FREDERICK C. DAVIS – Another Morgue Heard From. Doubleday Crime Club, US, hardcover, 1954. Hardcover reprint: Detective Book Club, 3-in-1 edition, Jan 1955. Digest-sized paperback reprint: Bestseller Mystery B192 (abridged), no date stated [1956]. Published in the UK by Victor Gollancz, 1955, hc, as Deadly Bedfellows as by Stephen Ransome.

   In response to an appeal from a boyhood friend, Luke Speare, of the Cole Detective Agency, goes to Lake Haven in an unknown state to investigate he knows not what. Under protest, his boss, Schyler Cole, always uncomfortable outside of New York City and demanding the noisiest hotel room in the small town so he will be able to get to sleep, accompanies him.

   Speare’s friend is running a political campaign and has been receiving anonymous phone calls about some major problem. But is the problem political or personal? The friend won’t say, the friend’s estranged wife lies and tries to get Speare and Cole to return to New York, and then murder occurs.

   At one point Cole says: “Every woman is a special case, all right, and that’s for sure. Everyone of them thinks of herself as an exception, and what’s more she is.” The politician’s wife fits this description, and without her silence two murders and an attempted murder would not have taken place.

   A good investigation here, though not strictly fair play. Most enjoyable is Cole, who heads the two-man agency of which Speare is the brains. Cole would have pulled out of this investigation early on if he hadn’t been afraid he’d lose Spear and have to start doing some work himself.

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

         SCHYLER COLE and LUKE SPEARE:

       o The Deadly Miss Ashley (n.) Doubleday 1950.

       o Lilies in Her Garden Grew (n.) Doubleday 1951.

       o Tread Lightly, Angel (n.) Doubleday 1952.
       o Drag the Dark (n.) Doubleday 1953.

       o Another Morgue Heard From (n.) Doubleday 1954.
       o Night Drop (n.) Doubleday 1955.

PAULINE GLEN WINSLOW – The Witch Hill Murder. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1977. UK edition: Collins Crime Club, hc, 1977 (shown). Hardcover reprint: Detective Book Club, 3-in-1 edition, March-April 1978. Trade paperback reprint: St. Martin’s, 1983.

   Winslow has created a religious community, Siderea, complete with charismatic founder, Noah Hightower, and his Army of the Stars, mostly populated by young people. It has taken over Witch Hill Manor on the edge of the little town of Daines Barington, and threatens to overrun the village.

   The youthful leaders, angry because the town counsellors have refused them permission to erect another building on the manor site, see Town Clerk Richard Brewster as their preeminent enemy and send him threatening letters.

   Superintendent Merle Capricorn is called in privately by his old friend, widowed Rose Lavendar, who is engaged to marry Brewster. While he is downplaying her concern, a murder does take place and the Sidereans are the first suspects.

   But nothing is as simple as it seems. A number of people, both from the manor and from the town, are involved in some way. So is Brewster’s dead stepmother, Lucrezia, who has left her mark on his stepsister as well as on their home.

   This is a satisfying book, with considerable depth in its characters and an interesting display of contrasting environments. My only caveat is that Siderea seems all too obviously a takeoff on Scientology, and the sympathetic treatment of Siderea may or may not sit well with readers.

Bibliographic Data: Ms. Winslow has 15 novels listed in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. Of these, six are cases solved by her one series detective, Supt. Capricorn, whom I suspect has been forgotten by all by the most dedicated of detective mystery fans:

CAPRICORN, SGT. (Supt.) MERLIN

       o Death of an Angel (n.) Macmillan 1975
       o The Brandenburg Hotel (n.) Macmillan 1976

       o The Witch Hill Murder (n.) Collins 1977
       o Coppergold (n.) Collins 1978
       o The Counsellor Heart (n.) Collins 1980
       o The Rockefeller Gift (n.) Collins 1982

JEREMY LANE – Death to Drumbeat. Phoenix Press, hardcover, 1944. Paperback reprint: Black Knight #17, no date stated [1946].

    Whitney Wheat, Lane’s series character, is a psychiatrist who also detects. In this novel his patient, a publisher and we know what they are like, hears drums, apparently portending his own death. Attempting a cure through a means that I didn’t quite understand when it was originally proposed and still don’t when all has ostensibly been cleared up, Wheat takes his patient to the estate of Humber Jacks.

    An authority on Indian Drums, Jacks is a wealthy man with an income of $25,000 a month but who rents out rooms at $1 a night to tourists and makes sure he gets the takings. He also has an ill-assorted household. After Wheat’s and the publisher’s arrival, murder occurs.

    Since my consciousness was recently raised, I make it a point to avoid novels in which the county attorney is gormless or corrupt, and sometimes both. But it was awhile before the county attorney appeared in Lane’s novel, and I continued reading, though I ignored the politician’s failings — alas, such are the absurdities one encounters in fiction — to find out if Lane was going to make sense of anything in the book.

    He doesn’t. Oh, he explains things; of course, that is not the same thing as making sense.

    For those who are interested in such matters, the narrator of the novel, on an intellectual level with the county attorney, has the same name as the author.

Bibliographic Data: The following checklist is taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin:

LANE, JEREMY. 1893-1963. Note: Dr. Whitney Wheat appears in those titles indicated with an asterisk (*).

    Like a Man (n.) Washburn 1928.
    The Left Hand of God (n.) Washburn 1929.
    * Death to Drumbeat (n.) Phoenix 1944.
    * Kill Him Tonight (n.) Phoenix 1946.

    * Murder Menagerie (n.) Phoenix 1946.

    * Murder Spoils Everything (n.) Phoenix 1949.

STEVE BERRY – The Charlemagne Pursuit.   Ballantine; paperback reprint, November 2009. Hardcover edition: Ballantine Books, December 2008.

    I don’t think I could make you believe how much in awe I am of authors who can write mystery thrillers that are over 530 pages long, and in one of those new oversized paperback formats to boot.

    I enjoy reading them too – all those characters, both major and minor; plots and subplots – even though they take me almost two weeks of semi-steady reading to get through them.

    Definition: semi-steady. Fifty to sixty pages a night, sometimes nearly a hundred, especially when the end is in sight.

    I did not know that The Charlemagne Pursuit is the fourth of Steve Berry’s books that a fellow named Cotton Malone, a former Justice Department agent, is in, nor did I need to, but it was at least somewhat clear that he had been through the mill like this before. By the mill, I mean finding himself in next to non-stop adventure, although not all of the action involves him. At a full 500 pages’ worth, if it did, he’d be huffing and puffing like all get out when this one ends, and lo and behold, The Charlemagne Pursuit ends exactly where The Paris Vendetta (2009, with a brief preview provided) begins.

    This one involves some history (Charlemagne’s court and some historical documents found relating thereto); some leftover business left over from the World War II and the Cold War (a Nazi submarine landing in Antarctica, a US submarine trapped under the Antarctic ice in 1971); and some current day ideas about the possibility of a master race and civilization that lived in early historic times – before the Romans, before the Greeks, before the Phoenicians, before everybody.

    And the spark that kindles the whole affair: Cotton Malone’s father was one of the men aboard the experimental sub who died in it when it sank, and whose death has been covered up ever since – by whom, and why?

    There are a lot of deaths that occur along the way (but none terribly gory), many of them orchestrated by someone still in power in the US, and the others by a pair of maniac-obsessive sisters whose father and grandfather (a former Nazi) left them an heritage of secrets, but about what they do not know.

    There is also plenty of action, as if I hadn’t said (or hinted at) before. I kind of wish it hadn’t all ended quite so abruptly, but even the longest of 530 page thrillers have to end sometime. If I haven’t made myself clear until now, I wouldn’t have minded if it had been longer.

       The Cotton Malone series —

1. The Templar Legacy (2006)

2. The Alexandria Link (2007)
3. The Venetian Betrayal (2007)
4. The Charlemagne Pursuit (2008)
5. The Paris Vendetta (2009)

LES ROBERTS – An Infinite Number of Monkeys. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1987. Paperback reprint: St. Martin’s, 1988.

   This is the novel that won Roberts the award in St. Martin’s “First Private Eye Novel Contest” back in 1986, and by and large, it’s a good one.

   The leading character is a part-time actor named Saxon, who is also a full-time PI, which is more than OK as a gimmick, because Hollywood is always in need of another private eye. Lots of good stories in them there hills.

   His client in this particular adventure is pulp-paperback writer Buck Weldon, a throwback to the Mickey Spillane’s earliest days, and somebody is trying to kill him. Keeping Saxon’s interest at its highest peak is Weldon’s beautiful daughter Tori. (For some reason, I pictured a youthful Raquel Welch in the role, which you have to admit, makes for a very nice picture.)

   I have to admit the ending surprised me a little, and it shouldn’t have, which is the sign of a perfect detective story, or very nearly so. Saxon needs to have some of his cruder edges sandpapered away, though. As a ladies’ man, he’s too obvious, and besides that, he talks too much. Be subtle, man!

Bibliographic Data:   Monkeys was Les Roberts’ first book, and there were six in all that Saxon appeared in (see below). Roberts has written another 14 books about Cleveland-based PI Milan Jacovich, so far, the most recent of which being King of the Holly Hop (2008). One stand-alone novel (The Chinese Fire Drill, 2001) plus one short story collection (The Scent of Spiced Oranges, 2002) complete his resume to date.

       The “Saxon” series:

1. An Infinite Number Of Monkeys (1987)
2. Not Enough Horses (1988)

3. A Carrot For The Donkey (1989)
4. Snake Oil (1990)

5. Seeing The Elephant (1992)
6. The Lemon Chicken Jones (1994)

    This list of Christmas mysteries, compiled by Caryn Wesner-Early, first appeared in Mystery*File 40, December 2003, and being all of six years old, is surely long out of date by now. Don’t that dissuade you from finding one or more of these to read over the next twelve days or so!

Adamson, Lydia. A Cat in the Manger
Adamson, Lydia. A Cat in the Wings
Adamson, Lydia. Cat on Jingle Bell Rock
Adamson, Lydia. A Cat Under the Mistletoe
Adrian, Jack. Crime at Christmas: A Seasonal Box of Murderous Delights
Alexander, David. Shoot a Sitting Duck
Allen, Garrison et al. Murder Most Merry
Allen, Michael. Spence and the Holiday Murders
Atherton, Nancy. Aunt Dimity’s Christmas
Babson, Marion. The Twelve Deaths of Christmas
Baker, Nikki. Long Goodbye
Barron, Stephanie. Jane and the Wandering Eye
Beaton, M.C. A Highland Christmas
Bernhardt, William. The Midnight Before Christmas
Black, Gavin. A Dragon for Christmas
Blades, Joe and Jeffrey Marks, eds. A Canine Christmas
Blake, Nicholas. The Corpse in the Snowman
Borthwick, J.S. Dude on Arrival
Boylan, Eleanor. Pushing Murder
Braun, Lillian Jackson. The Cat Who Turned On and Off
Braun, Lillian Jackson. The Cat Who Went Into the Closet
Brett, Simon. Christmas Crimes at Puzzle Manor
Cameron, Eleanor. The Mysterious Christmas Shell (children’s)
Cavanna. Betty. The Ghost of Ballyhooly (children’s)
Christian, Mary Blount. Sebastian (Super Sleuth) and the Santa Claus Caper (children’s)
Christie, Agatha. Hercule Poirot’s Christmas (Murder for Christmas, A Holiday for Murder)
Churchill, Jill. A Farewell to Yarns
Churchill, Jill. The Merchant of Menace
Clark, Carol Higgins. Iced
Clark, Mary Higgins. All Through the Night
Clark, Mary Higgins. Silent Night
Clark, Mary and Carol Higgins. Deck the Halls
Constantine, K.C. Upon Some Midnight Clear
Corcoran, Barbara. Mystery on Ice
Cornwell, Patricia. From Potter’s Field
Cornwell, Patricia. Scarpetta’s Winter Table
Cramer, Kathryn and David G. Hartwell (eds.) Christmas Ghosts
Crowleigh, Ann et al. Murder Under the Tree (anthology)
Daheim, Mary. The Alpine Christmas
Daheim, Mary. Nutty As a Fruitcake
Dalby, Richard, ed. Crime for Christmas (anthology)
Dalby, Richard, ed. Mystery for Christmas (anthology)
D’Amato, Barbara. Hard Christmas
Davidson, Diane. Tough Cookie
Daws, Jeanne M. The Body in the Transept
Dawson, Janet. Nobody’s Child
Delaney, Joseph. The Christmas Tree Murders
Dobson, Joanne. Quieter Than Sleep
Douglas, Carole Nelson. Cat in a Golden Garland
Drummond, John Keith. ‘Tis the Season to Be Dying
Duffy, James. The Christmas Gang
Eberhart, Mignon G. Postmark Murder
Egan, Lesley. Crime for Christmas
Elkins, Aaron. A Deceptive Clarity
Emerson, Kathy Lynn. Face Down Upon an Herbal
Erskine, Margaret. House of the Enchantress
Faglia, Leonard and David Richards. 1 Ragged Ridge Road
Fairstein, Linda. The Deadhouse
Farrell, Kathleen. Mistletoe Malice
Ferrars, E.X. Smoke Without Fire
Ferris, Monica. A Stitch In Time
Fletcher, Jessica and Bain, Donald. A Little Yuletide Murder
Fletcher, Jessica and Bain, Donald. Murder She Wrote: Manhattans and Murder
Flynn, Brian. The Murders Near Mapleton
Foley, Rae. Where is Mary Bostwick?
Frazier, Margaret. The Servant’s Tale
Gano, John. Inspector Proby’s Christmas
Godfrey, Thomas, ed. Murder for Christmas (2 vols. – anthology)
Goodman, Jonathan, ed. The Christmas Murders (anthology)
Grafton, Sue. E Is for Evidence
Granger, Anne. A Season for Murder
Greeley, Andrew M. The Bishop and the Three Kings
Greenberg, Martin H., ed. Holmes for the Holidays
Greenberg, Martin H., ed. More Holmes for the Holidays
Greenberg, Martin H. and Carol-Lynn Rossel Waugh, eds. Santa Clues (anthology)
Grimes, Martha. The Man With a Load of Mischief
Gunn, Victor. Death on Shivering Sand
Haddam, Jane. Festival of Deaths (Hanukkah)
Haddam, Jane. Not a Creature Was Stirring
Haddam, Jane. A Stillness in Bethlehem
Hager, Jean. The Last Noel
Hall, Robert Lee. Benjamin Franklin and a Case of Christmas Murder
Hardwick, Richard. The Season to Be Deadly
Hare, Cecil. An English Murder
Harris, Charlaine. Shakespeare’s Christmas
Harris, Lee. The Christmas Night Murder
Hart, Carolyn. Sugarplum Dead
Hart, Ellen. Murder in the Air
Hay, M. Doriel. The Santa Klaus Murder
Heald, Tim, ed. A Classic Christmas Crime (anthology)
Healy, Jeremiah. Right to Die
Hemlin, Tim. A Catered Christmas
Hemlin, Tim. If Wishes Were Horses…
Hess, Joan. A Holly, Jolly Murder
Hess, Joan. O Little Town of Maggody
Heyer, Georgette. Envious Casca
Hirsh, M.E. Dreaming Back
Holland, Isabelle. A Fatal Advent
Holmes for the Holidays (anthology)
Hunter, Fred. Ransome for a Holiday
Hunter, Fred. ‘Tis the Season for Murder: Christmas Crimes
Iams, Jack. Do Not Murder Before Christmas
Innes, Michael. Christmas at Candleshoes
Jaffe, Jody. Chestnut Mare, Beware
Jahn, Michael. Murder on Fifth Avenue
Jordan, Cathleen. A Carol in the Dark
Jordan, Jennifer. Murder Under the Mistletoe
Kane, Henry. A Corpse for Christmas (Homicide at Yuletide)
Keene, Carolyn. A Crime for Christmas (children’s)
Kelner, Toni L.P. Mad As the Dickens
Kelly, Mary C. The Christmas Egg
Kitchin, C.H.B. Crime at Christmas
Koch, Edward I. and Wendy Corsi Staub. Murder on 34th Street
Langton, Jane. The Shortest Day
Lake, M.D. Grave Choices
Lambert, Elisabeth. The Sleeping House Party
Lewin, Michael Z. Family Planning
Lewis, Gogo and Seon Manley, eds. Christmas Ghosts (anthology)
Livingston, Nancy. Quiet Murder
McBain, Ed. And All Through the House
McBain, Ed. Downtown
McBain, Ed. Sadie When She Died
McClure, James. The Gooseberry Fool
McGown, Jill. Murder at the Old Vicarage
McKevett, G.A. Cooked Goose
MacLeod, Charlotte, ed. Christmas Stalkings (anthology)
MacLeod, Charlotte. Convivial Codfish
MacLeod, Charlotte, ed. Mistletoe Mysteries (anthology)
MacLeod, Charlotte. Rest You Merry
Mallowan, Agatha Christie. A Star Over Bethlehem and Other Stories
Manson, Cynthia, ed. Christmas Crimes (anthology)
Manson, Cynthia, ed. Murder Under the Mistletoe (anthology)
Manson, Cynthia, ed. Mystery for Christmas and Other Stories (anthology)
Markham, Marion M. The Christmas Present Mystery (children’s)
Maron, Margaret. Corpus Christmas
Marsh, Carole. Christmas Tree Mystery
Marsh, Ngaio. Tied Up in Tinsel
Meier, Leslie. Christmas Cookie Murder
Meier, Leslie. Mail Order Murder
Meier, Leslie. Mistletoe Murder
Meredith, D.R. Death By Sacrilege
Meredith, David William. The Christmas Card Murders
Meyers, Annette. These Bones Were Made for Dancin’
Miers, Earl. The Christmas Card Murders
Mortimer, John Clifford, ed. Murder at Christmas (anthology)
Moyes, Patricia. Who Killed Father Christmas? and Other Unseasonable Demises
Muller, Marcia. Both Ends of the Night
Muller, Marcia. There’s Nothing to Be Afraid Of
Murder Most Merry (anthology)
Murder Under the Tree (anthology)
Murray, Donna Huston. The Main Line is Murder
Nordan, Robert. Death Beneath the Christmas Tree
O’Marie, Sister Carol Anne. Advent of Dying
O’Marie, Sister Carol Anne. Murder in Ordinary Time
Page, Katherine Hall. Body in the Bouillon
Peters, Ellis. Monk’s Hood
Pulver, Mary Monica. Original Sin
Queen, Ellery. The Finishing Stroke
Raphael, Lev. Burning Down the House
Ray, Robert J. Merry Christmas Murdock
Resnick, Mike and Martin H. Greenberg, eds. Christmas Ghosts (anthology)
Robb, J.D. Holiday in Death
Roberts, Gillain. The Mummers’ Curse
Robinson, Peter. Past Reason Hated
Ruell, Patrick. Red Christmas
Sawyer, Corrine Holt. Ho-Ho Homicide
Serafin, David. Christmas Rising
Shannon, Dell. No Holiday for Murder
Sibley, Celestine. Spider in the Sink
Smith, Barbara Burnett. Mistletoe from Purple Sage
Smith, Barbara Burnett et al. ‘Tis the Season for Murder
Smith, Frank. Fatal Flaw
St. John, Wylly Folk. The Christmas Tree Mystery (children’s)
Trochek, Kathy Hogan. Midnight Clear
Waugh, Carol-Lynn Rossel, ed. The Twelve Crimes of Christmas (anthology)
Weir, Charlene. A Cold Christmas
Welk, Mary V. A Deadly Little Christmas
Williams, David. Murder in Advent
Windsor, Patricia. Christmas Killer
Windsor, Patricia. A Very Weird and Moogly Christmas
Wingfield, R.D. Frost at Christmas
Witting, Clifford. Catt Out of the Bag
Wolzien, Valerie. Deck the Halls with Murder
Wolzien, Valerie. ‘Tis the Season to Be Murdered
Wolzien, Valerie. We Wish You a Merry Murder
Woolley, Catherine. Libby’s Uninvited Guest

    In the letter column for Mystery*File 43, Jeff Meyerson added the following:

Agatha Christie, “The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding” (title novella in ss collection)
Agatha Christie, “Christmas Adventure” in While the Light Lasts (apparently the original, shorter version of the above).
Georges Simenon, “Maigret’s Christmas” (title story in ss collection)
Bill Crider, Terence Faherty, Wendi Lee, Aileen Schumacher, Murder, Mayhem and Mistletoe (paperback original; four Christmas-related stories)

    [ Jeff goes on to say: ]

    Caryn should also be aware of a very entertaining pamphlet published in 1982 by Albert Memendez called Mistletoe Malice: The Life and Times of the Christmas Murder Mystery (Silver Spring, MD, Holly Tree Press). The 35 pages goes through various Christmas mysteries and includes a checklist of 89 books, of which about 60 (at fast glance) are not on Caryn’s list. I think the majority of her list is post-1982 titles.

    [ Later. ]   These are the ones not listed on Caryn Wesner-Early’s list in M*F 40. Obviously, most of these are older books, while much of the list in M*F consists of books published since Mistletoe Malice was published in 1982.

Anthony Abbot, About the Murder of a Startled Lady
” ” About the Murder of Geraldine Foster
North Baker, Dead to the World
W. A. Ballinger, A Corpse For Christmas
Charity Blackstock, The Foggy, Foggy Dew
Nicholas Blake, Thou Shell of Death
” ” The Smiler With the Knife
Carter Brown, A Corpse for Christmas
Leo Bruce, Such is Death (Crack of Doom)
W. J. Burley, Death in Willow Pattern
Thomas Chastain, 911
Noel Clad, The Savage
Constance Cornish, Dead of Winter
Alisa Craig (Charlotte MacLeod), Murder Goes Mumming
Joel Dane, The Christmas Tree Murders
Frederick C. Davis, Drag the Dark
Mildred Davis, Tell Them What’s Her Name Called
” ” Three Minutes to Midnight
Spencer Dean, Credit for a Murder
Carter Dickson (John Dickson Carr), The White Priory Murders
“Diplomat”, The Corpse on the White House Lawn
Todd Downing, The Last Trumpet
Francis Duncan, Murder for Christmas
Mary Durham, Keeps Death His Court
Jefferson Farjeon, Mystery in White
Elizabeth X. Ferrars, The Small World of Murder
Ian Fleming, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
Rae Foley, The Hundredth Door
Leslie Ford, The Simple Way of Poison
Roger Gouze, A Quiet Game of Bambu
Dulcie Gray, Dead Giveaway
Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man
Lee Hays, Black Christmas
Edith Howie, Murder for Christmas
John Howlett, The Christmas Spy
Cledwyn Hughes, The Inn Closes For Christmas (He Dared Not Look Behind)
Fergus Hume, The Coin of Edward VII
Alan Hunter, Landed Gently
Michael Innes, A Comedy of Terrors (There Came Both Mist and Snow)
Glenn Kezer, The Queen is Dead
Kathleen Moore Knight, They’re Going to Kill Me
Alfred Lawrence, Columbo: A Christmas Killing
Ted Lewis, Jack Carter’s Law
Richard Lockridge, Dead Run
Miriam Lynch, Crime for Christmas
Ed McBain, The Pusher
” ” Ghosts
Helen McCloy, Two-Thirds of a Ghost
” ” Mr. Splitfoot
” ” Burn This
Anne Nash, Said With Flowers
Stuart Palmer, Omit Flowers
Jack Pearl, Victims
Ellery Queen, The Egyptian Cross Mystery
Patrick Quentin, The Follower
M. P. Rea, Death of an Angel
Jonathan Stagge, The Yellow Taxi
Elizabeth Atwood Taylor, The Cable Car Murder
Laurence Treat, Q as in Quicksand
Charles Marquis Warren, Deadhead

    If your favorite seasonal mystery (or mysteries) is (are) not here, that’s what the comments box is for!

DAVID OSBORN – Murder on the Chesapeake. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1992; Paperback reprint: Zebra; 1st printing, May 1993.

   I don’t much care for prologues, as some of you may recall, and after reading the one in this book, it was very nearly all I read. Kids get murdered often enough in real life that they don’t have to get murdered in mystery stories too — if that’s all it is, a mystery story.

   Or to be more specific: A young teen-aged girl is murdered in the prologue of this book, strangled and thrown off a balcony with a rope around her neck. And in some detail.

   She’s a student in one of those exclusive preppy girls’ schools whose inhabitants love to torment the weaker of the species, and that’s the kind of life Mary Hughes led. Poor but intelligent and talented. No wonder she never fit in.

   After an investment of $3.99 into the paperback edition, it’s tough to give upon a book after only 14 pages, and so, no, I didn’t quit.

   As a writer, though, David Osborn bites off a bit more than he should have, I think. Telling the story is his leading character, Margaret Barlow, a sporty 55, a grandmother of a teenager, and a hot air balloonist, among other things that fall into the category of larger than life.” Her granddaughter, who calls her Margaret, is also a student at Brides Hall.

   Nothing much else happens until page 164, on which a second murder is discovered. It’s a messy one — the victim is found sliced in half by an elevator, “dragging out her intestines and eviscerating her but unable to pull all of her down… ”

   Come on. Who needs this? The rest of the detective story is weak, but I found this scene — let me speak plainly here — absolutely useless. Tasteless and trite — it’s a tough combination.

Bibliographic Data: While David Osborn wrote a number of other books which are included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, including Open Season (1974), which was made into a film starring Peter Fonda, John Phillip Law and Richard Lynch, Margaret Barlow was his only series character.

      The Margaret Barlow series:

         Murder on Martha’s Vineyard (n.) Lynx, hc, 1989.

         Murder on the Chesapeake (n.) Simon, hc, 1992.
         Murder in the Napa Valley (n.) Simon, hc, 1993.

H. PAUL JEFFERS – Murder on Mike. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1984. Ballantine, reprint paperback, 1988. Júcar, Colección Etiqueta Negra nº21, 1987, Barcelona, as Muerte al micrófono.

   A small but persistent trend in recent years is the retrospective private-eye novel — the nostalgic adventures of PI’s operating in the Thirties and Forties, contemporary recreations of a bygone era.

   Andrew Bergman, Stuart Kaminsky, and Max Allan Collins have each done quite well with Chandleresque heroes of this sort; judging from the two Harry McNeil novels published to date — Rubout at the Onyx Club (1982) and Murder on Mike — H. Paul Jeffers will, too.

   McNeil is a very likable character, “an ex-cop who’s now a private investigator who’d prefer nothing better than to play clarinet with a top jazz band and leave the detective work to better guys,” a shamus who uses his head and his legs and his heart in lieu of violence. Harry McNeil, “the help of the hopeless.”

   It is a few days before Christmas, 1939. Harry is in his office above the Onyx Club on Fifty-Second Street, New York City. Enter Maggie Skeffington, a radio actress on “Detective Fitzroy’s Casebook” on the Blue Network (NBC).

   A few days earlier, Derek Worthington, the star of the show and a man heartily disliked by his co-workers, was shot to death in Studio 6B at Radio City; and Maggie’s boyfriend, announcer David Reed, has been arrested for the crime. Maggie is convinced that David is innocent, even though he is the only member of the cast and crew who does not have an airtight alibi for the time of the shooting.

   Harry takes the case, of course. And meets the various suspects: J. William Richards, owner of the Mellow-Gold Coffee Company and the show’s sponsor; Miles Flanagan, the producer; Veronica Blake, the head writer (with whom Harry later has an affair); Jason Patrick, Worthington’s costar; Rita DeLong, an aging musician; Guff Taylor, the engineer; and Jerry Nolan, the expert sound-effects man.

   Any of the lot might have killed Worthington — except for those alibis. The key to cracking the case lies with young Robby Miller, a Radio City tour guide, who heard the fatal shot fired through a studio mike someone inadvertently left open and who has turned up missing….

   The mystery here is lightweight but entertaining — until its resolution. The final unmasking, which Harry brings about in Studio 6B on Christmas day with the aid of a self-written radio script, is far-fetched and highly derivative of a famous novel by a certain popular Golden Age writer.

   That part of Murder on Mike is disappointing. Still, there is Harry. There is New York at Yuletide 1939, “a city for dreamers because it was a city that could make dreams come true,” a city full of fascinating real-life characters — Winchell, Woolcott, Ed Sullivan, and comedian Fred Allen (both of whom have speaking parts), dozens more.

   There is an equally fine evocation of the world of dramatic radio (a subject Jeffers knows intimately: He works for a Manhattan radio station). And there is a nice, old-fashioned flavor to the narrative, a feeling that you are reading a combination of whodunit and bittersweet private-eye romance written in 1939.

         ———
   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.

H. PAUL JEFFERS, R. I. P. (1934-2009). According to a short online obituary in the Pottstown (PA) Mercury, H. Paul Jeffers died on Friday, December 4th, in Manhattan.

   Besides his fictional work (see below), in the 60s he was a Fulbright Scholar in the 1960s and reported from Vietnam with Peter Jennings. He later wrote news for WINS, WABC, WNBC, and WCBS, all in New York City. His non-fiction work included books on history, Westerns and biographies, including books on Theodore Roosevelt and Sherlock Holmes.

   The covers and titles of the books below may give you an idea of the wide range of his interests. If his non-fiction were to be included, the range would be even wider.

   The Harry MacNeil series:

      1. Rubout At the Onyx (1981)
      2. Murder On Mike (1984)
      3. The Rag Doll Murder (1987)

   The Morgan western series:

      1. Morgan (1989)
      2. Blood On the Nueces (1989)
      3. Texas Bounty (1989)

   The Sergeant John Bogdanovic series:

      1. A Grand Night For Murder (1995)
      2. Reader’s Guide to Murder (1996)

      3. Corpus Corpus (1998)

   The Arlene Flynn series:

      1. What Mommy Said (1997)

   The Nick Chase series, as by Harry Paul Lonsdale

      1. Where There’s Smoke, There’s Murder (1999)
      2. Smoking Out a Killer (2000)

      3. Up in Smoke (2001)

   The Kate Fallon series, as by M. T. Jefferson

      1. In the Mood for Murder (2000)

      2. The Victory Dance Murder (2000)
      3. Decorated for Murder (2002)

    Other Novels:

      Adventures of the Stalwart Companions (1981)

      Murder Most Irregular (1983)

      Portrait in Murder and Gay Colours (1985)
      Gods and Lovers (1989)
      Secret Orders (1989)
      Owlhoot Trail (1990)
      Tombstone Revenge (1991)
      The Forgotten Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (2005)
      The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Stalwart Companions (2010)

BABETTE HUGHES – Murder in Church.  D. Appleton-Century, hardcover, 1934.

   Sir Arthur Quinn is a famous astrophysicist who is the bane of the religionists. He had shown “the theologians to be charlatans, religions to be apologies, and his more cautious confreres to be opportunists.”

   Besides that, he is given to amorous intrigues, mushrooms for breakfast, and the sucking of fruit lozenges. It is the latter habit, possibly combined with the second, that brings about his death as he rather uncharacteristically attends Sunday services at St. Barnabas Church. Someone had coated several lozenges with muscarin, a poison that is derived from mushrooms.

   Among the possibilities for the distinction of bumping him off are President Radford of the Western Institute of Technology, a pompous oaf who tries vainly to reconcile religion and science; Yozan Saijo, a Japanese physicist whom Quinn has insulted; Quinn’s “sexless” wife who worships him despite his philandering; a professional dancer whose movements were harsh and whose interpretations were grotesque and often venomous, and who had been one of many of Quinn’s inamoratas; George Coburn, Quinn’s valet, an ex-English jockey who sports a black eye given him by Quinn; a fanatically religious Russian technician, and others too numerous to mention.

   Quinn had religious, scientific, and personal enemies, it seems.

   Ian Craig, professor of Oriental literature at Stanford and frequent quoter of the aphorisms of Ti Li, is the amateur investigator. He gained some little renown when he solved the case chronicled in Murder in the Zoo (1932), another academic mystery.

   This is one of the selections in “The Tired Business Man’s Library,” chosen to “afford relaxation and entertainment for everyone interested in Adventure and Detective Fiction.” Murder in Church meets that goal, but only barely.

    Bio-Bibilographic Data. [Taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.]

HUGHES, BABETTE (Plechner).   1906-??   Born and resident in Seattle; graduate of University of Washington; wife of playwright Glenn (Arthur) Hughes; author of numerous one-act plays.

       Murder Murder Murder. French, pb, 1931. One-act play.
       Murder in the Zoo. Appleton, 1932. [Prof. Ian Craig]
       Murder in Church. Appleton, 1934. [Prof. Ian Craig]

SHELLEY SINGER – Following Jane. Signet, paperback original; 1st printing, March 1993.

   I suppose everybody in the crime-reading world has wondered — momentarily, at least? — what it would be like to throwaway your day job and become a licensed PI. (Or unlicensed. In a dream world, who cares about technicalities?)

   Here’s a book in which Barrett Lake, female, 40 and an unmarried high school teacher, does exactly that. When one of her students suddenly disappears, two weeks after a bloody knife murder in the supermarket where she works, Barrett asks the PI investigating the case (the disappearance, not the murder), if she could be of assistance. Surprisingly — or maybe not — he says yes.

   Of course the murder and the disappearance are connected, and Barrett quickly discovers she has a knack for her new job. Not that the case takes much Sherlock Holmesian deductive ability — only slog-it-out detective work. Her mentor, Francis “Tito” Broz, stays intriguingly in the background, and I agree — he’s of far more interest there than if he played any other role in discovering what happened to Jane.

   While Shelley Singer is a good writer, she’s not quite good enough to disguise the fact that this first case of Barrett Lake’s is little more than fluff. Nonetheless, in spite of the more-than-hints of the double-edged threats of incest and child abuse, she makes the pages fly by in rapid sequential fashion.

   Barrett’s next case will be Picture of David, coming next October.

      The Barrett Lake series:

    1. Following Jane (1993)
    2. Picture of David (1993)

    3. Searching for Sara (1994)
    4. Interview With Mattie (1995)