Sad Clowns Are Everywhere

Rereading WICKED CITY by Ace Atkins for my hardboiled fiction class... pleased to be reminded of the scene in which sad clowns try to dynamite somebody's house. Yes, your objection is legitimate: this would seem to place them firmly in the world of scary clowns, which is outside the jurisdiction of the "blog." BUT! Each member of the gang is disguised as Emmett Kelly (pictured - look how sad!), and how have we not talked about Emmett Kelly yet? He was a towering presence at the Clown Hall of Fame once visited by Kelly Hogan and my friend from Hubcap City and me. The other day I happened to open a local circular (called, I think, the LAFAYETTE SHOPPER - it appears in the mailbox every week and usually goes straight into the recycling), and there was a (local? syndicated?) column of filler by an elderly-looking gentleman who was rhapsodizing over his Emmett Kelly collector plate. So maybe I should pay more attention to the LAFAYETTE SHOPPER (if that is what it is called) instead of just clipping my nails over it occasionally (which is how I discovered the old columnist and his Emmett Kelly collector plate). Says one of Ace's murderous thugs about Emmett Kelly, "That rascal tried to smash a peanut with a sledgehammer. My kind of guy."