THE LATHEMAN VERSUS PEEPER OR JAROSLAV VELINSKY AND HARD-BOILED SCHOOL (Soustruznik versus soukrome ocko aneb Jaroslav Velinsky a drsna skola)

The article presents research of some detective fictions by Jaroslav Velinsky from the cycle of novels with the same protagonist, a 'consensual detective' Oto Fink. Velinsky is a follower of so called American 'hard-boiled school', mainly of Raymond Chandler. The author of the article compares extracts of the works of the both Chandler and Velinsky. He looks for analogies in their style in three levels: protagonist's concept, forms of dialogue and ironic 'wisecracks' of the narrator. It concludes, mainly those of Velinsky's texts, which come from the Czech environment of the 20th century. They show many inspirational influences of the mentioned stream of American detective literature, of course, transformed within domestic cultural context. The influence of characteristic narrative methods of 'hard-boiled school' in Czech detective fiction is visible in the works of some other authors of the same generation, e.g. Eva Kacirkova. It seems that recent development in that area of popular literature continually relies on different creative impulses.