If there's a primal event that explains my particular answer
to this question, I guess it might be that my first exposure
to detective fiction was HB.
Before I could even read myself, my dad was reading *Dick
Tracy* to me every Sunday. *Tracy*'s always been a seminal
example of HB mystery, despite its medium being the comic
strip rather than prose fiction, and Gould was responding to
the same kind of environment (unchecked gangsterism, economic
depression, both recently ended and impending world wars,
etc.) that fueld the engines of Hammett, Chandler, Burnett,
etc.
My early exposure to *Tracy* might also explain why I went
into police work and moved to Chicago. *Quien sabe?*
Having said that, I must add that my tastes in mystery are
pretty catholic. While I prefer those sub-genres that tend to
be regarded as being in the HB house of the Mystery Mansion
(police procedurals, PIs, spies), I also enjoy Sayers, Queen,
Carr, and many of the other cozy/classic writers. Just not as
much.
JIM DOHERTY
-- # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 28 Jan 2000 EST