Under the heading of close, but no cigar -- I googled the
following quote: "He dropped to one knee and fired again" and
found the story
"Hell House" by Theodore Tinsley
Reprinted on the Internet: http://www.harvestfields.ca/horror/006/127.htm
(originally from the May 1933 issue of ALL DETECTIVE . . . I
guess)
But isn't "I dropped to one knee and fired twice" kind of the
"It was a dark and stormy night" of Black Mask fiction.
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Juri Nummelin"
<juri.nummelin@p...> wrote:
> I had a question about the opening sentence few days
back and was
> wondering if it was something by Raoul Whitfield or
Frederick Nebel.
> I was also thinking that the quote was in Ron
Goulart's pulp
> anthology "The Hardboiled Dicks".
>
> No one came up with a definite answer. I was lucky
enough to find the
> book in my shelves and found the quote - but no
attribution to any
> author. It's in the introduction. Goulart
writes:
>
> "For one thing there was the infinite number of ways
they had of
> grabbing your attention and pulling you into action.
Which this
> assortment of opening books will show:
>
> [Then come openings of "The Dain Curse", "The Red
Wind" and several
> others I don't recognize {and I'm a bit uncertain
about Dain}. Then
> comes this:]
>
> I dropped to one knee and fired twice."
>
> Goulart never says where these openings come from.
He says they are
> from "books", but there are clearly more short
stories in it
> (including one Sam Spade story, with the line "My
name is Ronald
> Ames") than actual books.
>
> Now, does anyone recognize the sentence and can tell
where it's from?
>
> Juri
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