Has anyone heard of a hard boiled writer named Benjamin Appel
(1907-77)? He wrote a number of novels and short stories set
in Hell's Kitchen and the waterfront in the 30s, 50s, and
50s, some paperback originals. His sense of detail, and his
descriptions of what poverty and ethnocentricism do to the
people living in industrial New York during the Depression,
and after WWII, is unequalled IMO by New York novelists. Many
of his characters are racketeers, both "brain guys" and
"torpedoes." And others are poor immigrants who suffer the
most humiliating indignities until and unless they appeal to
wise guys, or get wise themselves. Some titles: _Brain Guy_,
_The Dark Stain_, _Sweet Money Gir_l (explains why the famous
near-naked female figure on the giant Bond's Clothes sign in
Times Square was the symbol of all Broadway), _A Big Man, A
Fast Man_, _The Raw Edge_, and a great short story
collection, _Hell's Kitchen _(aka _Alley Kids_). His 'Dock
Walloper" is in Pronzini's _Hard Boiled_ anthology.
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