RARA-AVIS: First to Third

From: Moorich2@aol.com
Date: 04 Feb 2001


My dim memory is that William Ard began his Timothy Dane series in first person but at some point switched to third person. I don't have the novels handy to check but perhaps someone (Crider?) can verify this.

Mike Nevins gave a stirring presentation at some long ago Bouchercon on Ard, calling him, among other things "one of the most distinctive voices in the history of the private-eye novel." I immediately picked up quite a few Ard novels but found them rather routine and lost interest after reading three or four. I did not read what some consider his best novel HELL IS A CITY
(1955). He may be best remembered today because Lawrence Block ghosted a novel under Ard's name. Ard also began the Gold Medal western series Buchanan under the Jonas Ward name and I remember preferring his westerns to his mysteries.

Richard Moore

--
# To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to
# majordomo@icomm.ca.  This will not work for the digest version.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 04 Feb 2001 EST