Sun 31 Jan 2016
Reviewed by Walter Albert: RAOUL WHITFIELD – Jo Gar’s Casebook.
Posted by Steve under Pulp Fiction , Reviews[17] Comments
RAOUL WHITFIELD – Jo Gar’s Casebook. Crippen & Landru, hardcover/softcover, 2002.
Originally published in the pages of Black Mask by Whitfield writing under the pen name of Ramon Decolta, the eighteen stories featuring the “little island detective” Joe Gar are selected from the 24 stories that were published in the pulp magazine and include the final two stories published (as by Raoul Whitfield) in Cosmopolitan.
Jo Gar is a private investigator in the Philippines, intelligent (he speaks at least six languages), and always outperforming the police. He was, at one time, a member of the Manila police force, and he has retained his friendship with Lieutenant Juan Arragon, although that friendship is now tempered with a certain wariness on Arragon’s part.
When Arragon is killed, his replacement, Sadi Ratan, is no friend of Gar’s, treating him with s measure of hatred and contempt even though Gar always proves him to be wrong. (Or, possibly, because Gar always shows him up.) When Ratan, perhaps half-joking, proposes that he should join Gar in his private agency, Gar’s polite, but telling reply, is that he fears that “the loss to the Force would be too great, Lieutenant.”
Gar is a man of few words, an observant and reticent investigator, who moves quietly through these colorful tales, eventually resolving his cases in ways that show a deep understanding of human character and the class relationships that figure so prominently in the island’s multi-ethnic composition.
Another fine contribution to the publisher’s growing, and impressive, list of short-story collections. This volume also includes abridged reprints of essays by E. R. Hagemann on Whitfield and his work that appeared originally in The Armchair Detective, with “A Remembrance of E. R. Hagemann,” an afterword by R. H. Miller.
There are, in addition, bibliographic data on the publication history of the stories used in the collection as well as Hagemann’s “Annotated Bibliography of the Works of Raoul F. Whitfield Appearing in Black Mask,” updated with additional notes by Tom Roberts and Peter Ruber.
January 31st, 2016 at 10:07 pm
I first read a Jo Gar story back in 1967, when I bought and devoured a paperback book edited by Ron Goulart called THE HARD-BOILED DICKS, a collection of pulp fiction, the real stuff, that, well, without exaggerating, changed my life forever:
“Don’t Give Your Right Name†by Norbert Davis (Max Latin)
“The Saint in Silver†by John K. Butler (Steve Midnight)
“Winter Kill†by Frederick Nebel (Kennedy and MacBride)
“China Man†by Raoul Whitfield (Jo Gar)
“Death on Eagle’s Crag†by Frank Gruber (Oliver Quade)
“A Nose for News†by Richard Sale (Daffy Dill)
“Angelfish†by Lester Dent (Oscar Sail)
“Bird in the Hand†by Erle Stanley Gardner (Lester Leith)
All great stuff, but the two I remember the most are the Butler story, about a cab-driving detective named Steve Midnight, and the totally exotic Jo Gar.
I had very little idea what a pulp magazine was, but these fast moving and action packed tales took me back to an era that swallowed me up whole, swirled me around and spit me out again, a completely changed person.
Wonderful stories, though, all of them. This may be the best book I ever read.
January 31st, 2016 at 11:22 pm
I had much the same reaction as Steve when I read THE HARD BOILED DICKS. I’ve talked about the impact of this book on my collecting life before, especially back in 2010 when I wrote my first “Collecting Pulps: A Memoir” column.
Now there are a lot of reprints that cover the detective pulps but not back in 1967. At the time I had collecting the SF pulps for over 10 years and never really ran into any copies of BLACK MASK, DIME DETECTIVE, and DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY. I figured that unlike the SF pulps which were collected and saved by teenagers, the adults that read the detective titles had simply thrown them away.
However, this excellent anthology proved to me that it was possible to collect non-SF pulps and I eventually put together completed sets of all the back issues of BLACK MASK and DIME DETECTIVE(my set of DFW still lack a few issues). I found the issues mainly by writing hundreds of letters to old time collectors. Every one else back in the early 1970’s collected mostly SF and hero pulps. I had no competition!
When I wrote to Ron Goulart, he sold me all his issues that he had used as research for THE HARD BOILED Dicks and I was off and running. Many years later he wrote in my copy of the book, “For Walker, whose life I ruined.”
February 1st, 2016 at 9:24 am
I feel the same way about THE HARDBOILED DICKS. Best book I ever read? It’s definitely in the running. Most influential I ever read? I could make a case for that, too.
February 1st, 2016 at 12:26 pm
This collection is good, but there is a larger, more complete collection from Altus Press.
February 1st, 2016 at 1:21 pm
Thanks for the reminder, Richard. I meant to mention that myself, but I forgot.
The Altus Press is obviously the better buy now, since it is complete — not only all of the short stories that Jo Gar appeared in, but also the six-part serialization of “The Rainbow Murders” (Black Mask, Feb-Aug 1931).
Not only that, but the Crippen & Landru book is out of print.
February 1st, 2016 at 12:53 pm
Ditto me on what James said! My copy still takes its place proudly between Joe Shaw’s “Black Mask Omnibus” and Bill Nolan’s “The Black Mask Boys.” Funny story. When I first read the groundbreaking Goulart collection, I was in the Army, stationed in Germany in ’67. discovered “The Hardboiled Dicks” buried in an ad for sex-related books in the back of a porn magazine. Hmm. Or maybe it’s not such a funny story.
February 1st, 2016 at 2:52 pm
HARDBOILED DICKS was my gateway drug as well. I had to buy at least three because I wore two out rereading them. Goulart was my intro to Whitfield, Davis, and Paul Cain.
I’ve long admired the Jo Gar stories because they avoid the pitfalls of the Charlie Chan or Mr. Moto models. Gar is believable and tough, smart, not super human, and not just a icon of his race. He is one of the more realistic ethnic sleuths of his era, and frankly of the periods that came after him until more ethnic writers moved into the field.
There is a reality to the Gar stories that set them apart even from some of the other BLACK MASK material, despite the exotic setting. Reading the Gar stories, even the weaker ones, you feel that you are getting an insider look at Manila and the area in the pre War era.
Gar is the one character I would have liked to have seen handled by a really talented pasticher in a post war setting.
The Kindle edition of the stories contains all 24 for under $10 for those of you like me who want to have them to read but don’t have the funds for the more expensive and attractive collections. GREEN ICE is available for under $8 and you can read DEATH IN A BOWL for under $3, the last from the ever more valuable Resurrected Press.
February 1st, 2016 at 4:41 pm
I enjoyed HARDBOILED DICKS myself, but a few years earlier my life was changed by THE HARDBOILED OMNIBUS
February 1st, 2016 at 5:03 pm
THE HARDBOILED OMNIBUS is a wonderful book as well. I had the Pocket Books edition and read it with great enjoyment. I just happened to find the Goulart book first. Anybody who’s a fan of the genre ought to have both of them, as well as Herbert Ruhm’s THE HARDBOILED DETECTIVE.
February 1st, 2016 at 11:49 pm
Among the writers from those great anthologies that have been under reprinted I would like to see more of Charles G. Booth, John K. Butler, and all of Gardner’s Lester Leith tales.
All three mentioned anthologies were important in my discovery of the pulp eyes as well as finding a slew of old issues of PRIVATE DETECTIVE fairly cheap so I also got to know Roger Torrey and Flynn and some of the lesser knowns.
February 2nd, 2016 at 7:44 am
I liked all three anthologies too, though I’d agree with those who put THE HARDBOILED DICKS at #1. I like the Gar stories a lot and really enjoyed the Crippen & Landru collection, as well as the extra stories I read later.
February 3rd, 2016 at 5:01 pm
Guys, I too read The Hardboiled Dicks back then, mostly because I thought there was a Saint story in it. Holy Moly!! And the GAR stories almost feel like something Charteris would have written on Earth 2.
February 3rd, 2016 at 7:57 pm
Comment #9 James says he read the Pocket Book edition of the HB Omnibus. I believe they cut two stories from the hardcover for the paperback. I could probably look up and see which two. Really a shame that Nebel wouldn’t allow Cap Shaw to include a story in there.
February 3rd, 2016 at 11:54 pm
My records show that the paperback is missing three stories that were in the hardcover: “The Devil Suit,” by J. J. Des Ormeaux, “Murder Mixup,” by George Harmon Coxe, and “Sister Act,” by Charles G. Booth. I think the order of the stories was juggled around as well, but I could be wrong about that.
February 5th, 2016 at 11:33 am
I read HARDBOILED DICKS later than most of you. I spent the Sixties reading a lot of “carter brown” and Mike Shayne DELL paperbacks. In the Seventies, I found a copy of HARDBOILED DICKS and it motivated me to hunt down and read those wonderful writers. Rick Robinson is right: the Altus Press editon of JO GAR is the Gold Standard.
February 13th, 2016 at 8:43 pm
Sorry to be late to the game.
I like this praise: “The Altus Press editon of JO GAR is the Gold Standard.” This is true in one very specific instance. There was a subtle typo in the novel that I discovered while doing final proofreading. It originated in the original appearance in BLACK MASK and was fixed, finally. No one even noticed it when it was reprinted by Penzler either. The Hagemann essays are not abridged in this edition.
February 13th, 2016 at 10:20 pm
Just another example of all the hard work you’ve been putting in on the Altus Press books, Rob. Thank you. I buy them all. Well, almost all.