Brett Halliday's Michael Shayne was my first hardboiled hero.
I was about 12 and it was all new to me. Some years ago I
went back and read several novels in the series and the early
novels--say until Mike moved back to Miami from New
Orleans--hold up reasonably well. There are negatives. So
many of the trappings of the series are now cliches. There is
the newspaper reporter friend, the friendly cop and the
unfriendly cop, and (eventually) the faithful
secretary/girlfriend who never quite makes it into Shayne's
bed. How many of these originated with Halliday (or Davis
Dresser to give his real name) I don't know. I also think the
Shayne novels would have retained more favor if they had been
in first person. Third Person distances the reader from
Shayne, who beyond a few habits and attitudes is not that
fully developed a character.
Some of the later novels in the 1950s were not at all
hardboiled but won praise from Anthony Boucher and others for
being quite good "fair play" whodunnits.
Everyone should be aware that ghostwriters are responsible
for all the novels after about 1958 and almost everything
under the Halliday name that appeared in the Mike Shayne
Mystery Magazine.
Richard Moore
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "ninposamurai"
<ninposamurai@...> wrote:
>
> Hi. How does,Bret Halliday,compare with other
hard-boiled writers?
How
> good was he,in your opinion? Does anyone here
collect his books?
> Thanks.-------------------------- Jeff
Brown
>
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