Sat 21 Apr 2018
ED LACY – Sin in Their Blood. Eton Books E111, paperback original, 1952. Macfadden #50-255, paperback, 1966. Black Curtain Press, softcover, 2013.
To my mind, Ed Lacy occupies a place firmly in the upper second rank of hard-boiled writers of the last century. Maybe not up there with Hammett, Chandler, and (insert a few names of your own) but definitely right up there with Charles Williams, Peter Rabe, and (insert etc. etc.)
Lacy’s writing offers smooth prose, plotting that hooks the reader and moves things right along, and characters who seem unique enough to be real, without the flamboyant eccentricities that mark too many patently fictional creations.
I did some reading up on Lacy, who turns out to have been Len Zinberg, born in 1911 and raised in an affluent Jewish family on the fringes of Harlem. Not surprisingly, considering that time and place, Zinberg got involved in the Harlem Renaissance and left-wing politics of his day, and these show up in Lacy’s writing.
Sin in Their Blood opens with Matt Ranzino returning to his home town after a year in a VA hospital following service in Korea. Seems he was formerly a PI, and before that a cop, and before that a prizefighter, so he has all the qualifications necessary for a paperback hero, except that he contracted Tuberculosis in the Army and now feels super-cautious about undue exertion.
By the way, Zinberg suffered from heart trouble all his life, so when Lacy writes about debilitating fatigue and panic, he knows how to put it across.
Getting back to the story, Ranzino finds himself reluctantly drawn into a murder investigation, and just as reluctantly lured back toward his old PI Agency, which is now making big bucks off McCarthyism and the Red Scare, blackmailing vulnerable types who may have joined a pinkish organization back in the 1930s, or maybe signed a petition against capital punishment for the Rosenbergs or some such.
Lacy moves his hero through a potentially preachy miasma without getting didactic, even when the title of the piece — Sin in Their Blood — turns out to refer to a couple murdered because he was passing for white, with her knowledge. There’s also a plucky lady involved with Matt who insists on getting a job and making him share the household chores. And just to put this in perspective, this was written in 1952 — in 1974, when my wife went to get a credit card in her name, she was asked if her husband would object.
But most impressive (to me, anyway) is that Lacy keeps all this subtext in the background. This book moves fast and it moves well, with all the shady hoods, loose ladies, fights, and shoot-outs one looks for between the gaudy covers of a paperback. Enjoy the flash, appreciate the substance.
April 22nd, 2018 at 2:09 am
All of Lacy’s books move at a pace, with good locations and a nice blend of character, sex, violence, mood, action, suspense, and plot that makes him still highly readable. He created what was likely the first serious Black private eye and also wrote more about black characters who weren’t stereotypes at a time when perhaps the only other White mystery writer doing so regularly was Dorothy B. Hughes.
If he had found a home at Gold Medal he might be better remembered today, but for a writer who varied publishers as much as he did his work has survived extremely well.
He is an impressive writer, and one fortunately fairly easy to find at least in e-book form. I can’t think of a bad Lacy novel, though there is probably something I missed.
April 22nd, 2018 at 10:06 am
Ed Lynskey did a long, in-depth profile of Ed Lacy several years ago for the in-print version of MYSTERY*FILE. You can also find it online at
https://mysteryfile.com/Lacy/Profile.html.
At the end is as complete a bibliography for Lacy as I could compile at the time, 2004. His work appeared in hardcover (mostly by Harper) and as paperback originals from lower level publishers.
As for his work in reprint editions since 2004, I discovered that SIN IN THEIR BLOOD has come out from Black Curtain Press. Whether they have done the same for any of his other novels, or other publishers have stepped in, I do not know.
April 22nd, 2018 at 10:18 am
The thing I remember most about this book is how times have changed regarding heart/health. Without overriding the story, you just felt his worry about over exerting himself. Today you would just have a procedure, but not then.
I also believe was married to a african-american women, which gave him a different perspective on race.
April 22nd, 2018 at 11:08 am
You are quite correct about Lacy’s interracial marriage. There is no doubt that this affected his writing considerably when it came to race matters in his many books and stories.