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Timothy Dane
Created by William Ard (1922-1960)
Partial to Seagram's Seven, and a good steak dinner at Toot Shor's, TIMOTHY DANE is a young (30ish) New York gumshoe with an excellent reputation for honesty who appeared in nine (or is it ten?) books back in the fifties, all recommended.
He's tall, and some women find him "handsome as hell." He seems to know his way around the hotspots of the Big Apple, circa 1950-57. His seventeenth floor one-man office, in the Paramount Building, is on Broadway "just around the corner from Sardi's." And it is a one-man office. He doesn't have any office help, not even a "sloe-eyed, grapefruit-bosomed private secretary slithering in and out." In fact, considering his contemporaries (Mike Hammer, Shell Scott, etc.) Timothy's a pretty normal guy. Not too flashy, not particularly eager for action, and far from some super stud that all women find irresistable. His drink is rye, and he enjoys baseball (he's a Yankees fan) and the works of Somerset Maugham. Maybe a good steak at Toots Shors', if he's in the chips. His pals include Jack, the bartender at his favorite watering hole, and Hal Harper, a homicide lieutenant, NYPD, who keeps trying to get Timothy to join the force.
Dane's appeal lies in the fact that he's just a basic, decent guy, trying to do his job the best way he can and keep his integrity if possible. Sure, he carries a .45, and he's not afraid to use it, and he walks the walk and talks the talk, but he's surprisingly compassionate for the time, very similar at times to the later Lew Archer and Michael Collins' Dan Fortune. series In fact, I find Ard's work far more enjoyable than that of Ross Macdonald in the same time period. Sure, Dane's cases tend to be a tad pulpier and melodramatic than Archer's, but at the same time, Dane's a far more compelling and down to earth character.
It's too bad Ard passed away in 1960. Who knows how far he could have taken Dane?
Anthony Boucher praised Ard as "just about unmatched for driving story-movement and acute economy."
William Thomas Ard, a Brooklyn publicist and copywriter, also worked for a brief time, just after WWII, as a detective. He was also responsible for the adventures of private eye Lou Largo, which aren't too shabby either. In fact, Ard wrote under several several pseudonyms, including Ben Kerr, Mike Moran and Thomas Willis. Under the Ben Kerr pseudonym, he created New York P.I. Johnny Stevens and under the Wills moniker he wrote about Barney Glines.
UNDER OATH
QUOTES
EXTRA POINTS!
NOVELS
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