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Glossary and Character Taxonomy  Breakdown by Country of Origin   Bibliography   Table of Contents    The Best of the Encyclopedia

Turner, Dan. Dan Turner was created by Robert Leslie Bellem (Little Jack Horner, Duke Pizzatello, Nick Ransom, Tate Shevlin, Dr. Zarkov) and appeared in over 250 stories in several pulps from 1934 to 1950, beginning with “Murder by Proxy” (Spicy Detective Stories, June 1934).

Dan Turner is a Bellem and is, with Philip Marlowe, the very quintessence of two-fisted wise-cracking private eye. Turner is 190 pounds of Scotch-swilling (a quart of Vat 69 a day), cigarette-smoking, violent sleuth, given to exchanging .38 slugs as often as quips. Turner has more an eye for the ladies than does Marlowe. But despite his appearance and behavior Turner is not stupid. He is actually intelligent and clever as a detective. Turner is assisted by Dave Donaldson, a detective friend on the Homicide Squad.

* I'm including Dan Turner in the Best of the Encyclopedia list because he's the archetypal Bellem. The best creation by Robert Leslie Bellem, the wise-crackingest, two-fisteded, hardboileded private eye to end all wise-cracking, two-fisted, hardboiled private eye. Bellem developed an entire separate patois for Bellem to speak: "And then, from an open window, a roscoe coughed "Ka-chow!" "The McBride ham crossed the stage with assault and bashery in his slitted peepers; his maulies were balled for action and his kisser was a thin slash in the hard granite of his map as he barged to the camera setup and planted his bulk firmly ferninst the director, a dyspeptic little sourball." "I could see the sudden surge of her gorgeous watchacallems under her fawn frock. I commenced shaking her until her thingumbobs jiggled like mounds of aspic in an earthquakes." And so on. Almost sui generis, really. Recommended. 

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