I've recently come across a first rate suspense writer, Owen
Parry, who centers his series (2 so far) on a special agent
employed by the Lincoln Administration to ferret out crimes
and plots among abolitionists (Faded Coat of Blue) and the
Irish in upstate New York (Shadows of Glory). The first novel
centers on Washington, D.C. and contains what seem to be
accurate descriptions of the slum areas (Swampoodle), as well
as the disorder of official Washington.
Here, from the second novel, is a sample of his style, which
seems carefully shaped to fit the sensibility of a 19th
century Welsh soldier (of sober Methodist persuasion):
"I knew the streets that led to Swampoodle. But no outsider
knew the alleys within. The provost marshal's men went there
only by daylight, and the Washington police did naught but
collect the bodies floating in Tiber Creek.
Irish, the place was, in the lowest sense. I'd
taken a beating there once....
...We wound past shanties too poor for kerosene, lit by wicks
afloat in bowls of fat, then trudged by hovels with out
lights at all. Yet, you felt the life in them. Cradled babes
cried out that life goes on. We were troubled by no more than
a scattering of curses and surprises of filth beneath our
feet."
This may not be hard-boiled, but ladies and gentlemen the man
can write!
At one point, the protagonist is told he is a regular
detective, leading to the following thoughts on what the term
apparently meant to upstanding citizens in mid-19th
century:
"Detective? My mouth must have hung wide. For I hadn't
considered matters in such a light. I was a military officer,
doing my country's duty, and temporarily, a confidential
agent. Detectives were characters in the lowest of the
weeklies, intemperate of garment, with little black cigars
stuffed in their mouths. The wicked pursuing the
wickeder..."
Bill Hagen
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