In a recent post Ned asked:
Have you:
had shotguns pointed at you?
Yes
pointed a shotgun with that "special" intention?
Yes
robbed a bank?
No
been robbed?
Yes
kidnapped someone?
I've arrested them, which might be described as a legal
version of the same
act
been kidnapped?
No
kicked someone's teeth in?
No
had your teeth kicked in?
No
stolen a car?
Had 'em towed which, again, might be described as the legal
version of that
act.
been falsely accused of a crime?
No
plotted against someone?
No
been addicted to dope?
No
After all, I'm a policeman, so I'd have at least a few of the
above experiences,
but so what. The purpose of this list is to discuss stories.
My professional
background might give me some perspective on how *convincing*
a story is as to
details (i.e. police procedures, etc.), but that doesn't mean
that anyone who
hasn't is unqualified to comment on HB mysteries, or even
write them. Carroll
Joh Daly, who invented the HB PI, was about as hard-boiled as
a raw egg and had
no actual experience in crime or police work. Mickey
Spillane, who did have
such experiences, still respected Daly as a writer and
modeled his Hammer novels
on Daly's Race Williams series. - Jim Doherty
To get you off the nut, I provide this: I've stolen cars for
adolescent
joyrides; I've broken into a safe -- a real safe, not some
tincan safe;
I've had shotguns pointed at my head twice -- once by the
cops and once
by an irate father; I've been in fistfights where teeth were
lost (not
mine). On the other hand, maybe Willeford (and Peter Walker)
were right
that Americans are 50 percent loopy/mad.
I realize that asking such a question is like cracking open a
rotten
egg. You might not want to rehearse your past, and I urge you
to not
disclose anything needlessly. Hell, you might even think I'll
blackmail
you, which I won't, which is no reassurance whatsoever. On
the other
hand, you can e-mail me your hardboiled stories and I'll
post,
disguised, what I get. Shit, make something up, if nothing
else.
I'm testing a theory here: That hardboiled readers are
hardboiled
people.
-- Ned Fleming # # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/.
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