The (E-)Resurrection of a Master of Mystery

Edward D. Hoch was, quite simply, one of the biggest and best names in the mystery field for decades. He was also a rarity: an author who managed to make his bread and butter almost entirely through short stories, a form that is possibly more difficult to master than that of the novel. Hoch’s career was amazingly prolific, with hundreds of short stories to his name. Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine would not have been the same without its usual dose of Edward D. Hoch. In any anthology, Hoch could always be relied on to deliver a solid story. He was a terrific plotter: he could come up with fascinating situations, and then resolve them so elegantly that the reader could only stare in amazement at the work of a master craftsman.

So imagine my delight to discover that The Mysterious Press has brought out Hoch’s books in e-book form. Many of these are short story collections, but Hoch wrote a novel every once in a while, such as The Shattered Raven (which is among the books brought back into e-print). And one book in particular caught my eye: The Sherlock Holmes Stories of Edward D. Hoch, which collects all twelve of Hoch’s Holmesian pastiches. If any author out there could possibly do Holmes justice, it would be Hoch, and so I knew I just had to read this book.

A Comedy of Murders

When Clifford Flush founded the Asterisk Club, he did it out of purely altruistic reasons. It was a service that society desperately needed, and Flush was willing to provide it. You see, the Asterisk Club is the most exclusive club in London, and possibly the world: in order to join, you need to be a wrongly-acquitted murderer. The current Club members include such colourful people as Mrs. Naomi Barratt (a self-made widow) and The Creaker, an enormous man who frightens even the other Club members. Rounding out the cast of murderers is the butler, Beecher – not a murderer himself, but he has been jailed 14 times for housebreaking.

Next door to the Asterisk Club live Peter and Fan Hilford and Bertha and Hugo Berko. They share the lease on the house and
have a bit of a rat problem. The Asterisk Club is full up for rooms right now, and so the Club sends its newest potential recruit, Benji Cann, next door as a paying lodger. What could possibly go wrong? Well, let’s just say that Mr. Cann will not become a member of the Club after all, now that he’s deceased.

No Man's Land

Inspector Celcius Daly was introduced to readers a year ago in Anthony Quinn’s debut novel Disappeared. I enjoyed the book tremendously, and in particular liked the character of Celcius Daly: a hard-working, honest Catholic cop in a Protestant land, trying his hardest to ensure that justice prevails in a world that seems dead-set against him. And so I have been eagerly looking forward to Celcius Daly’s return in Anthony Quinn’s Border Angels, in which Daly’s doggedness and honesty get him into serious trouble...

You see, it all revolves around Lena Novak, a Croatian woman who was forced into a prostitution ring by the ruthless Jozef Mikolajek. While on the job, she met a man named Jack Fowler who took pity on her. He decided to become her knight in shining armour and to rescue her from Mikolajek’s brothel. But a few weeks later, the fairy tale has taken a dark turn. Jack, responsible for some dirty tricks with money that doesn’t belong to him, is found floating in his swimming pool, quite dead. Suicide is possible, but Daly isn’t quite convinced. And Lena’s photograph is found by the body, but the girl herself is nowhere to be found…

Reviewers Beware!

I was intrigued by the plot summary of Michael Mayo’s Jimmy the Stick, a novel published by The Mysterious Press last year. It tells the story of Jimmy Quinn, a bootlegger and gunman who used to be a runner for a bunch of mobsters. Then, Prohibition kicked in, and Jimmy got his leg hurt. After the injury, Jimmy’s leg was never again the same. Running was no longer an option, and Jimmy walked around with a walking stick, hence his nickname “Jimmy the Stick”. So he retired from the running game, opened a speak, and has been doing decently for himself.

But then everything goes to blazes. An old criminal pal of Jimmy’s, Walter Spencer, gives him a call and asks him to come over to his rural New Jersey home ASAP. The Lindbergh baby has just been kidnapped, and Spencer’s hysterical wife is convinced that their child could be next. It’s nonsense, of course, but Spencer has to go to a very important meeting out of state. So Jimmy gets hired to protect the kid and to keep order around the house.

It Feels So Good to Be Bad!

Anyone who reads my blog regularly has, by now, noticed two things about me. First off, I’m positively insane. Second, whenever I get introduced to a new author and am very impressed with the book in question, I tend to go on a reading binge. I did this earlier in 2012 with Donald E. Westlake, devouring Dortmunder and Parker novels as though they were potato chips until I realized that I would soon run out of my supplies if I kept at it. But I just can’t learn my lesson, and I’m at serious risk of doing it again with the work of Charlotte Armstrong. The symptoms are all there, and I just got finished reading Armstrong’s novel Mischief.

In Mischief, Mr. and Mrs. Peter O. Jones are on their way to an important social function, where Mr. Jones is due to deliver a speech. They have to leave their daughter Bunny behind, and they planned to leave her at the hotel with Mr. Jones’ sister. But at the last moment, she cancels on them, and they’re forced to scramble around to find a replacement. Fortunately, an elevator operator named Eddie Munro hears of their plight and volunteers the services of his niece, Nell Munro. The Joneses are only too happy to accept Eddie’s offer, but something feels odd the instant Nell steps into room 807…

A Literary Life For Me

Stewart Hoag, known as ‘Hoagy’ to his friends, was once a best-selling boy-wonder author. Now, his marriage has fallen apart and he hasn’t got much to show for his stardom. So when he’s offered a job mentoring/collaborating with the current literary boy-wonder, Cameron Noyes, he accepts the job. But it’s not quite so simple. Cameron is addicted to cocaine, has a problem with booze and women, and seems haunted by his past. But as time goes on, Hoagy learns more and more about this idol of the literary world…

… and the tensions rise as Hoagy investigates the cutthroat publishing industry. Many ugly incidents occur which leave the reader wondering what’s going to happen when the tensions boil over into violence. And sure enough, somebody falls to their death, an apparent suicide. But Hoagy is not entirely satisfied and soon enough the police begin to entertain similar suspicions. It’s up to Hoagy and his dog, Lulu, to investigate matters and sniff out the culprit.

Without a Trace

Anthony Quinn’s Disappeared opens on an interesting scene. David Hughes, an old man suffering from Alzheimer’s, suddenly encounters a ghost from his past. It seems to be the spirit of Oliver Jordan, a man who has been dead for nearly twenty years; it is implied that he was murdered by the IRA. Jordan has returned to sniff out his killers, and he demands David’s help.

A month later, David’s sister telephones the police in hysterics. David is gone, apparently kidnapped. Even if he wasn’t kidnapped, the odds are slim for a man with Alzheimer’s to survive on his own for a long time. Inspector Celcius Daly is called in to investigate. Before long, a corpse is discovered by a priest and the savagely-murdered victim had a connection with David: their mutual passion for duck-hunting.

Presenting The Great Merlini!

Clayton Rawson is a pretty well-known name from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. A magician and a great friend of John Dickson Carr’s, Rawson gave us one of the all-time great debuts of detective fiction when he invented his detective, The Great Merlini, and took him on a wild journey as Merlini had to solve the mystery of Death from a Top Hat, a complex affair involving multiple impossibilities that The Great Merlini explains rationally. Not only is it a great debut, I consider it one of the greatest detective novels of all-time. Rawson followed that classic up with three further novels and a series of short stories. But darn it all, those short stories are so hard to find!

But then, last week, while browsing my Facebook account, I suddenly noticed an update from MysteriousPress.com! I gasped and made sure I was reading it right. Clayton Rawson was back in print! All his novels have been resurrected into e-books, but that wasn’t enough for the folks at MysteriousPress.com. By some miracle worthy of The Great Merlini himself, they managed to reprint Rawson’s Don Diavolo stories… as well as all the short stories starring The Great Merlini! And thus, I instantly went to Amazon and purchased three books, one of which is entitled The Great Merlini: The Complete Stories of the Magician Detective.

Would Clayton Rawson be able to match the ingenuity of Death from a Top Hat? Were these stories really worthwhile? How would The Great Merlini handle the impossible disappearance of a person from a phone booth, a challenge that the great John Dickson Carr failed miserably (in Scotland Yard’s Christmas)? What about those short-short stories? Reader, I present you my critiques of the stories found in this brand new e-book:

Beyond This Point are Monsters

Alice Brennan is going to marry a millionaire, Innes Whitlock, and they are on an excursion with the chauffer when the car breaks down in the town of Ogaunee, Michigan… Innes’ hometown. And so Innes decides that there’s no way out of it: he’ll have to visit his sisters. Known collectively as the Whitlock girls, they are three repulsive creatures all disabled in their own unique way. Gertrude is blind. Maud is deaf. And Isabel is missing her right arm.

Innes lets his sisters know that he intends to marry Alice… and then the accidents begin to happen. A lamp crashes down from an upstairs table and nearly hits Innes over the head. A detour sign is removed from the road and causes a car accident. Someone messes around with the gas… Alarmed, Innes summons his lawyer and Alice summons her old history professor, MacDougal Duff. Will they get there in time? Will the sisters accomplish their murderous goal? And who on earth is the mysterious Mr. Johnson, who seems to be doing some work around the house?

Jiminy Cricket!

It was supposed to be a regular, run-of-the-mill burglary. All John Dortmunder had to do was pry his way into the place and walk out with a bunch of furs. And then… Andy Kelp shows up. After the events of The Hot Rock and Bank Shot, Dortmunder is somewhat understandably horrified. He doesn’t want to subscribe his way into another Andy Kelp special. So instead he starts shouting at Kelp to get away. Before he knows it, he’s woken up the entire neighbourhood and everyone is yelling at each other, with the police on their way to deal with the outburst.

Andy Kelp is hurt that Dormunder would react in such a way, but he immediately sets about proposing a brand-new plan—one that’ll definitely work this time! See, Kelp was recently in jail for a few days before being released due to an illegal search. But behind bars, he came across some books by a some guy named Richard Stark. He discovered Stark’s novels about master thief Parker (“He'll remind you of Dortmunder,” he tells Stan Murch) and he particularly loves the book Child Heist—particularly how the crooks get away with it in the end!

Life of the Party

One of the best things about the e-book format is that it is so very versatile. For instance, thanks to e-publishing, an author can release an individual novella inexpensively. Perhaps this author will succeed in luring some readers in with the price—and if the reader likes what he sees, he (or she) may be persuaded to check out some of the author’s novels. (And thus addicts are born…)

Steve Brewer’s Party Doll is a perfect example. It’s far too long to be considered a short story, but it’s far too short to be considered a novel. So it’s given a “novella” label, priced at $1.99 for the Kindle, and offers readers a glimpse into the world of private investigator Bubba Mabry. This was my first time reading a story with this character, and I was rather looking forward to it.

Capitalism: A Crime Story

John Dortmunder is a serious crook—he doesn’t go after small fry. No purse-snatching or anything of the sort for him. But times are tough and he’s forced to run the encyclopaedia racket, going door to door pretending to represent an encyclopaedia company and getting people to pay a $10 down-payment on the whole set. So it’s understandably humiliating when his newest target turns out to be wise to the whole game and calls the cops on him. He runs out of the place while she’s on the phone and manages to run smack into Andy Kelp, who sits in the car blabbering at him, nearly allowing the duo to get caught by the police car headed their way, siren wailing…

But if the duo was caught in the opening chapters, we’d have no book, right? So they do manage to get away in one piece, but Dortmunder might just wish he’d gone back to brave the fuzz. Because Andy Kelp has got another brilliant scheme—to be more precise, it’s his nephew Victor who came up with this one. See, the Capitalists’ & Immigrants’ Trust is a bank undergoing renovations, and so for the construction period, their temporary location is in a trailer—a mobile home, to be more exact. On Thursday nights, there’s little time between closing time and opening time the next morning, so the bank leaves the money in the vault and seven security guards keep watch over the place. The idea is to rob the bank. And the robbers really mean it—when they set out to rob the bank, they intend to take the whole thing, trailer and all!

"Welcome back to the world, Mr. Dortmunder."

Patti Abbott is the mastermind responsible for the Friday’s Forgotten Books meme, and this past Friday was devoted to Donald E. Westlake. I was first tipped off about it by Barry Ergang, who wrote a fabulous review of God Save the Mark, and then others turned in reviews, including John at Pretty Sinister Books and Sergio from Tipping My Fedora. I had no idea about the event beforehand or I might have tried to participate myself—but after seeing so many fantastic reviews, I knew I had to join in the fun and discover Donald E. Westlake for myself. I initially planned to read and review God Save the Mark, but in a mix-up worthy of a Westlake novel itself, iTunes decided it wasn’t going to make things so simple. To make a long story short, I ended up getting a copy of Westlake’s The Hot Rock, and I had plenty of time to read it today. I ended up having so much time, in fact, that I finished the book!

The Hot Rock (1970) is the first book in the John Dortmunder series and was also turned into a movie in 1972. The main character is John Dortmunder, a criminal mastermind whose specialty is planning heists. He gets out of prison to start the book off, and due to a mishap he couldn’t possibly have foreseen, he misses out on a chance to make an easy $300. Perhaps this was an omen he chose to ignore; perhaps it was coincidence. Whatever it was, John’s friend Kelp nearly runs him over in a Cadillac and then asks him to help out on a job. And that’s just the first four pages.

Hope for the Best

A while ago an interesting piece appeared in The Rap Sheet, telling “the story behind the story” of a new book by John Barlow entitled Hope Road, which has been released as an e-book exclusive (you can purchase it from Amazon.com here). I read the piece with enormous interest and thought to myself that maybe I’ll read this book someday... that day came a lot sooner than I expected. I was pleasantly surprised when I was asked to review the book. I didn’t hesitate— it sounded like something I’d enjoy reading. And my instinct didn’t let me down!

Hope Road is the start of a new series of crime novels set in Leeds. The protagonist is John Ray, whose father Tony was a big-time crook back in his heyday. Now, Tony is living in a retirement home and John has managed to turn the family business (Tony Ray’s Motors) around and make a legitimate living out of it: in fact, when the story opens, John accepts an award for being the top used car dealer in the Yorkshire region.

The Great E-Book Debate

I was not expecting its arrival any time soon...

For years I have resisted the e-book revolution. While I could see the advantages of an e-book reader, I simply didn’t see myself using one. The books I’d like to read aren’t available on the format, I said, so why bother getting one? It seemed pointless…

But I’ve finally given in. What does this mean? Will I convert to the Kindle and regard printed books with disdain? Can mystery readers look forward to an imminent auctioning off of my small collection?

Briefly put, the answer is a resounding no. I love printed books and will always remain devoted to them. But there were several factors that pushed me into finally purchasing an e-reader. And so I’d like to share with you the Top 6 Reasons I Bought a Kindle. Why Top 6? Because it’s a nice, round number and I have no better reason. Here goes:

The Anomaly of the Pilfered Painting

Though I’ve been looking at various Crime Kings lately, I would now like to do something that can be best described through the words of John Cleese: “And now for something completely different.” Thus, I would like to take a look at a short story entitled The Play of Light and Shadow, written by fellow mystery aficionado and JDCarr forum member Barry Ergang. I first read this story when I was trying to write an impossible crime story of my own (which I still work on, on an off-and-on basis), and remembered highly enjoying it. Revisiting it after all this time, I was delighted to discover that it held up just as well on a re-read.

The Play of Light and Shadow is narrated by Dr. Alan Driscoll, a university professor on sabbatical. Tired of the monotony of departmental politics, he gets an interim job as bartender, where he meets private eye Darnell, and discovers in him a fellow lover of literature.