Vince wrote:
> 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.
******************************* Excellent example, Vince.
Thanks.
miker
-- # Plain ASCII text only, please. Anything else won't show up. # 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 : 12 Dec 2003 EST