Flashback Friday: Better Corpses (A Race Williams Detective Story)

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Hard-boiled fiction, is the tough, unsentimental style of American crime fiction writing that brought a new tone of earthy realism or naturalism to the field of detective fiction. 

Hard-boiled detectives were characters who lived on the mean streets of cities where fighting, drinking, swearing, poverty, and death were all part of life.

To some degree, hard-boiled detective fiction was fostered by the rising crime and gangster activity caused by Prohibition and later the Great Depression. Hard-boiled fiction used graphic violence, colorful but often sleazy urban backgrounds, and fast-paced, slangy dialogue.

Credit for the invention of the genre is often given to Dashiell Hammett, a former Pinkerton detective and contributor to the pulp magazines, best known for his masterpiece, The Maltese Falcon (1930), which introduced Sam Spade, his most famous sleuth. But, it was actually  Carroll John Daly (1889-1958) who created the first hard-boiled detective in his 1922 story The False Burton Combs.

Daly's most famous detective, Race Williams, was the prototypical hardboiled detective. Williams was made up of equal doses of street toughness and quick thinking action. Race always managed to escape impossible situations, usually by shooting his way out of them. Race Williams is a hard-boiled character worthy to be placed among the greats like Hammet's Sam Spade, and Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe. He is a gunman and a killer, but not a crook. Race Williams operates on the fringe between law and order and the criminal world.

Carroll John Daly was a regular contributor for the pulps, specifically the two leading detective magazines: Black Mask in the 1920s and Dime Detective in the 1930s. He was always a reader favorite for his action-packed stories and his quick wit and humor.

For the week's edition of Friday Flashback, we've chosen one of Carroll John Daly's best novels, Better Corpses, as the featured book. It's one of only a few of Daly's novels available on Amazon as an eBook. Better Corpses first published in 1940, is a classic hard-boiled detective murder mystery featuring private investigator Race Williams. Williams is called to the aid of Mary Morse, a wealthy heiress who is being threatened with blackmail by a ruthless gang.

Here is a sample of Daly's hard-boiled writing style from Better Corpses.

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. He didn't say in so many words that I should have come up, but he meant that. Yep, he put it all into the simple words:

"What'll it be?"

"Rye. Straight." And when he started carrying the sourpuss away with him, I added:

"And not the kind of whiskey that tosses you for a loss."

He walked leisurely back with the glass, pounded it on the bar, and stood watching me as I ran the liquor below my nose-made a face and let it roll. Then I spun him a quarter.

He stopped it by planting his index finger on the edge held it so, said:

"Thirty-five cents, Mister. You asked for good stuff."

"Sure," I agreed. "I asked for it, but I didn't get it. The two-bits stands."

He flipped the quarter into the air, caught it in the palm of his hand, leaned both his hands on the bar, said:

"You're looking for trouble, eh?"

"I'm always looking for trouble. Name of Williams-Race Williams. Now what?"

The ugly sneer went off his face as if you'd grabbed up the bar rag and rubbed it away. His hands came off the bar and he rocked back. The ruddy complexion wasn't so good either. And I liked it. Damned if I didn't. Conceited? Maybe. But it's nice to know you've built up a name along the old Avenue that saves you a lot of backroom brawls.

The bartender said, and a sweetness had crept into his voice; a sweetness that you'd never suspect from that hole in his face:

"I didn't recognize you, Williams. On the level, Race, I didn't place you." And after a gulp: "The boss said you'd give me the tip-off. Go through that door there-down the hall to the right, and up the stairs." He shot the quarter along the bar to me. "On the house, Race. It's an honor to have you drop in." 

I picked up the quarter. It was as good in my pocket as in his, and the liquor was lousy.