miker wrote:
> I think that one of the strongest Pinkerton
influences on
> Hammett might
> not have been his experience as much as the
literature, such as Alan
> Pinkerton's series which included MOLLY MAGUIRES.
Purportedly non-
> fiction, the idea of the hardboiled detective,
violent and
> riding the hairy
> edge of legality, gets a fairly good fleshing out
decades
> before Daly and
> Hammett published.
As evidence of that literary Pinkerton influence, from the
book True Detective Stories from the Pinkerton Archives, by
Cleveland Moffett (New York: G.W. Dillingham Co., 1898), read
this description of Red Leary: "He was a typical desperado in
appearance, with his shock of red hair, and his bristling red
mustache, and his ugly, heavy-jawed face, while his huge neck
and shoulders, his big head, and powerful hairy hands
impressed one with his enormous physical strength. He weighed
nearly three hundred pounds, and his
'pals' used to point with pride to the fact that he wore a
bigger hat than any statesman in America--eight and a
quarter." (pp. 47-48)
In "The Big Knockover," gives us this description of a
character we later find is named Red O'Leary: "Just before
they reached him another reached them--a broad-backed,
long-armed, ape-built man I had not seen before. ... When the
skull-cracker came out of the alley I saw his face in the
light--a dark-skinned, heavily-lined face, broad and flat,
with jaw-muscles bulging like abscesses under his ears."
(Crime Stories & Other Writings, p. 550) Hammett later
repeatedly describes him as a red-head and a giant.
Vince Emery
"One of the 25 most influential people in Internet
marketing"
--Grimes
Communications Specialist in marketing communications Author,
public speaker, teacher, and consultant Box 460279, San
Francisco, CA 94146 USA
vince@emery.com Phone 1.415.337.6000
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