Daly, Carroll John 1889-1958 (John D. Carroll)

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DALY, Carroll John 1889-1958 (John D. Carroll)

PERSONAL: Born September 14, 1889, in Yonkers, NY; died January 16, 1958, in Los Angeles, CA; son of Joseph F. and Mary L. (Brennan) Daly; married Margaret G. Blakley, December 11, 1913; children: John. Education: Studied at De la Salle Institute and American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

CAREER: Novelist, short story writer, and theater manager. Owned and operated several theaters in Atlantic City, NJ, Asbury Park, NJ, Averne, NY, and Yonkers, NY. Full-time writer from 1922.

WRITINGS:

novels

The White Circle, E. J. Clode (New York, NY), 1926.

The Snarl of the Beast, E. J. Clode (New York, NY), 1927.

The Man in the Shadows, E. J. Clode (New York, NY), 1928.

The Hidden Hand, E. J. Clode (New York, NY), 1929.

The Tag Murders, E. J. Clode (New York, NY), 1930.

Tainted Power: A Race Williams Detective Story, E. J. Clode (New York, NY), 1931.

The Amateur Murderer, E. J. Clode (New York, NY), 1933.

Murder Won't Wait, I. Washburn (New York, NY), 1933.

The Third Murderer, Farrar & Rinehart (New York, NY), 1933.

Murder from the East, E. J. Clode (New York, NY), 1935.

Death's Juggler, Hutchinson (London, England), 1935, published as The Mystery of the Smoking Gun, Frederick A. Stokes (New York, NY), 1936.

Mr. Strang, Frederick A. Stokes (New York, NY), 1936.

Emperor of Evil, Hutchinson (London, England), 1936.

Better Corpses, Hale (London, England), 1940.

The Legion of the Living Dead, Popular Publications (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1947.

Murder at Our House, Museum (London, England), 1950.

Ready to Burn, Museum (London, England), 1951.

short stories

The Adventures of Race Williams, Mysterious (New York, NY), 1987.

The Adventures of Satan Hall: A Dime Detective Book, Mysterious (New York, NY), 1988.

Contributor to periodicals, sometimes under the name John D. Carroll, including Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, Detective Story, and Smashing Detective.

SIDELIGHTS: American novelist Carroll John Daly published nearly twenty books and some 250 short stories during a career that spanned the first half of the twentieth century. Many literary scholars credit Daly with writing the first hard-boiled detective story with his "The False Burton Combs." This 1922 story appeared in the American pulp magazine Black Mask, to which Daly contributed throughout his career. Despite this distinction, Daly's work is little known today except to enthusiasts of crime and mystery fiction. Still, Daly was influential to a number of detective writers during his prime, including mystery author Mickey Spillane who wrote in 1950 that Daly had been his sole inspiration to become a writer. Discussing Daly's influence on his peers, Rex Burns wrote in Mystery and Suspense Writers that "[i]n character, point of view, tone, diction, setting, values, and rebellion against earlier styles of detection, Daly was an initial and major contributor to the development of the hard-boiled detective. In addition, his popular fiction provides a touchstone for larger movements in the literary history of time."

Daly was born September 14, 1889, in Yonkers, New York, and studied at the De la Salle Institute and American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, before taking on a number of odd jobs in law, sales, and the theater. However, he did find moderate success as a theater owner, after becoming a part owner of what is widely believed to be the first movie theater in Atlantic City, New Jersey. This move led Daly to acquire a small chain of fairly successful movie houses. After marrying in 1913, and having a son soon after, Daly began turning his attention to writing. Some critics believe Daly's experience as a theater owner helped him determine what audiences—particularly lower-and middle-class audiences—thought was entertaining, which he then employed in his fiction. The character Race Williams was born of this insight, created during the Prohibition era, when violence and corruption were commonplace in American society. An ultra-tough private investigator, Williams lived his life and hunted criminals using his own unique code of ethics, and he was not afraid to use a gun if the situation merited it. "As for my business, I'm what you might call a middleman—just a halfway house between the dicks and the crooks," Williams states in the short story "Knights of the Open Palm." "Oh, there ain't no doubt that both the cops and the crooks take me for a gun, but I ain't—not rightly speaking. I do a little honest shooting once in a while—just in the way of business. But my conscience is clear; I never bumped off a guy what didn't need it."

Many commentators consider The Snarl of the Beast the best of the "Race Williams" novels and credit it with being one of the first good examples of hardboiled detective fiction. Daly's most recognizable character, Williams is considered a forerunner to a number of better-known detective characters, including Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade and Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe. Chuck Etheridge described Williams in the Dictionary of Literary Biography as "the archetypal private investigator—tough, wisecracking, resourceful, occasionally violent, occasionally compassionate, and always governed by a strong internal code."

Daly reached his peak in popularity during the 1920s and 1930s, with many of his stories appearing in Black Mask. He also sold stories to other leading pulp magazines, including Dime Detective and Detective Fiction Weekly. In addition to the "Race Williams" series, Daly penned two others: the "Vee Brown" novels (1933-1936) and the "Satan Hall" series (1935-1951). He was a longtime resident of White Plains, New York, and, although many of his stories were set in New York City, Daly rarely visited the metropolis.

After publishing his last novel, Ready to Burn, in 1951, he moved to California, where he could be near his son, John, a movie and television actor. Although he told people he was retired, Daly continued to write short stories after the move, publishing his last in 1958, the year in which he died. Some literary critics, including Etheridge, maintain that Daly's greatest strength was giving readers what they wanted, which may have led him to neglect the technical aspects of his writing.

His influence on the detective genre notwithstanding, Daly's writing skills were not considered remarkable. Dale H. Ross, writing in the Critical Survey of Mystery and Detective Fiction, maintained that "Daly was a pathfinder whose writing skills were unpolished but whose sense of audience in the 1920s and early 1930s was unerring." According to Ross, "Daly's plot lines were not particularly clever nor was he skilled at creating dialogue that had the flavor of genuine human discourse. Still, he had a good sense of pace and moved the narrative along briskly." In Etheridge's view, however, if readers study Daly's work, they will find elements of social criticism beyond the normal detective stories of the time. "Although Daly's purpose is always to entertain, he does confront social problems in his work, including the lawlessness of the Prohibition Era and the corruption of government officials," Etheridge wrote. He maintains that this fact, coupled with Daly's leading role in creating the hard-boiled detective genre, is enough to solidify his place in literary history. "Daly's legacy is worth remembering," Etheridge concluded.