Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: W.R. Burnett

From: J.C. Hocking (jchocking@yahoo.com)
Date: 18 Mar 2010

  • Next message: jacquesdebierue: "RARA-AVIS: Re: W.R. Burnett"

    Aw hell, I gotta stand up for Daly a little. His short stories are much more enjoyable than his novels.  He gets to focus on the action and violence and tough-guy dialogue without worrying about sustaining much of a plot.  His prose is mallet-like and his plots absurd, but in the short form this doesn't get in the way of an amusing payoff of hardboiled entertainment. Just my two-cents, adjusted for inflation since the days of Black Mask.

    John    

    ________________________________ From: jacquesdebierue <jacquesdebierue@yahoo.com> To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thu, March 18, 2010 5:35:49 PM Subject: RARA-AVIS: Re: W.R. Burnett

     

    --- In rara-avis-l@ yahoogroups. com, "Allan Guthrie" <allan@...> wrote:
    >
    > Just to stand up for Burnett in case anyone who hasn't read him thinks it's
    > not worth the effort: DARK HAZARD is a superb novel. One of my all-time
    > favourites in the genre. The two Dalys I've read were so bad I almost lost
    > the will to live. These two writers are poles apart, in my admittedly warped
    > opinion.
    >

    Yes, no comparison whatever. Burnett was generally good, whereas Daly was almost always bad. No, he was always bad, period. I do think Burnett got careless in his later career. Little Caesar remains a formidable novel.

    Best,

    mrt

          

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