The Adventures of Race Williams

Race Williams #Short Stories

by Carroll John Daly

Stories feature Race Williams, a private detective of the 1920s, who never hesitates to killin the name of justice

Genres: Mystery, Pulp, Short Stories, Fiction

342 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

With a single screen writing credit to his name, Carroll John Daly is an unlikely mention as being the originator of the private eye... but he just might be. And he was, by contemporary accounts, a strange guy; born in Yonkers, New York in 1889, he most certainly was neurotic, agoraphobic and had a severe fear of dentists. These considerable obstacles to a conventional career were fortuitously offset by the genetic good fortune of having a sympathetic wealthy uncle who encouraged his writing efforts. Daly began to make a name for himself in the nickel and dime pulps in the early 1920s. He was 33 when he managed to get published in the fledgling Black Mask. His character Terry Mack is significant as the first tough-talking private eye (debuting in May, 1923) ever to appear in the pulp genre. Daly's characterization was pretty crudely drawn and he quickly created another character in the same vein, the twin-toting .45 gumshoe Race Williams. Black Mask hired a visionary editor, Joe "Cap" Shaw in 1926, who almost immediately took an intense dislike to Daly's one-dimensional writing style. Shaw conceded to his popularity for the time being, while methodically building up a stable of far greater writing talent. Criticism aside, Daly's 'The Snarl of the Beast' (1927) has the distinction as being acknowledged as the first private eye novel ever published. As Joe Shaw groomed other writers, contemporary critics began to condemn Daly, accusing him of subverting the morals of society and bemoaning the quality of his writing. The mind-numbing void the Race Williams character filled in Black Mask became less important in the early 1930s as the magazine featured vastly superior stories written by the likes of Raoul Fauconnier Whitfield and John K. Butler. Daly and Shaw argued continually over the quality of Daly's writing, and to a lesser extent money and to the delight of Joe Shaw, Daly walked off the magazine in late 1934. Daly would sporadically reappear in Black Mask after Shaw left the publication in 1936, but would fade into obscurity, ending his writing career ignobly by writing comic book dialog. He died in 1958, unappreciated and virtually forgotten by those working in the genre he largely helped create.

* Complete list of his short stories.

Reviews

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Race Williams is one of the first detectives of the hard boiled school, and was immensely popular in the 1920s and early 1930s, but is almost forgotten today.

This is a collection of several short stories, most of them linked via continuity and character. Very purple prose, and a lot of tough guy talk, along with a sentimental romance, make this archaic, but entertaining.

[Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written by one of the founding fathers of Hard Boiled Private Eye novels. These stories are about Race Williams. They are exemplary pulp pieces and Williams comes off as cardboard figure. The stories are low on plotting but strong on hi fighting action

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 3 out of 5]

review of
Carroll John Daly's The Adventures of Race Williams
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 7, 2023

Yet-another writer I got turned onto by, 1st, reading a story of his in the Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, Robert Weinberg, & Martin H. Greenberg edited Hard-Boiled Detectives (see my review here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/CriticH... ) &, 2nd, reading about the author & his works in Lee Server’s Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers (see my review here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/CriticP... ). My review of the latter doesn't even mention Daly so I'm a bit mystified as to why I even bought this bk. I have a vague recollection that I might've thought that Daly was the author of the story that became the "Black Legion" movie. He wasn't. At any rate, I read it & enjoyed it.

"The best-selling author of hardboiled detective fiction in the 1920s and 1930s was not Dashiel Hammett, Raymond Chandler, or Erle Stanley Gardner. Instead it was Carroll John Daly, a writer whose work has since faded into obscurity." - Robert Weinberg's intro, p 1

The premise of the 1st story:

"No, I didn't like it. You see, I was there in answer to a letter. The end of it read—

"If you don't come or don't get this letter in time, then keep the money. I'll be dead.

"An Unfortunate Girl." - p 7

&, yeah, she's dead. What's a feller to do?!

Willams, unlike probably every other hard-boiled fictional detective, doesn't have a hot woman secretary. How, on Earth as it is in Whatever, did this guy ever become popular?!

"Jerry, my boy, jerked a thumb toward the inner room. "Vincent Kramer," he said. I pushed open the door and walked in on him." - p 18

"They were doing a poor business at the bar of the Royal Hotel—just a couple of customers up front. I walked down the length of it, stood at the far end. When the bartender, who didn't have any drinkers to serve, kept wiping glasses, I tapped on the mahogany with a two-bit piece.

"He looked annoyed, glared at me, then, wiping his hands on his apron, came slowly down." - p 85

I've had that experience. One time I was in a hotel bar in Boston. I was there w/ my girlfriend who was there for a writer's convention. She wasn't w/ me at the bar, she was afraid that being seen w/ me might ruin her job chances. I was there to make her have multiple orgasms later. I didn't. The bartender appeared to be ignoring me b/c I didn't fit his standards for what a hotel guest shd look like, I was too tattooed, too scruffy. He finally waited on me after one of the people seated at the bar who'd already been served struck up a conversation w/ me.

"It's not easy to break down the love of a woman, and such a woman. But I got out the old tear towel and cried all over the place. I pictured what happened when dope was smuggled into the country. I pictured little children going to school—drugs put into their candies. Then I had the children grow up—creeping shadows in the night, with a knife in their hands and murder in their hearts." - 108

HEAVY. Have drug dealers in this country ever given out dope-laced candies to children to get them addicted?

"Did you hear about the “rainbow fentanyl” pills that look like SweetTarts candies? The chocolate bar laced with cyanide or heroin? The needle in the caramel apple or the poisoned Halloween cupcake?

"Joel Best certainly has. As a criminologist at the University of Delaware, Best has catalogued instances of contaminated Halloween candy going back nearly as far as American-style trick-or-treating has existed. Or rather, he has catalogued all the false reports, hoaxes, urban legends and baseless panics about so-called Halloween sadism, as a case of a child being seriously injured or killed by a Halloween treat from a stranger has never been substantiated."

- https://www.washingtonpost.com/histor...

"Nothing says Halloween like candy corn, carved pumpkins, and children dressed up in costumes to go trick-or-treating. But this Halloween, parents will unfortunately face something much more haunting than ghosts—fentanyl disguised as candy.

"Since August 2022, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and its law enforcement partners have found brightly colored fentanyl and fentanyl pills, nicknamed “rainbow fentanyl” in 26 states, including much of the Pacific Northwest. According to the DEA, “this trend appears to be a new method used by drug cartels to sell highly addictive and potentially deadly fentanyl made to look like candy to children and young people.” The DEA has already seized more than 10.2 million fentanyl pills and 980 pounds of fentanyl powder from May through September of this year—the equivalent of 36 million lethal doses. And that was before “rainbow fentanyl” hit the market."

https://newhouse.house.gov/media/week...

Alas, I'd like to believe that human beings wdn't go so low.. but that doesn't fit w/ my perception of 'reality'. As far as I can tell, if there's a completely unscrupulous way of making big bucks there's somebody out there willing to exploit the 'opportunity'. Look at covid vaccinations for an example.

Can a character be sd to lead a 'charmed life' when 2 separate attempts are made to kill them? But that the character manages to foil?

"I was walking down my own block—not three doors away from my apartment house—and still thinking that a guy who really wanted me dead would go into the thing in a big way and use the death car. And the car came; came down the block behind me. None of this sneaking up on a guy, this was a speeding car.

"I didn't see the car, only heard it. I was completely taken off my guard. I always say the unexpected never happens, but who'd ever think of two attempts on my life within the hour when I didn't even know one man who wanted me dead." - p 164

"Armin Loring had warned me not to see Mary Morse again. The Flame had told me not to see her again. Mary Morse herself had told me not to come—both on that card and over the phone. And a lad called Raftner—so bad that he admitted it himself—threatened my death if I visited the Green Room of the Hotel York Terrace.

"There was only one answer to that.

"The York Terrace is a rather classy, high-priced hotel, and the Green Room some parsnips in the nightlife of a great city. Yet, I didn't get into any evening clothes. I can wear the boiled shirt as well as the next fellow and talk so I won't be taken for a waiter. But a shoulder holster isn't so good with a tux, unless you sport a small gun. Me—I don't like twenty-twos. When I put a hole in a guy I don't embarrass half a dozen doctors who try to find it. My motto is: There isn't any sense in shooting the same guy over and over." - pp 236-237

I like this character. I enjoy reading about standing up to the bullies. I'd like him more if he killed that snobbish waiter but you can't have everything.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: Race Williams was a Pulp detective from the 1920s - here we have several short stories.