Forgotten (and FREE) Stories: RACE WILLIAMS in "Body, Body--Who's Got the Body?" by Carroll John Daly

Race Williams did a lot of magazine-hopping in the course of his 32-year pulp career. He began in Black Mask, jumped to Dime Detective and had paid a visit to Street & Smith's CLUES by the time this tale appeared in the October 1944 issue of Street & Smith's Detective Stories. (And he wasn't done, with adventures still to come in Thrilling Detective, Popular Detective and Smashing Detective.)

At this time, the Street & Smith mags, including headliners The Shadow and Doc Savage, were published in a digest-sized format, appearing more sedate (and less lurid) than the competition. In Race's case, that appearance was deceiving, because he's still up to his old tricks of smacking criminals around and solving crimes with a bullet bewteen the eyes (or through an open mouth).

"Body, Body" puts Race in an unusual position. For $10,000, he takes a corpse off the hands of a killer and agrees to dispose of it, swearing not to tell where it came from. What he's taking on, of course, is boatload of trouble, and he's eventually forced to shoot his way out. But it's an interesting tale, with more than a few twists, and an ending that put a smile on my face.

I'll be emailing scans of this one to the 100+ stalwart members of Race's Fighting Legion. If you'd like to join, and receive this and the dozen-odd earlier stories I've scanned, just shoot me an email at delewis1@hotmail.com.

And if you've yet to acquire a copy of the Black Dog collection Race Williams' Double Date, this would be a great time to do so. Therein you will discover five cool Race adventures, visits with both Daly's Christ figure - Doc Fay - and Doc's opposite number Satan Hall, several exceptional stand-alone stories, an erudite Foreward by Stephen Mertz, a short essay by Mr. Daly himself, and a few words from yours truly. And the best place to get it is direct from Black Dog Books, right HERE.