Wed 17 May 2017
A 1001 Midnights Review: EDWARD D. HOCH – The Thefts of Nick Velvet.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Reviews[3] Comments
by Bill Pronzini
EDWARD D. HOCH – The Thefts of Nick Velvet. Mysterious Press, hardcover, 1978. A limited edition of 250 copies was also published in slipcase, numbered and signed by the author, adding the story “The Theft of the Persian Slipper.”
The best of Edward D. Hoch’s short stories are divided more or less equally among five outstanding series characters: Police Captain Leopold, whose cases are generally of the procedural variety; Rand, the retired spy, who is an expert at solving difficult codes and ciphers; Dr. Sam Hawthorne, a New England country doctor who solves “impossible” rural mysteries in the 1920s and 1930s; Simon Ark, a shadowy figure who claims to be a 2000 year-old Coptic priest and whose detections are tinged with elements of the occult; and Nick Velvet (born Velvetta, but he dropped the last two letters because the name sounded too much like a popular cheese), a master thief with a peculiar code of honor — he will risk his life and freedom to steal any object, no matter how impossible the challenge, so long as the item has no monetary value.
This quirk alone makes Nick Velvet unique among crime-fiction protagonists, and also makes for some highly unusual, even bizarre, challenges to his professional expertise. “The Theft of the Clouded Tiger,” for instance, in which he is hired (he works by assignment only) to swipe a tiger from a zoo, Or “The Theft of the Silver Lake Serpent,” in which a hotel owner pays him to steal a sea serpent out of a small Canadian lake.
Or “The Theft from the Empty Room,” in which Nick is evidently hired to steal nothing at all. Some of Nick’s adventures turn into fair-play whodunits in which he is forced to play detective; in others, it is the baffling motives behind the odd things he is asked to purloin that keep the reader guessing; and in still others it is the question “How in the world can Nick possibly accomplish that theft?”
No matter what type of story it happens to be, it is certain to be wonderfully inventive and entertaining. Hoch’s mastery of the criminous short story is evident in every one of the thirteen entries in this collection.
Nick Velvet shares one other collection (with Rand, the retired spy): The Spy and the Thief (1971), which has seven stories featuring each character. Simon Ark appears in three collections: The Judges of Hades and City of Brass, both published in 1971, and The Quests of Simon Ark (1985). Also published in 1985 was the first Captain Leopold collection, Leopold’s Way, which contains nineteen stories and a useful checklist.
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Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007. Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.
May 17th, 2017 at 4:27 pm
In spite of some very good stories I’ve read in the other series that Bill mentions, I think that overall the Nick Velvet stories are my favorites.
I met Mr. Hoch when he was a Guest of Honor at a PulpFest convention, and got to talk to him for a few minutes. He was modest but happy to talk to a reader and fan of his for many years.
I even suggested a possible story to him: Have Nick Velvet hired to steal a coverless western pulp from the 50s from the convention’s security guarded dealers’ room overnight. He smiled and said he’d think about it.
May 17th, 2017 at 10:18 pm
Hoch’s best series by far, and I say that as a Rand and Ark fan. With one or two exceptions from the Leopold series, these are by far his best stories.
May 17th, 2017 at 10:42 pm
I did an interview with Mr. Hoch in the August 2004 issue of Mystery*File (#45), and later posted it online at https://mysteryfile.com/Hoch.html . Here’s one Q and A that seem relevant:
Q: I recall that such a series [a TV series starring Nick Velvet] has been proposed off and on for several years, and I think we all hope someday it will finally come to fruition. Let’s go into the realm of utmost fantasy now. Would you care to suggest the ideal movie and/or TV actors and actresses that you would like most to play Nick or any other of your series characters?
A: More than twenty years ago when a Broadway producer held the Nick Velvet option, she suggested Ben Gazzara for the part. It was a good idea at the time, but I wouldn’t want to suggest anyone to play Nick or my other characters now. The television business is such that casting is dependent upon things like the budget and the age bracket at which the show is aimed. If Nick ever makes it on the air I certainly won’t mind if he’s young and handsome, even if that’s not how I picture him.
***
I don’t recall many suggestions in reply to this interview question, but here are two:
“In the letter column for M*F 46, Marv Lachman suggested the late Barry Sullivan as the ideal actor to play Nick Velvet. I countered with my own choice of Timothy Dalton.”