.
Thanks to those of you who've sent me messages of
support.
JIM D.
__________________________________________________ Do you
Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 23 Jan 2003 EST