“Knights of the Open Palm”
“Three Thousand to the Good”
“The Red Peril”
“Them That Lives By Their Guns”
“Devil Cat”
“The Face Behind the Mask”
“Conceited, Maybe”
“Say It With Lead!”
“I’ll Tell the World”
“Alias Buttercup”
“Under Cover”
“South Sea Steel”
“The False Clara Burkhart”
“The Super-Devil”
“Half-Breed”
“Blind Alleys”
and three Race-free tales:
“Dolly”
“Paying an Old Debt”
“The False Burton Combs”
The Snarl of the Beast (novel)
“The Egyptian Lure”
The Hidden Hand (novel)
The Tag Murders (novel)
And many more to come. Get 'em HERE.
4 comments:
I have them both, but have only read the first 2 stories in the first volume. Good!
Evan, you and I share a real appreciation of Daly, although I pretty much find the stories in Volume 1 unreadable. I agree with Ron Goulart in "The Hardboiled Dicks" that, "Like some old jazz records, Daly's novels are mostly of historical interest today." My take is that once Daly's blood 'n thunder style tanked about 1940, Daisy Bacon over at Detective Story molded him into a "modern," more accessible to contemporary tastes. I believe Daly and Race are at their best from that point on. That being said, these are certainly complete and beautifully packaged collections, and the second one is particularly noteworthy, especially with "Snarl of the Beast" and "Tag Murders," both of which certainly have their moments. It is also worth noting that, although wildly different in tone and structure, it's easy to see where, plot-wise, "The Hidden Hand" is the inspiration for "My Gun is Quick" by that most famous of Daly fans, Mr. Mickey Spillane.
It might be no coincidence that Mr. Mertz's first novel bore the same title as a 1935 Race Williams adventure: Some Die Hard.
Altus Press has done a great service by publishing these two books. Though I've always had problems with Daly, I see these volumes as certainly of historical interest in the hard boiled field. I've reviewed both on amazon.com, something I've done only with a very few exceptional books.
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