Daley, Robert 1930–

(Robert Blake Daley)

PERSONAL:

Born May 10, 1930; son of Arthur (a newspaper columnist) and Betty Daley; married Peggy Ernest, 1954; children: Theresa, Suzanne, Leslie Anne. Education: Fordham University, B.A., 1951. Hobbies and other interests: Tennis.

ADDRESSES:

Home—CT; Nice, France. Agent—Esther Newburg, International Creative Management, 40 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, novelist, publicity director, journalist, photographer, law enforcement officer, and police commissioner. New York Giants football team, New York, NY, publicity director, 1953-58; New York Times, New York, NY, foreign correspondent in Europe and North Africa, 1959-64; New York City Police Department, deputy police commissioner, 1971-72. Exhibitions: Works exhibited at the Baltimore Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, and New York Gallery of Modern Art. Military service: U.S. Air Force, 1951-52.

MEMBER:

Authors Guild.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

The World beneath the City, Lippincott (Philadelphia, PA), 1960.

Cars at Speed: The Grand Prix Circuit, Lippincott (Philadelphia, PA), 1961, republished with a new introduction by the author, Motorbooks International (St. Paul, MN), 2007.

The Bizarre World of European Sports, Morrow (New York, NY), 1963.

The Cruel Sport, illustrated with photographs by Daley, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1963, revised edition published as The Cruel Sport: Grand Prix Racing, 1959-1967, Motorbooks International (St. Paul, MN), 2005.

The Swords of Spain, illustrated with photographs by Daley, Dial (New York, NY), 1966.

(Editor) James McCracken and Sandra Warfield, A Star in the Family: An Autobiography in Diary Form, Coward (New York, NY), 1971.

Target Blue: An Insider's View of the N.Y.P.D., Delacorte (New York, NY), 1973.

Treasure, Random House (New York, NY), 1977.

Prince of the City: The Story of a Cop Who Knew Too Much, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1978, published with a new foreword by Rudolph Giuliani, Warner (New York, NY), 1994.

An American Saga: Juan Trippe and His Pan Am Empire, Random House (New York, NY), 1980.

Portraits of France, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1991.

NOVELS

The Whole Truth, New American Library (New York, NY), 1967.

Only a Game, New American Library (New York, NY), 1968.

A Priest and a Girl, World Publishing (New York, NY), 1969.

Strong Wine, Red as Blood, Harper Magazine Press (New York, NY), 1975.

To Kill a Cop, Crown (New York, NY), 1976.

The Fast One, Crown (New York, NY), 1977.

Year of the Dragon, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1981.

The Dangerous Edge, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1983.

Hands of a Stranger, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1985.

Man with a Gun, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1988.

A Faint Cold Fear, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1990.

Tainted Evidence, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1993.

Wall of Brass, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1994.

Nowhere to Run, Warner Books (New York, NY), 1996.

The Innocents Within, Villard (New York, NY), 1999.

The Enemy of God, Harcourt (Orlando, FL), 2005.

Pictures, Harcourt (Orlando, FL), 2006.

OTHER

Contributor of fiction, articles, and photographs to American Heritage, Saturday Evening Post, Reader's Digest, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, New York Times Magazine, Playboy, Vogue, New York, Life, Newsweek, and other periodicals.

ADAPTATIONS:

The Cruel Sport was adapted as a film and released under the title Grand Prix by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1966; To Kill a Cop was adapted for television and produced as a four-hour miniseries by the National Broadcasting Corporation, Inc. (NBC) in 1978, and was the basis of the television series Eischied, produced by NBC, 1979-80; Prince of the City was adapted as a film and released by Warner Brothers in 1981; Year of the Dragon was adapted as a film and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1985; Hands of a Stranger was adapted for television and produced as a four-hour miniseries by NBC in 1987; Tainted Evidence was adapted by director Sidney Lumet and released as Night Falls on Manhattan, a 1997 feature film.

SIDELIGHTS:

Robert Daley is a prolific writer of both fiction and nonfiction. His books have covered a wide range of topics, including bullfighting in The Swords of Spain, celibacy and the priesthood in A Priest and a Girl, wine production in Strong Wine, Red as Blood, and police corruption in Prince of the City: The Story of a Cop Who Knew Too Much. While most of his work has been well received by readers and reviewers alike, it is his stories of police corruption, politics, and intrigue that have made him a best-selling author and attracted national attention. A former deputy police commissioner for the city of New York, Daley brings first-hand experience to his police books and effectively recreates the inner working of a large metropolitan police bureau.

Target Blue: An Insider's View of the N.Y.P.D. is Daley's account of his year as deputy police commissioner with the New York City police department. He details the events that led up to his one-year public-relations position with the force, as well as the things that happened during his year on the job. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly believed that Target Blue is "overwhelming in its total depiction of the cop's lot on every level—patrolman, detective, precinct chief, top brass. It is compulsive reading from first to last. If it is flawed by lurid moments, so is a cop's life. Daley's narrative sums up a year of anxiety, humiliation, terror."

Daley's Prince of the City is the true story of undercover police officer Robert Leuci and his special assignment to the Knapp Commission. The Knapp Commission was established to investigate charges of corruption within the New York Police Department. Daley became familiar with Leuci's undercover investigations during the year he served as deputy police commissioner. When Leuci asked him to help tell the story of his work for the Knapp Commission, Daley became interested in Leuci's view of it and agreed to write Prince of the City. Although Daley initially experienced difficulty finding a publisher for the book, Prince of the City quickly achieved best-seller status and was adapted as a successful film soon after. Throughout the years, Prince of the City has remained Daley's best-known work.

Most critics found Prince of the City to be a gripping account of big city police corruption and politics, and of one man's struggle to do the right thing when faced with formidable obstacles. For example, J.A. Leonard remarked in Library Journal that Prince of the City is a "compelling drama of a man torn between loyalty to the police fraternity and the need to seek redemption for past indiscretions…. His efforts as an undercover agent led to the indictment of dishonest cops, crooked lawyers, and organized crime figures." Tony Schwartz, discussing the book in Newsweek, noted: "Right from the start, this fascinating true-life tale catches an unusually complicated hero in crisis…. By beginning with Leuci's most heroic gesture—the decision to go undercover—and showing his extraordinary skill in that role, Daley … builds enormous sympathy for the detective. In the second half of the book he intersperses details of Leuci's highly checkered past with the trials in which he begins to testify. All along, Leuci feels caught between two powerful standards of morality; one set by the law, the other developed by cops themselves to get by in a lawless world." Noting that the flawed yet noble policeman is a recurrent figure in contemporary literature, Ted Morgan in the New York Times Book Review stated that the story "has never been done better than in Prince of the City … Daley … has coaxed his sources into providing material that is guaranteed to raise the hair on the back of the neck of every reader."

In addition to his nonfiction police stories, Daley has written numerous novels involving police intrigue, mystery, and department politics, including To Kill a Cop, Year of the Dragon, The Dangerous Edge, Hands of a Stranger, and Man with a Gun. Daley's fiction was praised by Anatole Broyard of the New York Times, who commented: "Mr. Daley seems to be thoroughly at home in the roomy house of fiction." Reviewing The Dangerous Edge, Broyard wrote that there is "none of the awkwardness, forcing, or stilted invention that spoils some suspense novels…. Mr. Daley also disturbs our complacency, but he does it without breaking any laws—even the laws, if such a conception still survives, of novel writing." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly concluded that "Daley's knowledge of police procedure, his compassionate insight into human nature, and his talent as a storyteller add up here to a gripping detective novel that is also a romantic, moving love story."

In the novel Wall of Brass, Daley focuses on the top tier of the New York police force. The story begins with the discovery of the police commissioner's body; he has been shot to death and found miles from his home. Heading up the investigation is the commissioner's old partner, Bert Farber. The two men competed for many things, including the woman who eventually became the commissioner's wife. The investigation turns up many unpleasant secrets about the dead man, whose aspirations to the U.S. presidency led him to commit many manipulative, ruthless acts. Furthermore, Farber's quest for truth is complicated by the machinations of two men who are, like him, under consideration to take over the commissioner's post. This is "a tightly plotted, involving tale of law and disorder," commented Mary Carroll in Booklist. A Publishers Weekly reviewer also found this thriller "first-rate," adding, "the author displays his bone-deep knowledge of New York cops and criminals."

With his novel Nowhere to Run, published in 1996, Daley "crafts a crisp and intricate thriller about two detectives and two police systems that, for all its high-spirited writing, runs seriously dark at the end," acknowledged a Publishers Weekly writer. The story concerns a maverick New York policeman who has angered his superiors. Taken off an important case, in danger from a violent drug dealer he has crossed, and struggling with a collapsing marriage, Jack Dilger heads for the French Riviera. There he begins a romance with a French policewoman, Madeleine Leclerq. She, like him, has been forced out of active duty. Their interlude turns deadly when both realize they are being hunted by their enemies. "Daley is like a master mason: anyone can mortar bricks together, but it takes a craftsman to erect a memorable structure. One won't soon forget Jack Dilger and Madeleine Leclerq," claimed Wes Lukowsky in Booklist.

France was also the setting for The Innocents Within, a novel based on a true story. It is set during the bitterly cold winter of 1944, in a small Protestant village in the Massif Central region. The pastor of the village church courageously aided Jews, Allied pilots, and ordinary German citizens fleeing the Nazi regime. In the story, a young pilot and a Jewish girl fall in love while sheltering at the pastor's home. In addition to romance, the novel is propelled by suspense and many moral dilemmas faced by the characters. A Publishers Weekly reviewer commented: "Daley precisely details communications, methods and logistics in the underground and in the bureaucracy bent on destroying it. The wartime romance at times seems as naive as the lovers themselves, but Daley's portrait of clear-sighted heroism in a historical moment marked by moral crises is compelling."

At the start of Enemy of God, activist Catholic priest Frank Redmond is found dead after a fall from a building near his rectory. The coroner believes it is a clear case of suicide. Because of this conclusion, the church refuses to bury Redmond as a Catholic. Two old friends from high school, however, step up to defend Redmond in death. Neither Gabe Driscoll, chief inspector with the New York Police Department, nor Andy Troy, a noted journalist, believes that Redmond killed himself. As they undertake their own investigation into their friend's background and death, they discover that a fourth old buddy, Earl Finley, was murdered a year earlier after investigating a politician with connections to organized crime. Vital details about Redmond's life soon emerge, particularly recent dramatic changes connected with Finley's investigation and death. Daley "does some of his best work here," commented Wes Lukowsky in Booklist. Similarly, Library Journal critic Jo Ann Vicarel noted that Daley "is at his best here" in a story involving both details of the priestly life and the structure of a major metropolitan police department. Lukowsky named the book a "moving, emotionally draining novel with a conclusion that will seem inevitable." Vicarel stated that the book's "unexpected and thought-provoking ending will delight readers who like stories with depth" and solutions that can be as ambiguous as real life.

With Pictures, Daley "weaves a compelling love story within a conventional thriller," noted Lukowsky in a Booklist review. In a small European duchy, a personal scandal threatens to devastate the royal family. Tony Murano is a tennis pro and former lifeguard married to Maria Cristina, daughter of the duke and heir to the country's throne. Murano is no royal, however, and his surly father-in-law, the duke, constantly reminds him of his commoner background. As Maria is about to go into labor with the couple's first child, however, Murano is caught in a scandalous position with another woman. The photographer, Georges Grizzard, attempts to extort money from Murano to keep the photos secret. When Murano cannot raise the cash, however, photographs of his alleged liaison appear in newspapers and tabloids throughout Europe, putting him in a very difficult position with the royal family. Murano claims he was set up and that the allegations against him are false. To comfort her heartbroken daughter, the queen hires an elite American detective firm to sort out the truth. Enter Vince Conte, a former New York police officer, who soon locates Gigi Meyer, the woman in the pictures with Murano. He convinces her to cooperate with his investigation and help clear Murano, but soon falls for her himself. When prominent characters begin to die, Conte knows that he will find himself in danger if he doesn't quickly find some answers. Lukowsky noted that the novel is "well worth reading."

Aside from his books on police corruption and mystery thrillers, Daley has written a number of works of nonfiction that have also been very well received. One such publication is The Swords of Spain, a book about bullfighting that includes nearly 200 photographs taken by Daley at bullfights in Spain. Robert Lipsyte remarked in the New York Times that "this book is probably the finest general introduction to the art-sport, and, as an emotional, educational and esthetic experience, the next thing to a good afternoon in the plaza." Barnaby Conrad commented in the New York Times Book Review: "Robert Daley has created a fine, accurate, informative and, incidentally, beautiful book…. This volume will gladden many a heart, for besides his many superb photographs, Daley's word portraits … are incisive and informative—unromantic looks at the leaders of a much romanticized profession. They give the best idea of what a bullfighter's life is really like that I have read anywhere."

Another of Daley's nonfiction works to garner good reviews is his biography of Juan Trippe and the history of Pan Am Airways. A Booklist reviewer commented that An American Saga: Juan Trippe and His Pan Am Empire is "another excellent account of the aviation and corporate pioneers who built air empires. [This] neat combination of biography and history also … discusses the advantages [Pan Am] helped to make in long-distance flights, aerial navigation, and the introduction of jumbo jets." Anne Chamberlin wrote in Saturday Review that An American Saga "is a mesmerizing account of the early buccaneering days of American commercial aviation that will keep you gasping for breath, clutching for your seatbelt, and once in a while … wiping away a tear. By the time the story winds down … you find you've rolled through five pages of financial tables and all the chapter source notes without thinking to put on the brakes."

In Portraits of France, Daley combines travel reporting, history lesson, and cultural observation to create a "serendipitous journey [that] appraises France's soul," commented a Publishers Weekly critic. In nineteen separate vignettes, Daley considers some of France's significant architectural landmarks, leading personalities, and little-known historical facts. He discusses the building of French concentration camps in the Pyrenees during World War II. He crafts personal portraits of notables such as Grace Kelly, Lafayette, novelist Tobias Smollett, and the Sansons family, who for six generations were in charge of executions performed by guillotine. Daley also looks at the cultural and historical aspects of famous French towns and regions, such as Bordeaux, Lourdes, and the storied French Riviera. Daley displays a "knack for the telling detail, the unusual observation," observed the Publishers Weekly contributor.

Discussing his approach to writing with Robert Dahlin in Publishers Weekly, Daley reflected: "You have to suck the reader in on the first page and never let him go…. You have to write a book that he wants to read more than he wants to do anything else in the world." He observed that over the years he has moved away from writing nonfiction: "With nonfiction, you have to start with a ferocious curiosity which I had for things like cars and bullfighting. But it's not likely that I'll fall into anything new like that again." Daley firmly believes that fiction should be written in a plain style, stating: "In novels, the writer has no right to interfere with the emotions of the story…. It's not right to point out, ‘Hey, look at how beautifully I write!’ I don't want to think up similes that will stop a reader in his tracks."

Daley told CA: "I had wanted to be a writer since I was a small boy devouring series books (The Hardy Boys, even The Rover Boys etc.) as fast as they came out. I started my first novel at twelve but tore it up the next year as childish. It was in the same mode as the books I had been reading, a boy like me who solves crimes on his bicycle. I wanted to give other boys, reading me, the same pleasure I had had from reading. I guess I still feel this. I write to touch people as deeply as possible.

"I got into photography because photos dressed up my stories in the New York Times, and also the Times paid me fifteen dollars extra for each one. Then I came to love photography, really love it, and the result was my two picture books, The Cruel Sport and The Swords of Spain, which I wouldn't mind being remembered for either.

"The important thing for young writers it seems to me is to get involved in as many different worlds as you can, get deep inside them, so that you can write about how things feel, not just about how they look. Most of my books came out of this deep involvement. I wrote about pro football after six years with the Giants; and in one way or another about the Catholic church after seventeen years of Catholic education; and about foreign correspondents after six years of being one, and about France after living there with my French born wife, for so many many years, and about grand prix racing after more than six years deep inside the races, the countries, the drivers, the lives and deaths; and about good and evil and the police after only one year in the NYPD. But it was, I guarantee you, an intense, dramatic year."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Automobile Magazine, June 1, 2005, David Myers, review of The Cruel Sport: Grand Prix Racing, 1959-1967, p. 24.

Best Sellers, November 15, 1969, review of A Priest and a Girl, p. 321.

Booklist, May 1, 1980, review of An American Saga: Juan Trippe and His Pan Am Empire, p. 1237; February 15, 1993, Eloise Kinney, review of Tainted Evidence, p. 1038; October 1, 1994, Mary Carroll, review of Wall of Brass, p. 241; August, 1996, Wes Lukowsky, review of Nowhere to Run, p. 1853; July, 1999, Grace Fill, review of The Innocents Within, p. 1893; August, 2005, Wes Lukowsky, review of The Enemy of God, p. 1998; September 1, 2006, Wes Lukowsky, review of Pictures, p. 60.

Buffalo News, September 3, 2000, Ed Kelly, review of The Innocents Within, p. E5.

Christian Science Monitor, July 5, 1973, review of Target Blue: An Insider's View of the N.Y.P.D., p. 13; July 6, 1977, review of Treasure, p. 27.

Cosmopolitan, September, 1985, Carol E. Rinzler, review of Hands of a Stranger, p. 34.

Entertainment Weekly, December 9, 1994, Gene Lyons, review of Wall of Brass, p. 71.

Far Eastern Economic Review, December 24, 1992, review of Portraits of France, p. 42.

Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2006, review of Pictures, p. 876.

Library Journal, November 1, 1969, review of A Priest and a Girl, p. 4023; November 15, 1978, J.A. Leonard, review of Prince of the City: The Story of a Cop Who Knew Too Much, p. 2345; August, 1985, review of Hands of a Stranger, p. 114; September 15, 1990, Judith A. Gifford, review of A Faint Cold Fear, p. 98; June 15, 1991, Ron Chepesiuk, review of Portraits of France, p. 94; October 1, 1991, Jodi L. Israel, review of A Faint Cold Fear, p. 158; August, 1999, David W. Henderson, review of The Innocents Within, p. 136; May 15, 2005, Jo Ann Vicarel, review of The Enemy of God, p. 110.

Listener, August 10, 1967, review of The Swords of Spain, p. 183.

Newsweek, April 17, 1967, review of The Whole Truth, p. 112; June 11, 1973, review of Target Blue, p. 103; January 29, 1979, Tony Schwartz, review of Prince of the City, p. 78.

New York, September 10, 1990, review of A Faint Cold Fear, p. 110.

New York Times, May 13, 1966, Robert Lipsyte, review of The Swords of Spain, p. 43; April 14, 1967, review of The Whole Truth, p. 41; May 21, 1975, review of Strong Wine, Red as Blood, p. 34; November 12, 1976, review of To Kill a Cop, p. C25; April 28, 1977, review of Treasure, p. 31; April 28, 1978, review of The Fast One, p. C25; August 13, 1983, Anatole Broyard, review of The Dangerous Edge, p. 12; October 3, 1983; August 25, 1985, Perry Glasser, review of Hands of a Stranger, p. 16; February 15, 1988, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, review of Man with a Gun, p. 17; October 27, 1999, Alan Riding, review of The Innocents Within, p. B1.

New York Times Book Review, April 3, 1966, Barnaby Conrad, review of The Swords of Spain, p. 7; November 2, 1969, review of A Priest and a Girl, p. 46; May 27, 1973, review of Target Blue, p. 3; February 10, 1974, review of Target Blue, p. 28; November 14, 1976, review of To Kill a Cop, p. 59; May 1, 1977, Alix Nelson, review of Treasure, p. 16; May 14, 1978, review of Treasure, p. 53; January 7, 1979, Ted Morgan, review of Prince of the City, p. 10; November 29, 1981, Jeffrey Burke, review of Year of the Dragon, p. 12; September 25, 1983, Stanley Ellin, review of The Dangerous Edge, p. 19; August 25, 1985, review of Hands of a Stranger, p. 16; February 28, 1988, Richard Lourie, review of Man with a Gun, p. 7; October 14, 1990, Robert Stuart Nathan, review of A Faint Cold Fear, p. 44; July 28, 1991, Tracy Cochran, review of Portraits of France, p. 25; March 15, 1992, review of A Faint Cold Fear, p. 28; April 18, 1993, Scott Heller, review of Tainted Evidence, p. 22; October 9, 1994, review of Josh Rubins, review of Wall of Brass, p. 24.

Observer (London, England), October 16, 1983, review of The Dangerous Edge, p. 32.

People, September 16, 1985, Campbell Geeslin, review of Hands of a Stranger, p. 22; May 9, 1988, Eric Levin, review of Man with a Gun, p. 129.

Publishers Weekly, April 2, 1973, review of Target Blue, p. 64; December 10, 1973, review of Target Blue, p. 39; July 18, 1977, review of To Kill a Cop, p. 136; November 13, 1978, review of Prince of the City, p. 58; September 4, 1981, review of Year of the Dragon, p. 45; June 10, 1983, review of The Dangerous Edge, p. 56; June 29, 1984, review of The Dangerous Edge, p. 103; June 28, 1985; February 28, 1986, John Mutter, review of Treasure, p. 119; December 25, 1987, Sybil Steinberg, review of Man with a Gun, p. 62; August 10, 1990, Sybil Steinberg, review of A Faint Cold Fear, p. 433; May 24, 1991, review of Portraits of France, p. 41; November 22, 1991, review of A Faint Cold Fear, p. 50; January 25, 1993, review of Tainted Evidence, p. 76; January 31, 1994, review of Tainted Evidence, p. 84; August 29, 1994, review of Wall of Brass, p. 60; October 17, 1994, Robert Dahlin, interview with Robert Daley, p. 57; August 12, 1996, review of Nowhere to Run, p. 62; July 26, 1999, review of The Innocents Within, p. 58; June 20, 2005, review of The Enemy of God, p. 62; August 7, 2006, review of Pictures, p. 35.

Saturday Review, December 16, 1967, review of Only a Game, p. 25; April 5, 1975, review of Strong Wine, Red as Blood, p. 28; May, 1980, Anne Chamberlin, review of An American Saga, p. 81.

Time, April 21, 1967, The Whole Truth, p. D8.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), August 26, 1990, review of A Faint Cold Fear, p. 6.

Virginia Quarterly Review, winter, 1976, review of Strong Wine, Red as Blood, p. 12.