Sun 22 Nov 2009
by Mike Tooney:
The late Edward D. Hoch (1930-2008) holds — and probably always will hold — the record for publishing the most mystery short stories. At the time of his death, he’d written — and had published — over 900 of them.
A writer that prolific would be expected to have a lot of his stories reprinted, and that is the case. Moreover, as a professional short story writer Hoch would be expected to contribute to original themed anthologies, and that is also the case.
Below are the first three of many examples of his voluminous output that I have unsystematically stumbled across in my reading. Another grouping of three will appear here on this blog soon.
These stories will date from the ’60s through the early 21st century, with at least one from each decade of his publishing career except the first, the ’50s, a deficiency I hope to correct soon.
1. “I’d Know You Anywhere.” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, October 1963. Reprinted in: Alfred Hitchcock Presents Stories to Be Read with the Lights On, Random House, hc, 1973; Dell [Volume One], pb, 1976.
“I think you just like to kill.”
“What soldier doesn’t?”
“Me.”
COMMENTS: Contrell (no first name) and Willy Grove survive a desperate situation fighting the Germans in the Tunisian desert, but Willy betrays a ruthlessness in liking to kill. Eight years later, Contrell encounters Grove again during the Korean War and sees that Willy is just the same.
In Berlin in the early ’60s their paths cross once more; Contrell can’t help noticing how dangerous it is to have a volatile individual like Grove involved in such a tense international situation. Finally, Contrell and Willy meet for the last time in Washington — the very last time.
NOTES: Not really a mystery, but the buildup to the final explosion is well-laid. And while the ten-page story takes us across three decades, Hoch doesn’t make the mistake of trying to round out his characters too much.
2. “The Leopold Locked Room.” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, October 1971. Reprinted in: Tricks and Treats, edited by Joe Gores & Bill Pronzini, Doubleday Crime Club, hc, 1976.
COMMENTS: Captain Leopold has a past, as Lieutenant Fletcher discovers to his surprise: an ex-wife who is unwilling to forgive and forget.
Leopold’s past violently catches up to him at a wedding when he apparently shoots his ex dead in a completely empty room with absolutely no possibility of anyone else pulling the trigger.
She dies of a bullet through the heart fired from no more than two inches away, while Leopold is standing almost seven yards from her. Even Leopold’s confidence in himself is shaken, but thanks to Fletcher’s perseverance the “impossible crime” is shown to be altogether possible.
NOTES: This story was adapted for an episode of the TV series McMillan and Wife, starring Rock Hudson and Susan St. James (“Cop of the Year,” November 1972), but Commissioner McMillan’s capable assistant Sergeant Enright is the one blamed for the murder.
3. “The Golden Nugget Poker Game.” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, March 1987. Reprinted in: The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits, edited by Mike Ashley. Carroll & Graf, softcover, 1993.
COMMENTS: Free-lance gun-for-hire Ben Snow finds himself in the wild and woolly Yukon during the Gold Rush, where men were men and women made the most of it.
In a frontier town like Dawson, occasional violence is fairly normal; but you wouldn’t expect to come across a criminal conspiracy like the one Ben runs afoul of, a variation of the old badger game — but with bullets.
When a man dies once too often, Ben’s detective instincts are fully engaged; his client, furthermore, is innocent of murder even when several eyewitnesses — including Ben — see him fire two bullets into the man. Ben’s job is to prove his client didn’t commit murder while not getting himself murdered.
NOTES: As a professional gunslinger, Ben Snow is remarkably ineffectual in this one; but he makes up for it with his detective skills.
November 22nd, 2009 at 1:32 am
Glad Mike reviewed one of the non series stories. They sometimes get short shrift compared to all the series stories, and there are some good ones. There is one about a bomber pilot who returns to Dresden after the war that was particularly memorable, mostly a mood piece, but very well done.
I think the best of the Leopold stories was likely his encounter with the vampire hunter, a story that works both as a detective story and a horror story — no easy feat.
That said I’ll grant my preferences are for Nick Velvet, Rand, and Simon Ark, though I also liked the Sebastian Blue Interpol stories and Dr. Hawthorne. To be fair I like all of them, just some a bit more than others.
Didn’t Hoch do a three part serial in EQMM as X? Been years ago, but I seem to recall it as one of the only serialized pieces the magazine ever did (though each story was also self contained) and there was supposed to be some mystery over the identity of X, though I think everyone suspected it was Hoch.
November 22nd, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Glad to see a review of some of Hoch’s excellent short stories. Hopefully there will be plenty more collections published collecting the rest of his stories for those of us who like to read them.
Monte Herridge
November 22nd, 2009 at 8:09 pm
David
You’re right about “Mr. X” being one of Hoch’s pen names. I seem to remember that there was a contest involved, but I could be wrong about that. Either way, the story was “The Will-O’-the-Wisp Mystery,” and it appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, April-September 1971 (six issues).
With all of the stories he wrote, it’s not so surprising that he also came up with so many series characters. From wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_D._Hoch ) here’s a list of the his best known ones:
* Nick Velvet
* Captain Leopold
* Dr. Sam Hawthorne
* Rand
* Simon Ark
* Ben Snow
* Stanton and Ives
* Sir Gideon Parrot
* Michael Vlado
* Alexander Swift
* Barney Hamet
* Susan Holt
* Interpol
* Al Darlan
And I have a feeling that there are many more than these, and as you say, he wrote some pretty good stories that didn’t involve series characters.
Monte
Crippen & Landru have done a number of Hoch collections, and I think they have more planned. But their production schedule often seems very slow — certainly slower than I’d like for some authors!
We’ll just have to be patient, I guess.
For an interview I did with Mr. Hoch about five years ago, go here:
https://mysteryfile.com/Hoch.html
— Steve
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Hoch wrote at least one story where Nick Velvet had to travel to Capt. Leopold’s town to steal something. As I remember, it was a pretty good story—-Leopold is one of the few police Nick comes into contact with who figures out that there is more to Velvet than meets the eye.
I sat behind Ed Hoch and his wife at a mystery event some years ago. Soft-spoken, knowledgeable and charming is how I would describe them.
November 23rd, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Though it wasn’t his form and he never seemed as comfortable there Hoch wrote a handful of novels too. The Shattered Raven an MWA novel was fairly good. I haven’t read the Ellery Queen book he ghosted, but his two sf mysteries were entertaining.
Aside from the Crippen and Landru collections there was a digest collection of Nick Velvet and Rand stories from Davis (EQMM), two collections of Simon Ark stories, and The Thefts of Nick Velvet from Mysterious Press.
The early Simon Ark stories are excellent examples of what Frank McSherry called the “Janus Solution” where both the straight and the supernatural solution might be true even when the mystery has concluded. Later the Ark character retained his own hint of the uncanny but the stories tended to have strictly mundane (if fiendishly clever) solutions.
Helen McCloy’s Through A Glass Darkly in her Dr. Basil Willing series is a good example of the Janus Solution at novel length.
November 30th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
[…] For Part One of this series, go here. […]