--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "James Reasoner"
<jamesreasoner@...> wrote:
>
> I'll second the recommendation of Frederick Nebel and Norbert Davis.
Nebel, especially, I consider right up there with Hammett and
Chandler, maybe not quite on their level, but almost. I like Paul
Cain's work but wouldn't rank him as high as the others.
>
> And God help me, I've never read a Carroll John Daly story that I
didn't enjoy. His dialogue is like nothing resembling the way humans
really talk, his plotting is melodramatic to the point of silliness,
but his stories have a distinctive voice and you can tell that he
really believed in what he was doing. That counts for something with
me. You've probably got to be able to put yourself in the mindset of
somebody who just plunked down his dime for the latest issue of BLACK
MASK at the newsstand to enjoy Daly, though.
>
I was having these sorts of thoughts yesterday, as I read Harold de
Polo's story Hardboiled... But Daly tires me easily, though at times
he can be strangely fascinating, almost an alien. His novel The Hidden
Hand has almost a hallucinatory effect, as in, "this can't be real".
It is so heavy-handed it's almost postmodern...
Best,
mrt
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