Thu 1 Nov 2018
Pulp Stories I’m Reading: RICHARD SALE “Chiller-Diller.”
Posted by Steve under Pulp Fiction , Stories I'm Reading[7] Comments
RICHARD SALE “Chiller-Diller.” Daffy Dill #37. Short story. Detective Fiction Weekly, 24 June 1939. Reprinted in The Big Book of Female Detectives, edited by Otto Penzler (Black Lizard, 2018).
Before he became well known in Hollywood circles as a writer, producer (Gentlemen Marry Brunettes) and director (Abandon Ship, Malaga, and so on), Richard Sale was a prolific writer of pulp fiction, with several hundred stories to his credit, including the long-running “Daffy” Dill series, beginning with “The Fifty Grand Brain” (Detective Fiction Weekly, 03 November 1934) and ending with “Death Flies High” (Flynn’s Detective Fiction, June 1943).
“Chiller-Diller” is very much typical for the series, as breezy and fast-moving as you might expect a tale about a brash reporter for a New York City newspaper might be. The people in charge of the Chronicle have two stories going on at once: first the murder of a lady “cocktail” reporter for the rival Dispatchl and secondly the elopement of a young debutante with a notorious crooner slash hoodlum named Al Myers.
Of course the two stories are connected, and it doesn’t take long for Daffy to find out how. The reason the tale is included in Otto Penzler’s The Big Book of Female Detectives is once again on the iffy side. Dinah Mason, the gossip columnist for the Chronicle and the love of Daffy’s life, is the one who found her rival’s body and is the one whose byline is on the story. She’s sent down to Florida for background information after that, however, and thereby essentially disappears from the story.
November 2nd, 2018 at 1:00 am
The Daffy Dill stories seems like a worthwhile project for Altus Press.
November 2nd, 2018 at 10:30 am
Yes. You’re absolutely right. The Daffy Dill stories really stand out above the others in whatever issue of DFW they appeared in. And as you can see, even as late as 1939, the editors thought enough of them to give them cover status.
November 2nd, 2018 at 2:43 pm
Richard Sale was talented.
And much of his work is un-reprinted in pulps.
Always eager to read more!
November 2nd, 2018 at 4:31 pm
Dinah Mason is a bit better suited as a legitimate female sleuth than the Cardigan story earlier in much of the series, though no one could be confused into thinking it was the Mason series.
Sale is not only an interesting writer, but also a good one, not only a pulpster, but a good mystery novelist, bestselling author, film director and screenwriter, and producer (Yancy Derringer). Even his wife and collaborator Mary Loos wrote a couple fo bestselling novels.
He’s certainly one of the most successful people to graduate from the pulps.
November 3rd, 2018 at 10:40 pm
It strikes me that this and the Nebel story may have been selected because their rights are owned by Steeger Pubs, aka Matt Moring, who is a lot more accommodating that some other copyright holders. Both Carey Cashin and Violet McDade were published by Street and Smith (AKA Conde Nast) who has long had a history of not being interested in managing their pulp archives.
November 4th, 2018 at 3:37 pm
Like Nebel, Sale is one of the “names” the core audience for this anthology would be looking for and expecting, though I am surprised a few of the legitimate female tecs in the pulps didn’t make it.
April 18th, 2021 at 12:39 pm
I’m not very familiar with Richard Sale. I’ve heard more about him second-hand, than I have experienced him at first-hand.
But I just listened to an OTRR epside of ‘Escape’ called ‘Figure a Dame’ written by Sale, and it was excellent.
Cast: Frank Lovejoy, Harry Bartell, Ben Wright, Gary Merrill, Paul Frees, and Joan Banks. Adapted by Fine and Friedman.