L. M. JACKSON – The Mesmerist’s Apprentice. Arrow Books, UK, paperback reprint, May 2009. Hardcover edition: William Heinemann, UK, May, 2008. No US edition.

   This is the second in a series featuring Sarah Tanner, an enterprising Victorian businesswoman and amateur sleuth, first introduced in A Most Dangerous Woman (2007).

   Mrs. Tanner (as she is known in the London neighborhood where she runs Sarah Tanner’s New Dining and Coffee House) has reopened her establishment after a disastrous fire the preceding year.

   She’s attractive, soft-spoken, and not well known in Saffron Hill, where her aloofness (which is taken for an air of mystery by the gossips) makes her the object of some suspicion.

   When a gang of thieving boys begins to target Sarah’s shop and the near-by butcher’s, she begins a discreet inquiry that convinces her that something more significant than random thieving is involved.

   In the midst of this trouble, a letter arrives from her former lover, now married, asking for her help. She hesitates but eventually meets with him and learns that he is concerned that his mother is being victimized by a nurse who is taking care of her husband in the wake of a disabling stroke that has left him unresponsive.

   When Sarah reluctantly agrees to look into the matter and determine what the nurse’s motives may be, she soon discovers a network of crimes that involves the thieving band whose forays have turned more violent and a mesmerist under whose influence the nurse appears to be working.

   Sarah Tanner is a resourceful investigator who moves easily among the various strata of London society, from the most humble to the aristocratic circle to which her former lover belongs. Her affair with her former lover Arthur DeSalie is revived, but if the investigation may resolve some difficulties, Sarah’s estrangement from her past, momentarily resolved, may not be so easily settled.

   Jackson (who also writes under the name Lee Jackson) has written other books set in Victorian London, a setting in which he and his characters seem perfectly at home. Sarah Tanner is a worthy addition to the roster of female sleuths and the novel’s conclusion suggests that she will return to deal with both old and new concerns.

Bibliographic Data:   In spite of Walter’s closing comment, there appears so far to have been only the two books in the Sarah Tanner series. As by Lee Jackson, the author has written four earlier historical mysteries:

    • London Dust (2003)

The Inspector Decimus Webb, 1870s London series —

    • A Metropolitan Murder (2004)
    • The Welfare of the Dead (2005)

    • The Last Pleasure Garden (2006)

   None of the above has had a US edition, and it is a mystery as to why that should be. Books of similar themes and settings have been gobbled up eagerly on this side of the Atlantic.

   Also by Lee Jackson is The Diary of a Murderer, another Victorian murder mystery novel, but it’s available only online and on Kindle.

J. P. HAILEY – The Anonymous Client. Tor, paperback reprint; 1st printing, August 1993. Hardcover edition: Donald I. Fine, 1989.

   In the real world, the pseudonymous J. P. Hailey is known as Parnell Hall, as you may have already known on your own. Over the course of his writing career Hall has come up with three rather distinct series characters, two under his own name and one as by Hailey.

   First by a year was Stanley Hastings, who first appeared in Detective (Donald I. Fine, 1987) as by Hall. Hastings is an outwardly inept and reluctant private eye who does small-time jobs for ambulance-chasing attorneys. He is also still around, or so it seems, last appearing not so very long ago in Manslaughter (Carroll & Graf, 2003).

   Attorney Steve Winslow, to whom I’ll return in a moment, is the detective of record in the Hailey books, beginning the year after Hastings’ debut with The Baxter Trust (Donald I. Fine, 1988). He seems to have run out of cases to solve, though, since he hasn’t made an appearance in over 13 years now.

   Picking up the slack has been crossword puzzle constructor Cora Felton, who beginning with A Clue for the Puzzle Lady (Bantam, hc, 1999), again as by Hall, has proven to be very popular, solving a long line of detective novels that come out on a regular basis ever since.

   I’ve not read any of them, yet, but the way the elderly Cora Felton has been described, she seems to be a deliberate reverse take-off of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple: crusty, promiscuous, and a lush. (If I have that wrong, please let me know. I’d hate to be sued for defamation of character.)

   Let’s get back to J. P. Hailey, though. Here’s the list of the books in which Steve Winslow is the sleuth of distinction:

The Baxter Trust. Fine, 1988. Lynx, pb, 1989.

The Anonymous Client. Fine, 1989. Tor, pb, 1993.
The Underground Man. Fine, 1990. Forge, pb, 1994.

The Naked Typist. Fine, 1990. No paperback edition.

The Wrong Gun. Fine, 1992. No paperback edition.

   Something is wrong here, very wrong. If a book with a title like The Naked Typist can’t get reprinted in a paperback edition, something is wrong with the world of publishing, totally. In any case, after two hardcovers for which the softcover rights were not sold, that was it, no more, end of series, nor do I know why.

   Sometimes I doesn’t pay to wonder about matters not under your control, only to enjoy what you already have, and enjoyable this book is. To wit:

   Steve Winslow is a lawyer with only one client, a wealthy woman (heiress?) a carry-over from the previous book. I’m not sure how correct I’d be if you were to try to pin me down about the details, but I think I have the wealthy part right.

   In any case, as a result of whatever it was that happened in the previous book, Winslow is now Sheila Benton’s personal attorney. As a result he has a steady income, which is of course a good thing, and he’s also essentially only on call when needed. His secretary Tracy Garvin is so bored with nothing to do that at the beginning of this, the second book, she has just given him two weeks notice.

   She reads mysteries, you see, and working for Steve Winslow is nothing like what happens to Della Street in the Perry Mason books. Not until, that is, the morning mail brings an envelope containing ten thousand-dollar bills as a retainer from a client who deliberately has not signed the note that comes with it.

   It may be difficult to believe, but this creates a big problem. Winslow already has a client, and he cannot act on behalf of this new one in case there is a conflict of interest with the old one.

   He also cannot return the money, because he does not know to whom to give it back. Luckily Winslow knows a private detective whose offices are in the same building, an old buddy named Mark Taylor, and if he doesn’t remind you of Paul Drake, you certainly don’t get out and read those old Erle Stanley Gardner books very often, do you?

   Many complications ensue, and I won’t go into all of them – or any of them, for that matter – but if you were thinking that there’s got to be some really unusual courtroom shenanigans that occur, then you are thinking along exactly the same line that you should be.

   Here is a lengthy quote that I liked, lifted from page 129. It is in one of the aforementioned courtroom scenes, and Winslow is on the stand. (I wonder if Perry ever was, in one of his books – on the stand, I mean.)

   And later on, from page 228:

   So there you have it. I enjoyed the jokes, and I enjoyed the complicated plot. Make that “really enjoyed” and “really complicated.” But I have a couple of comments to make – not guesses, you understand – but just an observation or two:

   Parodies are fine – can this be anything else? – but some people may not like the razzing of their heroes. The F-word was never heard in any of Erle Stanley Gardner’s novels, but it is in this one, and several times over.

   On the other hand, parodies can also fizzle, and badly, when the subject of the parody is no longer very popular or perhaps not even remembered. By the time Steve Winslow’s run of adventures was over, Perry Mason had long since vanished from the bookstore shelves and the TV screen, or very nearly so.

   So maybe this was the reason someone’s interest in the series fell off, whether the publisher’s, the author’s, or the general public’s — or a combination thereof. I enjoyed this one, though, and if your sense of humor is anything like mine, you will too.

[UPDATE] 03-06-10. After a gap of four years, there have been (will be) two more books in the Stanley Hastings series: Hitman (2007) and Caper (2010). There are now 11 books in the “Puzzle Lady” series, with a new one appearing at a rate of about one a year.

   But there have been no more Steve Winslow books, alas.

TRAILL STEVENSON – The Silver Arrow Murder. Herbert Jenkins, UK, hardcover, 1939. No US edition.

   As a way of dying, it was a bit unusual. But there was Philip Delavalle transfixed with nine arrows — one silver, and eight belonging to various members of the local archery club, which had recently expelled Delavalle.

   Was this done by one demented archer, or was the victim the target of lots of his former fellow archers, almost all of whom had reason to despise him and possibly want him dead? And what, if anything, do the missing cocker spaniels have to do with the case?

   Detective Inspector Peter Flemont of New Scotland Yard has to get it all straightened out and isn’t quite up to the challenge. Luckily he discusses his cases with his grandmother, who is a fine little-old-lady armchair detective and who solves the case, though she had rather not.

   I knew who the murderer was, of course. If there isn’t a homicidal tramp to suspect, I always fix my view on the… But you don’t want to know that, do you?

   Despite the presence of Flemont’s grandmother, moderately dull has to be the judgment on this novel.

Editorial Comment: Traill is an unusual first name, and in retrospect I wonder why Bill didn’t comment on it. It turns out that it isn’t the author’s first name at all, and using Hubin as the first resource at hand, an even greater surprise lies in store:

— Bibliographic information:     [Taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin] —

      The Whispering Bird (n.) Nash 1923
      The Diamond in the Hoof (n.) Cassell 1926
      The Island Murder (n.) Jenkins 1936
      Murder at the Bar (n.) Jenkins 1936

      The Nudist Murder (n.) Jenkins 1937

      The Silver Arrow Murder (n.) Jenkins 1939

   There is no indication of a continuing character in any of these books, the title of one of which sounds measurably of more interest than the others. Silver Arrow may have been Inspector Flemont’s solo outing.

   Also of note is that the author wrote at least two western novels in the mid-1950s. I know nothing else about her, nor have I come across cover images for any of the books above.

[UPDATE] Later the same day.   The three cover photos were sent me by Bill Pronzini, who also provided story lines for both Nudist and Bar. You’ll find these in Comment #3. Thanks again, Bill!

   In terms of Breaking News, it appears that much of what was assumed to be true about the author, Traill Stevenson, may not be so true after all, including whether he/she was male or female. Research is being done, even I speak. Stay tuned. You’ll know more as soon as I do.

[UPDATE #2] 03-11-10.   Excerpted from an email from Steve Holland, proprietor of the Bear Alley blog, just about an hour ago:

    “We established that Traill Stevenson was the father, not the daughter: Captain John Traill Stevenson (1889-1968). He was a businessman, living at various times in Glasgow, Birkenhead and Harrow, and stood for as a Liberal candidate for Parliament in the 1920s and for some time was the editor of the Lloyd George Liberal Magazine where it was noted that he had sold his first novel, The Whispering Bird.

    “There’s no indication that his daughter wrote the later novels… It was a simple error based on the initial (J, in her case for Janet). All the evidence points to her father being the author.”

WILL HARRISS – The Bay Psalm Book Murder. Walker & Co., hardcover, 1983. Paperback reprint: Pinnacle, 1985.

   Those are the thoughts that Professor Cliff Dunbar has as he begins investigating the details of Link Schofield’s murder. Schofield’s daughter asks Dunbar to examine the details of her father’s death after the police classify it as “open but unsolved.”

   Dunbar agrees to take a preliminary look, since Link was a close friend and because he faces a great deal of free time. Dunbar’s wife unexpectedly died of cancer several months earlier, and he has resigned his faculty position because of differences with the chairman and doubts about teaching in general.

   Perhaps the most curious aspect of Link’s murder is that the killers took $14.00 from his wallet, yet left the Bay Psalm Book in his hand — a rare book worth $300,000. Cliff’s investigation brings him into dangerous contact with forces that soon spell personal danger.

   The trail leads to Las Vegas, with its blackjack tables and corruption behind the scenes, and California politics with its ruthless campaign tactics. Along the way, Cliff enlists the services of a bright, pretty proofreader named Mona. She provides the professor with a little romantic uplift.

   Winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel of 1983, this book sparkles with style and panache. Harriss has created a delightful mystery that is extremely well-plotted, filled with enjoyable, full-bodied characters, and one that maintains a brisk pace that never falters.

   The first sentence glitters with quality and serves as the first clue that the reader is in store for an award-winning mystery treat!

    Bibliographic Data: [Taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.]

HARRISS, WILL(ard Irvin). 1922-

       The Bay Psalm Book Murder (n.) Walker 1983. [Cliff Dunbar]
       Timor Mortis (n.) Walker 1986. [Cliff Dunbar]

       Noble Rot (n.) St. Martin�s 1993.

   This is Steve speaking. IPL is the short form of a tongue-twister name of a publishing company called International Polygonics Limited. The man behind the company was Hugh Abramson, and the man behind him, working as a series consultant and helping to choose what books to reprint, was Douglas G. Greene, who’s presently the man in charge of Crippen & Landru, publisher of previously uncollected stories of a long list of mystery writers.

   Together, as the head honchos behind IPL, they put together a long run of paperback mystery reprints, with a soupcon of hardcovers and original novels thrown in. Authors such as John Dickson Carr (and his alter ego Carter Dickson), Margaret Millar, Leslie Charteris, Craig Rice, Clayton Rawson, and George Baxt.

   Should I name more? I can, and easily. Ngaio Marsh, Ellery Queen, Jonathan Latimer, Charlotte Armstrong, E. Richard Johnson, and Stuart Palmer. All of the above, and others, were among those with multiple titles offered.

   Impressed? You should be.

   Among the non-mystery titles IPL published were more than a handful by P. G. Wodehouse.

   Several years ago Victor Berch completed a checklist of all of the IPL titles, and you can see it here on the main Mystery*File website. (Click on the link.)

   Note that it’s long enough that it takes two full pages, with a link on the first taking you to the second. Be sure you find your way to both pages.

   This pair of web pages is still being worked on, which is why the checklist has never been announced officially until now. I have many many cover images to add to it, including back covers, and research into some of the non-mystery books remains to be done.

   But as a checklist of the books themselves, they’re all there, with plenty of cover images already included. It also could use a better introduction and overview of the entire IPL operation, but you can consider this a Preview, with more to come, as soon as I can do it.

   To my mind, this is an extraordinary run of paperbacks, but because of limited distribution of the books, few people are as aware of their existence as they should be. This checklist should help remedy that — or at least Victor and I hope so!

   In Murder for Pleasure, the essential 1941 study of the detective story as a literary form, Howard Haycraft listed ten women authors who constituted what he called the “better element”of the so-called HIBK, or Had I But Known, school of mystery fiction, which was founded by Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1958) over three decades earlier with the publication of her hugely popular debut novel, The Circular Staircase (1908).

   The Had I But Known school of mystery fiction, as it was so dubbed by (mostly male) mystery critics after the term was used by Ogden Nash in a satirical 1940 poem, typically included mysteries with female narrators given to digressive regrets over the things they might have done to prevent the novel’s numerous murders, had they only been able to see the dire consequences of their inaction.

   Haycraft’s list of the ten premier Rinehart followers includes several names still fairly well-known to genre fans today, namely Mignon Eberhart, Leslie Ford and Dorothy Cameron Disney, but also more obscure names as well.

   Three of these writers, Charlotte Murray Russell and the sisters Constance and Gwenyth Little, have recently had works reprinted and resultingly undergone some reader revival, but the remaining four, Anita Blackmon, Margaret N. Armstrong, Clarissa Fairchild Cushman and Medora Field, remain almost entirely forgotten.

   Over the next few weeks I plan to highlight genre work by these forgotten HIBK authors. I begin with Anita Blackmon.

   Anita Blackmon (1893-1943) published two mystery novels, Murder a la Richelieu (1937) and There Is No Return (1938). In the United States, both of Blackmon’s mysteries were published by Doubleday Doran’s Crime Club, one of the most prominent mystery publishers in the country.

   Murder a la Richelieu was published as well in England (as The Hotel Richelieu Murders), France (as On assassine au Richelieu) and Germany (as Adelaide lasst nicht locker), while There Is No Return was published in England also (under the rather lurid title The Riddle of the Dead Cats).

   In classic HIBK fashion, Blackmon employed a series character in both novels, a peppery middle-aged southern spinster named Adelaide Adams (and nicknamed “the old battle-ax”).

   In the opening pages of Adelaide Adams’ debut appearance, Murder at la Richelieu, Anita Blackmon signals her readers that she is humorously aware of the grand old, much-mocked but much-read HIBK tradition that she is mining when she has Adelaide declare, “had I suspected the orgy of bloodshed upon which we were about to embark, I should then and there, in spite of my bulk and an arthritic knee, have taken shrieking to my heels.”

   Yet, sadly, Adelaide confides, “there was nothing on this particular morning to indicate the reign of terror into which we were about to be precipitated. Coming events are supposed to cast their shadows before, yet I had no presentiment about the green spectacle case which was to play such a fateful part in the murders, and not until it was forever too late did I recognize the tragic significance back of Polly Lawson’s pink jabot and the Anthony woman’s false eyelashes.”

   Well! What reader can stop there? Adelaide goes on with much gusto and foreboding to relate the murderous events at the Hotel Richelieu, a lodging in a small southern city (clearly Little Rock, Arkansas; see below). Adelaide is a wonderful character: tough on the outside but rather a sentimentalist within, given to the heavy use of cliches yet actually rather mentally acute.

   The life in and inhabitants of the old hotel are well-conveyed, the pace and events lively and the mystery complicated yet clear (and at the same time played fair with the readers). Perhaps most enjoyable of all is the author’s strong sense of humor, ably conveyed through Adelaide’s memorable narration.

   Blackmon clearly knows that HIBK tales frequently are implausible and even silly in their convolutions and she has a a lot of fun with the conventions. Readers should have a lot of fun as well. Murder a la Richelieu emphatically deserves reprinting.

   Blackmon’s follow-up from the next year, There Is No Return, is less successful. This tale finds Adelaide coming to the rescue of a friend, Ella Trotter, embroiled in mysterious goings-on involving spiritual possession at a backwoods Ozarks hotel, the Lebeau Inn (in fact the novel could well have been called Murder a la Lebeau).

   Though Return opens with yet another splendid HIBK declaration in the part of Adelaide ( “As I pointed out, to no avail, when the body of the third disemboweled cat was discovered in my bed, had I foreseen the train of horrible events which settled over that isolated mountain inn like a miasma of death upon the afternoon of my arrival, I should have left Ella to lay her own ghosts”), the novel is less amusing than Richelieu, its character less interesting and its mystery less cogently presented and credible.

   Yet it is still fun to encounter the old battle-ax one final time.

   When Howard Haycraft published Murder for Pleasure in 1941, he clearly classed Blackmon as a major figure in the HIBK school, though she in fact had not published a mystery novel in three years. Two years later Blackmon would die at the age of fifty, and her fiction would be largely forgotten. I have discussed her genre work a bit, but have so far left unanswered this question: who was Anita Blackmon?

   Anita Blackmon was born in 1893 in the small eastern Arkansas town of Augusta. The daughter of Augusta postmaster and mayor Edwin E. Blackmon and his wife, Augusta Public School principal Eva Hutchison Blackmon, both originally from Washburn, Illinois, Anita Blackmon revealed a literary bent from a young age, penning her first short story at the age of seven.

   By all accounts, Blackmon grew up into a vivacious, attractive, outgoing young woman. The future novelist graduated from high school at the age of fourteen and attended classes at Ouachita College and the University of Chicago. Returning home from Chicago, she taught languages in Augusta for five years before moving to Little Rock, where she continued to teach school.

   In 1920, Blackmon left teaching and married Harry Pugh Smith in Little Rock. The couple moved to St. Louis, where Blackmon had an uncle who served as a St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad vice president, and in 1922 Blackmon published the first of what would be over a thousand short stories. Blackmon’s short stories appeared in a diverse collection of pulps, including Love Story Magazine, All-Story Love Stories, Cupid’s Diary, Detective Tales and Weird Tales.

   Blackmon began publishing novels in 1934 with a work entitled Her Private Devil, one that provoked some scandalized talk back in Augusta. Devil was published by William Godwin, a press, as described by Bill Pronzini, that specialized in titillating novels that pushed the sexual envelope of the day.

   Godwin titles by other authors in the writing stable such as Delinquent, Unmoral, Illegitimate, Indecent, Strange Marriage and Infamous Woman give some idea of the nature of most Godwin fiction.

   Blackmon’s book, which detailed the unhappy life of a southern small-town girl who gives into her strong sexual desires, is fairly bold, but by no means a “dirty” book. In actuality it is a serious study of a troubled young woman handled with considerable sensitivity and not especially explicit by today’s standards. Still, the book raised something of a stir in conservative Augusta, with some in the town expressing disapproval.

   Over the next few years Blackmon published traditional, mainstream novels under the name Mrs. Harry Pugh Smith, some of which had been previously serialized, before concluding her run with her two mystery novels, published, like Her Private Devil, under her maiden name.

   The best known of the Mrs. Harry Pugh Smith novels was Handmade Rainbows, a tale of middle class Depression-era life in small southern town very like Augusta. Part of the enjoyment one gets from Blackmon’s better novels stems from the author’s effective depiction of unique southern local color.

   Blackmon’s Murder a la Richelieu clearly is set in Little Rock, where there was in fact a Richelieu Hotel, while There Is No Return is set far in the Ozarks. Certainly many Golden Age mysteries with Arkansas settings do not come to my mind!

   Why Anita Blackmon produced no more Adelaide Adams mysteries in her last five years of life is a mystery itself. Blackmon died after a lengthy illness in a nursing home in Little Rock, where she moved after the death of her husband.

   Perhaps under the circumstances she was not up to plotting and writing another full-length mystery novel, though she is said to have continued writing until shortly before her death. Though Blackmon’s mystery novel output is small, Murder a la Richelieu, at least, merits reprinting as a significant example of an HIBK tale.

   Also worth noting are the many now-unknown short stories that Blackmon wrote, some of which (those published in Detective Tales) might well be of interest to mystery genre fans. Clearly, further delving is in order!

NOTE:   Information on Anita Blackmon’s life was drawn from Woodruff County Historical Society, Rivers and Roads and Points in Between 3 (Fall 1975), pp. 21-22 and interviews with Rebecca Boyles and Virginia Boyles. Special thanks for his generous help to Kip Davis, Augusta City Planner.

     Bibliography    (Short Fiction; Incomplete) —

BLACKMON, ANITA

* * Glory That Flamed, (ss) Four Star Love Magazine Mar 1937
* * The High Heart, (ss) Cupid’s Diary Jun 28 1927
* * Love’s Precious Secret, (ss) Sweetheart Stories Feb 17 1926
* * The Mystery of Tip Top Inn, (sl) Sweetheart Stories Apr 14 1926
* * Under Another’s Name, (ss) Cupid’s Diary Dec 2 1925
* * With Hearts Aflame, (nv) Sweetheart Stories Mar 3 1926

SMITH, MRS. HARRY PUGH

* * Angel Face, (ss) Love Story Magazine Nov 27 1926
* * The Book of Death (nv) Weird Tales, Nov 1924
* * The Burnt Offering (?) Mystery Magazine, Aug 1 1922
* * Carnival Man, (ss) All-Story Love Stories Apr 15 1933
* * Chained [Part last of ?], (sl) All-Story Love Stories Nov 30 1935
* * Cheated, (ss) Cabaret Stories Jan 1929
* * The Colonel’s Daughter, (ss) Sweetheart Stories May 20 1930
* * A Cottage for Two, (ss) All-Story Dec 14 1929
* * The Devil’s Signet, (ss) Love Story Magazine Oct 31 1925
* * Double Motive (?) Detective Classics June 1930
* * Fettered, (ss) Love Story Magazine Sep 25 1926
* * Firecracker Kathy, (nv) All-Story Love Stories Jul 1 1932
* * Flower of Dusk, (ss) Cupid’s Diary Jun 12 1929
* * The Gay Deceiver, (ss) Love Story Magazine Oct 29 1927
* * Ghost Between [Part last of ?], (sl) All-Story Love Stories Feb 16 1935
* * Her Snobbish Dude, (ss) Far West Romances Jan 1932
* * The Hermit (?) Detective Tales Nov 16/Dec 15 1922
* * The Hindu, (ss) Detective Tales Feb 1923
* * An Interrupted Engagement, (ss) Love Story Magazine Dec 18 1926
* * The Jeweled Pin (?) Detective Tales Apr 1924
* * Jezebel, (ss) Breezy Stories Mar #2 1925
* * Little Lost Bride, (ss) Sweetheart Stories Jul 1935
* * Long Live the King!, (ss) Cupid’s Diary Dec 12 1928
* * Love at Last, (ss) Love Story Magazine Jan 2 1926
* * Love by Accident, (ss) All-Story Love Stories Apr 1 1933
* * The Love Fued, (ss) Love Story Magazine Nov 20 1926
* * Love’s Upward Trail, (ss) Love Story Magazine Jul 30 1927
* * The Marriage of Michael Malloy, (nv) All-Story Love Stories Mar 23 1935
* * Marry for Love, (ss) Sweetheart Stories Mar 1937
* * Marry Him If You Dare!, (sl) All-Story Love Stories Jan 30 1937
* * Maybe It’s Love, (sl) All-Story Love Stories Sep 19, Sep 26, Oct 3, Oct 10, Oct 17, Oct 24 1936
* * My Lady’s Dressing-Table, (vi) Breezy Stories Feb 1923
* * Object, Matrimony, (ss) All-Story Love Stories May 15 1933
* * One True Love [conclusion], (sl) All-Story Love Stories Sep 8 1934
* * The One-Track Heart, (sl) All-Story Love Stories Jan 18 1936
* * The Pride of Darcy, (ss) Love Story Magazine Nov 21 1925
* * Ranch Paradise, (nv) Street & Smith’s Far West Romances Jun 1932
* * The Sting of the Scorpion, (ss) Action Stories Feb 1923
* * A Tangled Skein, (ss) Love Story Magazine Mar 27 1926
* * The Town’s Bad Boy, (sl) All-Story Love Stories Mar 13, Mar 20, Mar 27, Apr 3 1937
* * With This Ring, (nv) All-Story Love Stories Jun 15 1932
* * The Yellow Dog (?) Detective Tales Oct 16 1922

SOURCES: The FictionMags Index; Mystery, Detective & Espionage Fiction, 1915-1974, Cook & Miller.

H. W. RODEN – You Only Hang Once. William Morrow, hardcover, 1944. Hardcover reprint: Detective Book Club, 3-in-1 edition, April 1944. Paperback: Dell #104, mapback edition, 1945.

   Another case here for the lack of talents of Sid Ames, private eye. When Johnny Knight, public-relations man, finds a dead lawyer in his office, he calls on Ames.

   Things don’t work out too well with Ames in charge. Later, when Ames and Knight are at a gambling joint where peril looms, Ames proceeds to get drunk and pass out.

   At a meeting with most of the suspects in the lawyer’s murder, Ames gets a message from his office, which his secretary tells to the butler so all can hear. Just in case the possible murderer might have missed something or been slow on the uptake, Knight, a runner-up to Ames in stupidity, reveals that the message was from the deceased lawyer’s paramour. Ames and Knight then deliberately dawdle before going to see the woman. Imagine their surprise to find that someone has strangled her.

   The novel would be funny if it were only humorous.

Bibliographic information:     [Expanded from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin] —

    RODEN, H(enry) W(isdom). 1895-1963. JK= Johnny Knight, SA = Sid Ames.

    You Only Hang Once (n.) Morrow 1944. Dell #104. JK, SA
    Too Busy to Die (n.) Morrow 1944. Dell #185. JK, SA

    One Angel Less (n.) Morrow 1945. Dell #247. SA

    Wake for a Lady (n.) Morrow 1946. Dell #345. JK, SA

SHARON FIFFER – Buried Stuff.

St. Martin’s Minotaur, hardcover, October 2004. Reprint paperback: St. Martin’s, November 2005.

   Fourth in the series featuring Jane Wheel, antiques “picker” and ex-adwoman. This time, Jane is back in Kankakee with her geologist husband and son.

   Bones have been found on the farm of a longtime customer of Jane’s parents at the EZ Way Inn. The family is helping to identify the bones so the farmer can get government clearance to sell topsoil.

   The portrayal of family dynamics is the strongest element of this series, and Buried Stuff delivers that in spades. The decline of Kankakee and the schemes afoot to revive it are also astutely and evocatively described.

   In the final analysis, this small, bittersweet story about a shooting delivers an authentic emotional punch, but it’s not a clever or suspenseful mystery.

        The Jane Wheel Series —

   1. Killer Stuff (2001)

   2. Dead Guy’s Stuff (2002)
   3. The Wrong Stuff (2003)
   4. Buried Stuff (2004)
   5. Hollywood Stuff (2006)

   6. Scary Stuff (2009)

EILÍS DILLON – Death at Crane’s Court. Walker, US, hardcover, 1963. Paperback reprint: Perennial, 1988. Trade paperback: Rue Morgue Press, 2009 (shown). First UK edition: Faber & Faber, 1953.

   To his dismay, George Arrow, of no particular occupation but with a comfortable income, is told by a doctor he consults after he passes out one day that he has a bad heart condition and must avoid most activities and any excitement. A good place to go that meets those exigencies is Crane’s Court, a posh hotel in Galway, Ireland.

   Unfortunately, Arrow discovers that Crane’s Court is actually a hotbed of intrigue. A new owner has inherited the hotel and intends to put the old residents — old in both age and tenure — in their place or cast them out.

   Of course, the old people are up in arms, or at least those who can lift them are. Is it possible they en masse, or one of them a little more agile than the others, plunged a chef’s knife into the new owner? Or maybe it was the dotty old lady who has numerous cats that tend to die before their time and who gets visited by the haunt who built the original Crane’s Court.

   Referring to the elderly inhabitants, Professor Daly says:

   Heresy is about to he committed by this reviewer, and no doubt there shall be moves to have me expunged from the ranks of true mystery fans. Nonetheless, I have to state that this is a fine novel until the murder. When Inspector Mike Kenny arrives to investigate the killing, Arrow and Daly begin to take a back seat and the book then becomes only very good.

Bibliographic Data:   [Taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.]

DILLON, EILÍS.   1920-1994.

       Death at Crane’s Court (n.) Faber 1953.    [Insp. Mike Kenny]
       Sent to His Account (n.) Faber 1954.

       Death in the Quadrangle (n.) Faber 1956.    [Insp. Mike Kenny]

   Why only the three detective novels, in a long career of writing? (She “…was the author of fifty books, ranging from children’s stories to historical novels. She wrote and translated poetry, and had two plays produced by the Abbey Theatre company.”)

   There’s a long account of her life by her son, Cormac Ó Cuilleanáin, at the Rue Morgue Press website, from which the previous excerpt was taken, along with the answer. As a short biography of her, it’s well worth reading.

   The other good news is that all three mysteries have been reprinted by Rue Morgue Press.

WALTER SATTERTHWAIT – A Flower in the Desert. St.Martin’s Press, hardcover; First Edition, 1992. Paperback reprint: Worldwide, November 1993. Trade paperback: University of New Mexico Press, January 2003.

   I’ve always enjoyed Satterthwait’s short fiction but never tried his novels. Bill Crider introduced me to him at some Bouchercon and I picked up this paperback. When a recent trip to Santa Fe came up, I searched for this novel as it is part of Walter’s series featuring Santa Fe private eye Joshua Croft.

   Why did I wait so long? Croft hits all my favorite PI hot points. He’s smart and a good investigator but not infallible. He’s a good guy but he’s got a few hangups. Tough but believable.

   He’s loyal to his girl friend, who in this book is recovering from a gunshot suffered in an earlier book. No girl Friday, she is a brilliant investigator able to dig up facts on the Internet. Of course, it wasn’t called that then as Al Gore had yet to invent it. In the book, it is called searching the “data base.”

   In this book, Croft is searching for the estranged ex-wife and daughter of a Hollywood action star. The woman had accused the actor of child molestation but a judge had found him not guilty. Shortly thereafter, she and their daughter disappeared. The actor, a big Latino star, comes to Croft but he refuses to take the case.

   He finally agrees to work for his uncle, an important underworld figure in Santa Fe, who is willing to support her and the child even if she refuses to come out of hiding.

   Did she go into hiding to protect her daughter or does her disappearance have something to do with her volunteer work for a group helping illegal immigrants? This is a very satisfying novel and a great hero, and I’ve immediately picked up two more in the series.

      The Joshua Croft series —

    Wall of Glass. St. Martin’s, 1987.

    At Ease With the Dead. St. Martin’s, 1990.
    A Flower in the Desert. St. Martin’s, 1992.
    The Hanged Man. St. Martin’s, 1993.
    Accustomed to the Dark. 1996.

NOTE:   Croft also makes an appearance in Lair of the Lizard (St. Martin’s, 1998) a Tony Lowell novel by E. C. Ayres.