Carroll John Daly


Carroll John Daly was a writer of crime fiction.

Career

Daly has been credited with creating the first hard-boiled story, "The False Burton Combs", published in Black Mask magazine in December 1922, followed closely by "It's All in the Game" and the PI story "Three Gun Terry". Daly's private detective Race Williams first appeared in "Knights of the Open Palm", an anti-Ku Klux Klan story. "Knights of the Open Palm" was published June 1, 1923, in Black Mask, predating the October 1923 debut of Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op character. Although Black Mask editor George Sutton did not like the Race Williams stories, they were so popular with readers that he asked Daly to continue writing them. Daly's Williams was a rough-and-ready character with a sharp tongue and established the model for many later acerbic private eyes.
Daly also created other pulp detectives, including Detective Satan Hall, "Three-Gun Terry" Mack, and Vee Brown. During the 1920s and 1930s, Daly was considered the leader of the naturalistic school of crime writers. Daly was a hugely popular author: his name on a pulp magazine cover meant an increase in sales. A Black Mask readers' poll once showed Daly as the most popular writer in the magazine, ahead of Hammett and Erle Stanley Gardner. In addition to Black Mask, Daly also wrote for other pulp magazines, including Detective Fiction Weekly and Dime Detective.
In the 1940s, Daly's work fell out of fashion with crime fiction readers, and he moved to California to work on comics and film scripts. When Mickey Spillane became a bestselling novelist with Mike Hammer, a character similar to Daly's detectives, Daly remarked "I'm broke, and this guy gets rich writing about my detective." However, Spillane wrote Daly a fan letter saying that Race Williams was the model for his own Mike Hammer. The story goes that when Daly’s agent at the time saw the letter, she instituted a plagiarism suit. Whereupon Daly canned her because he hadn’t gotten a fan letter in years and he sure as hell wasn’t about to sue anybody who had actually taken the time to write one.

Novels

All published in Black Mask magazine, thru ‘The Eyes Have It’ The Altus Press aka Steeger Books has re-published all the Black Mask stories in a four-volume set. There is a plan to publish the complete stories; info at steegerbooks.com.
Knights of the Open Palm Race vs. The KKK. Appeared in special KKK number of Black Mask Vol.6 No. 5 June 1, 1923
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
South Sea Steel
The False Clara Burkhart
The Super Devil
Half-Breed
Blind Alleys
The Egyptian Lure
Shooting Out of Turn
Murder by Mail
Death for Two
Merger with Death
The Death Drop
If Death Is Respectable
Murder in the Open
The Eyes Have It
The next five appeared in Dime Detective magazine.
Some Die Hard
Dead Hands Reaching
Corpse & Co.
Just Another Stiff
City of Blood
The five stories above were collected in ‘The Adventures of Race Williams’
The Morgue's Our Home Dime Detective
Monogram in Lead Dime Detective
Available from
http://davycrockettsalmanack.blogspot.com/2013/01/forgotten-and-free-stories-race.html
Dead Men Don't Kill Dime Detective
Anyone's Corpse! Dime Detective
Available from
http://davycrockettsalmanack.blogspot.com/search/label/Race%20Williams%20stories
The $1,000,000 Corpse Race Williams-?* Dime Detective
The Book of the Dead Dime Detective
A Corpse on the House Dime Detective
A Corpse for a Corpse Dime Detective
Available from
http://davycrockettsalmanack.blogspot.com/search/label/Race%20Williams%20stories
The Men in Black Dime Detective
Available from vintagelibrary.com
The Quick and the Dead Dime Detective
Hell with the Lid Lifted Race Williams Dime Detective
Available from
http://davycrockettsalmanack.blogspot.com/search/label/Race%20Williams%20stories
A Corpse in the Hand Dime Detective
Available from
http://davycrockettsalmanack.blogspot.com/search/label/Race%20Williams%20stories
Gangman's Gallows Dime Detective
The White-Headed Corpse Dime Detective
Available from vintagelibrary.com
Cash for a Killer Detective Tales Race Williams-?*
Victim for Vengeance Clues
Available at
http://davycrockettsalmanack.blogspot.com/search/label/Race%20Williams%20stories
Too Dead to Pay Clues
Available at
http://davycrockettsalmanack.blogspot.com/search/label/Race%20Williams%20stories
Body, Body – Who's Got the Body?  Detective Story Magazine Race Williams-?*
Available at
http://davycrockettsalmanack.blogspot.com/search/label/Race%20Williams%20stories
A Corpse Loses Its Head  Race Williams-?* Detective Story Magazine
Unremembered Murder Detective Story Magazine May have been later re-titled ‘Not My Corpse’
This Corpse on Me Thrilling Detective
Included in ‘Race Williams’ Double Date’ story collection
I'll Feel Better When You're Dead Thrilling Detective
Included in ‘Race Williams’ Double Date’ story collection
Not My Corpse Thrilling Detective - UK edition
May have been earlier titled ‘Unremembered Murder’
Available in ‘The Mammoth Book of Private Eye Stories’
Race Williams' Double Date Dime Detective
Included in ‘Race Williams’ Double Date’ story collection
The Wrong Corpse Thrilling Detective
Available from
http://davycrockettsalmanack.blogspot.com/search/label/Race%20Williams%20stories
Half a Corpse Dime Detective
Race Williams Cooks a Goose Dime Detective
The $100,000 Corpse Popular Detective
The Strange Case of Alta May Thrilling Detective
Little Miss Murder Smashing Detective Stories
This Corpse Is Free! Smashing Detective Stories
Included in ‘Race Williams’ Double Date’ story collection
Gas Smashing Detective Stories
Included in ‘Race Williams’ Double Date’ story collection
Head over Homicide Smashing Detective Stories

Other resources

Daly, Carroll John. "The Ambulating Lady" . Writer's Digest April 1947. Repr. Clues: A Journal of Detection 2.2 : 113-15.