RACE WILLIAMS and "Victim for Vengeance" by Carroll John Daly (1940)

This "Complete Novel" (35 pages of text and 3 pages of art) appeared in the September 1940 issue of Street & Smith's CLUES. In the context of Race Williams' career, it's pretty far down the line (his first story appeared in 1923), but chronologically, Race still has a long way to go. His last adventure was published in 1954.

As "Victim for Vengeance" begins, Race learns that a gunman known as the Admiral, whom he had previously run out of New York, is back in town. Worse, the Admiral is shooting his mouth off, saying Race is too yellow to come and get him. Race promptly disabuses him of that notion:

We'll, he'll certainly try. Race soon finds himself embroiled in a plot involving a Broadway starlet, a kidnapped child, the vengeful Admiral and a bashful gent known only as "John Smith." Can Race shoot himself out of trouble? What do you think?

P.S. You may also be interested in the Black Dog Books volume Race Williams' Double Date and Other Stories. These tales were selected by longtime Daly collector Stephen Mertz, and includes an illuminating foreward penned by Steve himself. In addition to five Race Williams stories, there's one featuring Daly's number two hero Satan Hall, one starring Doc Fay (the closest Daly came to a Christ figure), two other fine stories, and "The Ambulating Lady," in which Daly discusses the craft of writing. There are even a few words by me.

Forgotten Stories: "A Gift of the Gods" by Carroll John Daly (1923)

Back in January 1923, four months before Carroll John Daly introduced "Three Gun" Terry Mack, the first hardboiled private detective, "A Gift of the Gods" appeared in People's magazine. This is the earliest known (so far) adventure of a tough-talking kid named Chester Robinson, who appears to have been Daly's first series character. Chester's gutter English got Daly warmed up for the hardboiled narration of Terry Mack and (two weeks later) his longer-lived successor Race Williams. 

Chester himself moved to Argosy All-Story Weekly in March 1923, where he appeared in at least four more adventures, and possibly a couple more. My thanks to pulp historian Sai Shankar for pointing the way to these scans on the Internet Archive.

Pulp Gallery: DIME DETECTIVE

1933

1935

1940

1935

1940

Otto Penzler Auction Results: CARROLL JOHN DALY Books

$10,625

Here's what the Daly books brought in last week's Heritage auction. There was a LOT more stuff, but I've shown you most of what I found interesting. Starting tomorrow, we return you to your regularly scheduled programs. 

 $3,000 (inscribed)

$1,875

$781.25

$875

$400

$2000

$3,000 (In error, Heritage said this was the second Race Williams book. Actually, it's the one and only Three-Gun Terry Mack novel, of comparatively minor importance. Will this buyer be wanting his money back?)

$1,125

$1,125

$1,125

$812.50

$550 for this one and the Satan Hall novel below

For Sale! Otto Penzler's RACE WILLIAMS Books

Renowned Mystery Afficianado Art Scott (known to his intimates as The Emperor of the Universe) tipped me off that an amazing assortment of books and other items from currently owned by Mr. Otto Penzler is now appearing on the Heritage auction site. The live auction will take place March 16, but near as I can tell, Internet bidding is now open. I saw a LOT of stuff I want, and don't mind letting you in on it, since I can't afford to bid myself. You can view Part 1 of Otto's booty HERE. 

Today we're looking at his Race Williams books. Though I own copies of these myself, exactly zero of them are in dust jacket. Much as I tell myself it's the words inside that count, it's the jackets that jack up the value, and I can't help craving them. Not included in this sale are the second book, The Hidden Hand, the fourth, Tainted Power, and the last, Better Corpses. What's here, though, looks mighty tasty.

These five novels, plus The Hidden Hand and Tainted Power, are included in the first four volumes of the ongoing complete Race Williams collection published by Altus Press. They're available HERE. 

The Complete Adventures of Race Williams

“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.

Coming soon from Altus Press: The COMPLETE Adventures of Race Williams

Yes, it's finally happening - and Volume 1 is now available for pre-order. The write-up from Amazon follows. Sign me up!

Collected for the first time: the stories of hard-boiled detective Race Williams. Originally appearing in the pages of Black Mask Magazine, author Carroll John Daly pioneered the hard-boiled 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 17 Race Williams stories, all from 1923-26 issues of Black Mask: ''Knights of the Open Palm,'' ''Personal But Not Confidential,'' ''$3,000 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 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.

Pre-Order here:
Them That Lives By Their Guns: The Collected Hard-Boiled Stories of Race Williams Volume 1

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.