Sun 18 Aug 2019
Stories I’m Reading: EDWARD D. HOCH “The Spy Who Came to the Brink.”
Posted by Steve under Stories I'm Reading[5] Comments
EDWARD D. HOCH “The Spy Who Came to the Brink.” Short story. Jeffrey Rand #3. First appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, December 1965. Collected in The Spy and the Thief (Davis, digest-sized paperback; 1st printing, December 1971 (Ellery Queen Presents #3.)
As you might easily deduce from the title, the 1971 collection of tales reprinted from EQMM is evenly split between those of Jeffrey Rand (7) and those with master thief Nick Velvet (also 7). I’ve always liked the Velvet stories more, but the ones with Rand are also extremely good.
Rand is head of Britain’s Department of Concealed Communications — a spy agency, that is to say, one dealings primarily, but entirely, with codes and ciphers. It’s a job that keeps him busy, with dozens of his adventures to have been told, many of which have taken him around the world several times over.
In “The Spy Who Came to the Brink,” Rand must puzzle out why a small time TV actor who has gone to great length to steal a secret diplomatic code is shot to death on orders from Russia before he could do so.
It isn’t that he knew too much, as Rand finally concludes, but rather that he knew too little. Hoch had a devious mind as a writer, second to none, and how he managed to tell short stories as short as this one (ten pages) and still include a strong amount of actual detective work in them, is a absolute mystery to me.
August 18th, 2019 at 6:34 pm
This sounds like a good story!
I’ve never seen a copy of “The Spy and the Thief”. It seems to be rare. Have read a few stories from it in old issues of EQMM.
Hoch is a giant among mystery writers.
August 18th, 2019 at 9:26 pm
The only other collection of Rand stories I know about is The Old Spies Club and Other Intrigues of Rand, published by Crippen & Landru in 2001. I don’t know whether or not this story is one of them.
August 18th, 2019 at 10:10 pm
Rand may have been a distant second to Velvet, but he was still second though the best Simon Ark stories were worth reading and some of the Leopold’s are among Hoch’s best works.
August 19th, 2019 at 4:58 am
This story is not in “The Old Spies Club”.
“The Old Spies Club” is a terrific book. It is heartily recommended, to anyone who can track down a copy.
August 24th, 2019 at 2:06 pm
Hoch is always worth reading. I own several of his collections, but not all of them. I wish STARK HOUSE or ALTUS Press would reprint ALL of Hoch’s stories. I would certainly buy them!