Sun 26 Dec 2021
Pulp PI Stories I’m Reading: ROBERT LESLIE BELLEM “Diamonds of Deathâ€.
Posted by Steve under Pulp Fiction , Stories I'm Reading[2] Comments
ROBERT LESLIE BELLEM “Diamonds of Death.†Dan Turner #2. Published in Spicy Detective Stories, July 1934. Reprinted in Hollywood Detective, August 1950, and in The Mammoth Book of Private Eye Stories, edited by Bill Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg (Carrol & Graf, 1988).
I think that the best way to review a Dan Turner story may also be the easiest. It could even reflect the only reason for anyone to read a Dan Turner story. Simply quote passages from the story, taken here and there at random. Like this:
[…]
I fastened the speculative focus on her; wondering if she was leveling or feeding me a line of waffle batter.
[…]
The defunct ginzo lay sprawled behind a big wheel-of-fortune on the far side of the set, where you wouldn’t notice him unless he was pointed out to you. … [He’d] been handsome until some sharp disciple carved in his cranium with a blunt instrument. Now his scalp was messy with shattered bones and coagulated gravy, and he was deader than canceled postage.
[…]
Max took a wild swing at the wren’s rod. Maybe she actually hadn’t meant to discharge it, but the impact of Murphy’s mitt made her trigger finger jerk. Ka-Chow! and a tongue of flame licked at the prop man, a bright orange flash of fire that streaked across the set and stabbed him in the thigh. He staggered and went down in a writhing heap.
[…]
Maybe he wasn’t planning to paste a haymaker on my dimple; I couldn’t tell. But I remembered the last dose of knuckle tonic he’d doled me; my bridgework still ached from it, all the way to the shoestrings. On a lug like Max you couldn’t afford to take chances.
Me again. I submit to you that prose like this is the work of genius.
December 26th, 2021 at 9:22 pm
You don’t review Bellem, you quote him. It’s the only way to do him justice. Reading Bellem is like being knocked down by an overly friendly St. Bernard. You’re going to remember the experience even if it leaves a few bruises.
December 27th, 2021 at 12:50 pm
What took me by surprise is that this was only the second appearance of Dan Turner. The first was “Murder by Proxy” in the just previous issue of Spicy Detective Stories (June 1934) which was only the second issue of the magazine. He seems to have jumped out of Bellem’s head as the full-fledged character he was and stayed for several hundred stories, last showing up in three stories in the October 1950 issue of Hollywood Detective Magazine.