Mystery*File

VENTURE SCIENCE FICTION – August 1969. Editor: Edward L. Ferman. Cover art: Bert Tanner. Overall rating: **** JULIUS FAST “The League of Grey-Eyed Women.” Novel. Published separately later by Lippincott (hardcover, 1970) and Pyramid (paperback, 1971). This is science fiction, with a subject of top interest in research today – namely the study of the formation of life, chromosomes, RNA, DNA and so on. Searching for a cure for his cancer, Jack Freeman seeks out a doctor at McGill University, but…

A 1001 MIDNIGHTS Review by Newell Dunlap RUSSELL H. GREENAN – The Secret Life of Algernon Pendleton. Random House, hardcover, 1973. Fawcett Crest, paperback, 1973, Bantam, paperback, 1988. Algernon Pendleton hears voices from unexpected sources — from philodendrons, for example. But his favorite voice source is Eulalia. a Worcester porcelain pitcher, and it is only with Eulalia that he carries on long conversations. In fact, this is pretty much the essence of Algernon’s existence — chatting…

JOHN GREGORY BETANCOURT “Pit and the Princess.” First appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, December 2014, Not reprinted or collected. Peter (Pit) Geller is what;s called a fixer, and he works primarily for a mob boss in Philadelphia. One distinguishing feature is that he has a photographic memory, but while it’s mentioned a couple of times, it really doesn’t come into play in this case, which involves his being sent to Vegas to look for his boss’s niece who has gone missing. The case…

TED KOSMATKA “The Art of Alchemy.” First appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction, June 2008. Reprinted in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Three, edited by Jonathan Strahan (Night Shade Books, 2009) and The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2009 Edition, edited by Rich Horton (Prime Books, 2010). There is a recurring th4eme to a certain number of similar stories, perhaps not as many as there used to be, in which an inventor of an improved means of propelling…

WILLIAM F. NOLAN & GEORGE CLAYTON JOHNSON: Logan’s Run. The Dial Press, hardcover, 1967. Dell, paperback; 1st printing thus, March 1969. Bantam, paperback, 1976. Film: 1976, wih Michael York, Jenny Agutter. TV series: CBS, September 16, 1977, to February 6, 1978. In the year 2116, youth has taken over the Earth. The maximum age allowed in 21, with death mandatory after that date, enforced by the Sandman police force. Logan is a Sandman, and his problems begin just as he is turning 21. There are…

H. C, BAILEY “The Superfluous Clues.” Reggie Fortune. First published (?) in Mr. Fortune’s Practice (Methuen, UK, hardcover, 1923), as “The Young Doctor.” Reprinted in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, March 1954. H. C. Bailey is an author I sampled long ago – perhaps 50 or 60 years long past – and decided at the time that his work was not for me. I no longer remember why, but I held to the vow until I postedan old fanzine review of Call Mr. Fortune, and the short discussion of the merits of Mt.…

A 1001 MIDNIGHTS Review by Marcia Muller ANNA KATHARINE GREEN – The Leavenworth Case. Dover, softcover, 1981. (Reprint of the 1878 hardcover edition.) This is a cornerstone novel of the mystery genre — the nineteenth-century American best seller that brought the detective novel into the public eye and raised it to hitherto unknown .. “respectable” status. First published in 1878, it is the best known of Green’s more than thirty novels and is thought by many critics to set the pattern for…

REVIEWED BY WILLIAM F. DEECK: H. C. BAILEY – Call Mr. Fortune. Methuen, UK, hardcover, 1920; Dutton, US, hardcover, 1921. Remploy, UK, hardcover reprint, 1979. Many other reprint editions currently exist. This is the first collection of Reginald Fortune short stories and, if the problems I had getting a copy are any indication, the scarcest one. Six stories are in this volume, and they range in quality from very good to excellent. There are, I might add, no bad or even poor Fortune short…

SMARTEST GIRL IN TOWN. RKO Radio Pictures, 1936. Gene Raymond, Ann Sothern, Helen Broderick. Director: Joseph Santley. Ann Sothern plays a fashion model who wants to marry money. Gene Raymond is a millionaire pretending to be male model so he can get to know her, but so that she won’t know he’s rich and take him for his money. He falls in love with her anyway, and … Um. I guess the plot doesn’t make any sense. It did while I was watching it, or at least I thought it did, and I enjoyed every…

TOP DETECTIVE ANNUAL, 1952. (Volume 1, Number 3.) Editor: David X. Manners, Cover art: Samuel Cherry. Overall rating: ** HAROLD HELFER “The Cell.” Listed as a short story, it is more a short [two page] documentary of a man’s strange punishment for his sex crimes. (4) STEWART STERLING “The Glass Guillotine.” Novella. Gil Vine. Originally published in Thrilling Detective, November 1940. Former FBI agent Gil Vine intervenes in a political kidnapping on the eve of the nominating convention. Mostly…

A 1001 MIDNIGHTS Review by Bill Pronzini ALAN GREEN – What a Body! Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1949. Dell, paperback, 1951. The dust jacket blurb calls this first mystery “the funniest, risibility-ticklingest book … since Wodehouse.” It isn’t that good, but it does have its moments — so many of them, in fact, that What a Body! was voted a Best First Novel Edgar. It is not only comical in the droll, barbed fashion of the Forties, but has an “impossible crime” plot of the sort that John Dickson…

ARTHUR PORGES “Her Last Bow.” Stately Homes #1. First appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, February 1957, Collected in Three Porges Parodies and a Pastiche, edited by Michael H. Kean (Magico, 1988) and in The Adventures of Stately Homes and Sherman Horn: Being the Compleat Sherlockian Writings of Arthur Porges, edited by Richard Sims (The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, trade paperback, 2008). Arthur Porges’s Wikipedia page begins thusly: “Arthur Porges (20 August 1915 – 12 May 2006) was…

The Return of Sherlock Holmes, Part I of III by Matthew R. Bradley The Granada Television productions starring Jeremy Brett adapted 43 of the 60 works in the Sherlock Holmes canon by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) into 41 episodes, two of which drew upon a pair of short stories each. Those 41 comprise four series: The Adventures… (1984-1985), …Return… (1986-1988), …Case-Book… (1991-1993), and …Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1994). The titles match four of the five books collecting all 56 short…

EDWARD D. HOCH “The Alexandria Solution.” Jeffrey Rand, formerly of British Intelligence. Published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, December 2008. Not yet reprinted or collected. (I may be wrong about this.) What this story is most remarkable for, perhaps, is that (as we are informed in the introduction to it) it is that new story to appear by Mr. Hoch in EQMM. In this tale, Rand is now retried from his long time position as the head of the Department of Concealed Communications for British…

A. A. FAIR -Widows Wear Weeds. PI’s Donald Lam & Bertha Cool #27. William Morrow, hardcover, 1966. Dell, paperback, date?. Reprinted several times since. Donald Lam is hired to stop a blackmailer from making more demands, or so he thinks. The blackmail is fake, intended to establish an alibi, but it creates ideas which prove to be fatal for the would-be blackmailer. The murder scene is set up to be embarrassing for Sergeant Sellers, and Donald will have no part of the policeman’s subsequent…

I may have miscalculated and come back to the blog a few days too early. There are still lots of things to be done that should have been done while I was away, and while I thought I was back, they weren’t done and they still have to be done, and it’s best if I’m the one does them. So bear with me for a while longer, if you so kindly would. See you again soon. Thanks!

RAYMOND MASON – Someone and Felicia Warwick. Gold Medal s1248. Paperback original; 1st printing, October 1962. Felecia 19, is the daughter of the town drunk and is widely known as the town whore, although of the unpaid variety. The first 14 chapters all end with same ominous harbinger of events to come: “Someone was going to kill Felicia Warwick.” This is a detective story, one in which the victim is known far in advance. Who among her man lovers and those (occasionally) rejected will be the…

ERLE STANLEY GARDNER – The Case of the Worried Waitress. Perry Mason #77. William Morrow, hardcover, 1966. Pocket, paperback, 1967. Reprinted many other times. A waitress who wants to ask Perry Mason for advice in a restaurant is invited to come to his office, Her story concerns her aunt’s financial problems and the discovery of several thousand dollars hidden in her closet. Mason advises the waitress to move out of her aunt’s house, but it is too late. The aunt is attacked, and the girl is…

It was last Tuesday night, just an ordinary night. The parking lot was well lit, but the night itself was dark and cloudy. Jon and I were walking back to our car, The way was downhill, not steeply, but you could tell it was trending down rather than up. We were, I think, within an arm’s length from the car when I suddenly realized I was lying down, face on the pavement. There was no in between that I can recall. I was walking, then I was down. I scrambled up, brushing myself off when I heard…

< A 1001 MIDNIGHTS Review by Newell Dunlap. strong>JAMES GRADY – Six Days of the Condor. W.W.Norton & Co., hardcover, 1974. Dell, paperback, 1975. Also published as Three Days of the Condor (Dell, paperback, date?). Film: Also as Three Days of the Condor (1975; directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, and Max von Sydow). Six Days of the Condor is a riveting book that subsequently became a riveting movie starring Robert Redford with the “Six” of the…

DOUG ALLYN “The Hate Tapes.” Published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, March 2010. Not known to have been collected or reprinted. Murph, the leading protagonist in this all-too-short short story, is the guitarist and lead singer for a rock band named the Kurves. You may not have known about them before, but at one time they were one of the hottest bands in the country. Time has passed, as it always does, and the Kurves are playing in much smaller venues now, but the crowds who come are…

ANNE McCAFFREY – Dragonrider. Serialized in Analog SF, December 1967 – January 1969. Novella. Nebula winner. Reprinted in Nebula Award Stories Four, edited by Poul Anderson (Doubleday, hardcover, December 1969; Pocket, paperback, January 1969). This is the sequel demanded by the story “Weyr Search” that appeared in the October 1967 issue of Analog. Once again there seems to be the feeling of watching an alien culture from the outside, as the deadly Threads begin falling from the Red Star. A…

DAY KEENE – The Brimstone Bed. Avon T-459, paperback original; 1st printing, 1960. Macfadden, paperback, 1968. Disbarred lawyer Bill Bailey picks a bad time to find his former assistant Joey Montana – it’s the same day somebody decides to shoot him full of holes, and the three years in prison Bailey blames on Joey for a crime he didn’t commit gives him a pretty good motive for the job. Only a blonde he knows can save his skin, but her husband is, in a word, is jealous. It’s no wonder Day Keene…

ANALOG SF – January 1968, Editor: John W. Campbell. Cover art credited to NASA. Overall rating: ***½. R. C. FITZPATRICK & LEIGH RICHMOND. “There Is a Tide.” Novelette. The continuing story of Sr, Stephen Jansen and his experiments with brain transplants, This time threats come from outside, with underlying hints about the pressures for immortality that may follow. (3) BRUCE DANIELS “…And Cauldron Bubble.” Artifacts, in the form of letters and memos, of bureaucracy. A point, but why read it…

A 1001 MIDNIGHTS Review by Julie Smith RON GOULART – Ghosting. Raven House, paperback original, 1988. A writer of very funny mysteries and science fiction, Goulart has said he likes to mix “murder, bug-eyed monsters, and satire.” Ghosting contains no BEM’s, but there is plenty of murder and satire. The hero, Barney Kains, is “a defrocked commercial illustrator who got dragooned into the comic book business” as a ghost writer for the comic strip “Poor Little Pearl.” It seems Archie Judd, the…

DICK STODGHILL “Deadtown.” Appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, November 2009. Never reprinted or collected, as far as I’ve discovered so far. The year Is 1940, and a man drives into the gritty out-of-the-way town named Dealtown with an empty tank and forty-seven cents in his pocket, and as chance would have it, he decides to stay for a while. He’s the kind of guy who’s offered a job as soon as the man who owns the roadhouse just outside of town sees him. (He takes it.) He also meets…

THE GANG’S ALL HERE. Monogram Pictures, 1941. Frankie Darro, Marcia Mae Jones, Jackie Moran, Keye Luke, Mantan Moreland. Director: Jean Yarbrough. Frankie Darro and his pal Jeff (Mantan Moreland0 land jobs with a trucking company that, unknown to them, is having a problem with hijackers. What’s worse, even though the boss and his daughter are fine people, the problem is an inside one. The budget restrictions were painfully obvious, but this is my kind of movie. It has everything: action,…

JULIE SMITH – Tourist Trap. Rebecca Schwartz #3. Mysterious Press, hardcover, 1986; paperback, August 1987. Fawcett, paperback, 1992. Rebecca Schwartz is an outspoken Jewish feminist lawyer who lives in San Francisco, and I wish I liked the mysteries she gets involved in more than I do. In this one, a madman disrupts the local tourist trade by committing a series of more or less random killings. And in the process frames Rebecca’s latest client for the deeds. Totally incompetent police work…

ELLERY QUEEN – Kiss and Kill. PI Barney Burgess. Ghost-written by Charles W. Runyon. Dell, paperback original; 1st printing, April 1969. Cover art by Robert McGinnis. The opening is meant to grab you, and it does A man looks up from his work to find his wife missing from the kitchen, and a search of the neighborhood leads nowhere. The police cannot help, and the man turns to private eye Barney Burgess. The pace then shifts, noticeably so. Events hurtle along, coming faster and faster. There is…

A 1001 MIDNIGHTS Review by John Lutz PAULA GOSLING – The Zero Trap. Coward McCann, hardcover, 1980. Warner Books, paperback, 1981. Published earlier in the UK by Macmillan, hardcover, 1979. Paula Gosling’s first novel, Fair Game, won critical acclaim and the 1978 John Creasey Award in England. In this, her second novel, she creates an elegant psychological thriller involving a hijacked military aircraft. On a routine flight, the plane’s nine passengers are gassed into unconsciousness. They…