Originally appearing in the pages of Black Mask Magazine, author Carroll John Daly pioneered the hard-boiled detective P.I. story and perfected the genre with his classic character, Race Williams. Apart from the novel-length Race Williams stories, these classic hard-boiled thrillers have rarely been reprinted, if ever.
Volume 1 contains the first 16 Race Williams stories, all from 1923–26 issues of Black Mask: “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,” and “Blind Alleys.”
Three additional, early, first-person hard-boiled stories by Daly which laid the groundwork for the Race Williams are included as well: “Dolly,” “Paying an Old Debt,” and “The False Burton Combs,” as well as editorial pieces by Daly himself on his inspirations, writing style, and advice to prospective writers. And it’s prefaced by an all-new, scholarly introduction by Professor Brooks E. Hefner of James Madison University.
Them That Lives By Their Guns: The Collected Hard-Boiled Stories of Race Williams Volume 1 is the most important release in years on the history of the Hard-Boiled Detective story.
Them That Lives By Their Guns: The Collected Hard-Boiled Stories of Race Williams, Volume 1 by Carroll John Daly contains the following stories:
- “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”
- “Dolly”
- “Paying an Old Debt”
- “The False Burton Combs”
John L. French –
Thanks to Altus Press for bringing back Race Williams. The stories speak for themselves, and anyone buying this probably knows what they’re getting, so there’s no sense reviewing the stories. Brooks Hefner’s introduction is very good and the reader gets a lot of stories for his money, maybe too many. The size of the book is such that a hard cover edition is called for. Either that or an eBook edition. Despite having already purchased the softcover, I’d buy the eBook just for the convenience. One question, are you going to reprint the novels as well, or just the stories? Looking forward to volume 2