Searching anthologies for more of the old-time hard-boiled, I
was surprised to find several interesting examples in the
anthology RUE MORGUE NO. 1 edited by Rex Stout and Louis
Greenfield (Creative Age Press 1946) including a prime Robert
Leslie Bellem story from a war time issue of "Speed
Detective," a magazine that began life as "Spicy Detective."
This is a Dan Turner yarn entitled "Gun From Gotham" with an
apparently original title given in parenthesis of "Sleep for
a Dreamer." The Gotham title is much more suitable for the
story. While a lengthy Dan Turner story would become tedious,
the Bellem kept this one to about 5000 words and the lines
kept me chuckling with enjoyment. Such as:
"She raised the roscoe, slapped me on the side of the noggin.
For a wren who didn't look hefty, she packed a terrific
wallop. I staggered, felt my knees turning to jelly. She
maced me another swat that put me down for the count with
fells jangling in my think-tank."
Now it is hard for me to imagine Rex Stout as a Dan Turner
fan but if the anthology is any indication, Stout had
wide-ranging tastes. There are three stories from "Weird
Tales," including a Ray Bradbury and a Jules de Grandin story
from Seabury Quinn. This has to be one of Bradbury's first
anthology sales. Stout in the introduction says the common
thread is the emphasis on story which he contrasts with
mainstream or literary stories. He wrote
"...if a writer once gets a murder in his mind it is next to
impossible not to make up a story about it. The quality of
the story will depend on many factors--inventiveness or
imagination, ability to construct and organize,
craftsmanship, and so forth--but in any case it is
practically certain there will be a story."
In a hard-boiled vein there is a Johnny Liddell story by
Frank Kane from
"Crack Detective." This is a better than average Liddell
story although Kane annoyed me by always using the full name
of his detective, perhaps because another character appears
named Johnny.
The one story from "Black Mask" is "Dead as in Blonde" by
D.L. Champion from the March 1945 issue. The story is one of
26 that appeared from 1940 to 1950 featuring Private Eye Rex
Sackler and his assistent Joey Graham. Sackler is known as
the "Shylock of Shamuses" in that he is only concerned about
money. Although to judge from his appearance, he never spends
any of it. ("He lives like a coolie who has never seen the
reassuring gleam of a ten-cent piece.")
The narrator is the assistant Joey, who based on this one
story can barely stand the sight of Sackler because he is so
stingy. Joey must be a glutton for punishment as the story
opens with him on date with his fiancee who has him on an
allowance of $1.17 a day. "The seventeen cents was for a pack
of cigarettes. The buck was for lunch, carfare, opium and any
other reasonably priced flesh pot that I cared to wallow in."
The plot is completely nuts. In fact there are two plots: a
swindle involving the return of a kidnapped son of a
millionaire after thirty years missing and the murder and
maiming
(via acid throwing) of refugees from a certain Polish
town.
I enjoyed bits and pieces of this yarn but it is hard to see
how a series based on these characters could have sustained
itself for a full decade.
I'll highlight a few other stories from the anthology:
"What More Can Fortune Do?" is by H. Bedford Jones in the
Table of Contents but at the story the author is given as by
Gordon Keyne. I'm familiar enough with his style to recognize
Henry Jones' writing and it is from "Blue Book" a magazine
that printed him regularly. In this story, a field agent for
a worldwide agency called Quest Incorporated" seeks to solve
the mystery of a British soldier who may or may not have died
in Provence in the last months of the war. A good
story.
"Slay-mates" by Charles Larson is from Popular Detective and
is a psychological thriller with some nice Woolrichian
touches. Of more interest to this list is the long novelette
"I'll Slay You In My Dreams" by Bruno Fischer and published
in the great pulp Dime Detective. This is a hitchhiker story
as the first person narrator is a just discharged soldier
trying to make his way to a town where he might find work. He
accepts a ride from a drunk who flashes a lot money at him to
perform an errand that seems harmless enough. Of course, as
every reader expects he has climbed onto a sleigh ride to
hell and it is a nice ride to the bottom. I must read more by
Bruno Fischer. This was quite nice a story that calls to mind
the movie "Detour."
RUE MORGUE NO. 1 is a fairly common anthology in used book
stores and not that expensive. There are enough good stories
in it to be worthwhile for the hard-boiled fan. If like me,
you also enjoy the "Weird Tales" type story, there is even
more value in the purchase.
Richard Moore
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