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by Caryn Wesner-Early, first appeared in Mystery*File 40, December 2003, and being all of six years old, is surely long out of date by now.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)

   
SUZANNE BLANC – The Green Stone. Carroll & Graf, reprint paperback, 1984. Previous editions: Harper & Brothers, hc, 1961. Detective Book Club, hc, 3-in-1 edition, February 1962. Lancer, pb, 1966.

    “Perhaps it is not prophecy at all but the belief in prophecy that fulfills it…” and destiny that brings certain people together in a given place, at a given time. For Mr. and Mrs. Randall, their destiny is to be murdered on a Mexican highway by bandits. And for Mrs. Randall’s emerald ring to be responsible for the danger and near death of Jessie Prewitt and ruin for Luis Pérez.

    Jessie Prewitt comes to Mexico to flee the painful memories of her broken marriage. Luis Pérez, a tourist guide, hankers after a life of ease and wealth — and feels the possibility brush his fingertips when the beautiful emerald comes into his possession.

    As quickly, police suspicion also brushes against Pérez, and he passes the gem onto Jessie (without her knowledge) when the police come to question him. Pérez intends to reclaim the jewel later — no matter what danger or force results.

    As pressure builds for the police to find the emerald and solve the Randalls’ murder, so does the tension and suspense surrounding Pérez’ determination to regain the gem, and Jessie’s unwitting thwarting of his aim.

    Told from the omniscient viewpoint, Suzanne Blanc creates very human characters, and allows the reader to understand their frustrations, anxieties and pleasures. Like a finely tuned piece of machinery, all the parts of this book work together in unison. The result is an exquisite “gem” of a story — seemingly plain and simple, but full of depth and color when held to the light.

    Don’t neglect this one!

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

        BLANC, SUZANNE. Ca. 1915-1999

    The Green Stone (n.) Harper 1961 [Insp. Miguel Menendes]   Edgar winner: Best First Mystery, 1962.
    The Yellow Villa (n.) Doubleday 1964 [Insp. Miguel Menendes]
    The Rose Window (n.) Doubleday 1967 [Insp. Miguel Menendes]

    The Sea Troll (n.) Doubleday 1969

    Mixing genres is a risky enterprise, and the works I’ll be reviewing in this series blend mystery and science fiction/fantasy with mixed results.

1.)   RANDALL GARRETT – Lord Darcy Investigates.

Ace, paperback original; 1st printing, September 1981.

   Randall Garrett has been writing about Lord Darcy, Chief Investigator for the Duke of Normandy, since 1964. Lord Darcy investigates impossible crimes but the twist is the setting of the stories: an alternate world where magic works while science is looked upon with suspicion.

   The “magic” is actually psi powers developed by the Laws of Magic. The semi-medieval, twentieth-century civilization Garrett develops is convincing both for the primitive science the aristocratic society scorns and for the sophisticated magic most characters possess.

   The interesting point here is that Lord Darcy possesses no psi powers — for that he relies on his sorcerous assistant, Sean O’Lochlainn. Instead, Lord Darcy uses induction and deduction to pull off amazing Sherlockian solutions to the incredible puzzles Garrett presents him with.

   Lord Darcy Investigates is a collection of four novelettes: “A Matter of Gravity,” “The Ipswich Phial,” “The Sixteen Keys,” and “The Napoli Express.”

   In “A Matter of Gravity,” Lord Darcy solves a locked-room murder with a double twist ending. In “The Ipswich Phial,” Lord Darcy becomes involved in an espionage mission featuring a beautiful Polish spy, a murdered British agent, and a missing secret weapon. This is the best story in the volume.

    “The Sixteen Keys” presents the puzzle of a dead man in a house with sixteen locked doors. And “The Napoli Express” has more deception than Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express.

   I highly recommend Lord Darcy Investigates and the other Lord Darcy volumes, Too Many Magicians (Doubleday, 1967; Ace 1981), a novel, and Murder and Magic (Ace, 1979, 1981), a collection of four more novelettes.

      The Lord Darcy series —

* Randall Garrett:

     Too Many Magicians (n.) Doubleday, hc, 1967.
     Murder and Magic (co) Ace, pbo, 1979.

     Lord Darcy Investigates (co) Ace, pbo, 1981.
     Lord Darcy (co) SFBC, 1983. [A omnibus edition containing all of the above plus additional short stories.]

* Michael J. Kurland:

     Ten Little Wizards (n.) Ace, pbo, 1988.

     A Study in Sorcery (n.) Ace, pbo, 1989.

LOREN D. ESTLEMAN – Kill Zone. Mysterious Press, hardcover, 1984. Paperback reprint: Fawcett, 1986.

   In Kill Zone, Loren Estleman, who is best known for his rough-and-tumble, Chandleresque private-eye novels, introduces Peter Macklin, “efficiency expert” — a euphemism for hit man.

   Macklin is the toughest character — hero or antihero — to arrive in crime fiction since Richard Stark’s Parker; and Estleman’ s prose the hardest-boiled since the days of Paul Cain and Cap Shaw’s Black Mask. Macklin and Estleman, in fact, would probably have been too grimly realistic even for the pioneering Shaw and his magazine.

   A terrorist group takes control of a Lake Erie excursion boat with 800 passengers, rigging it as a floating bomb. They demand the release of three prisoners within ten days. Michael Boniface, the head of the Detroit mob, offers his assistance from his prison cell in return for parole, but it is not until the FBI discovers that one of the passengers on the boat is a cabinet member’s daughter that they take him up on it.

   Boniface’s assistance is in the form of his top “efficiency expert,” Peter Macklin. Macklin tries to concentrate on the business at hand while dealing with an alcoholic wife, the knowledge that someone close to him has betrayed him, and the fact that he is being stalked by a killer working for Charles Maggiore, acting head of the mob, who does not want Boniface to get out of prison.

   Estleman takes an expertise previously displayed in PI and western novels (one of his westerns, Aces and Eights, won the Western Writers of America Golden Spur Award for Best Novel of 1982) and in applying it to a different type of novel has once again scored high marks.

   Fans of hard-boiled fiction won’t want to miss it — or subsequent Peter Macklin titles: Kill Zone is the first of at least three.

         ———
   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.

    Bibliographic Data: There was a long delay between the first three and the fourth and fifth:

       The Peter Macklin series:

Kill Zone (1984)
Roses Are Dead (1985)
Any Man’s Death (1986)

Something Borrowed, Something Black (2002)
Little Black Dress (2005)

LOREN D. ESTLEMAN – Angel Eyes. Houghton Mifflin, hardcover, 1981. Paperback reprints: Pinnacle, 1984; Fawcett Crest, 1987; Ibooks, 2000.

   As is the case with all good private eyes, Amos Walker is a man with an unswerving code of honor. When his client, a girl singer with unforgettable eyes, disappears, as she had predicted she would, shaking him from the case is as easy as sneaking a steak from a hungry dog.

   The scene is Detroit, and union politics combine with and merge inevitably into the background of a city in slow decay. To perk things up and to keep the case moving, Estleman is a current master of the well-tuned metaphor. He is also better at mood than he is at plot, and there is enough plot in the second half of the story to choke a full-grown horse.

   The longer the trail becomes, the more it insists on turning incestuously back upon itself. Not surprisingly, there are also plenty of guns to go around.

Editorial Comment: This is the second book in Loren Estleman’s “Amos Walker” series. How many of the PI series being written when he began are still being written today? That’s “enough said” to say it all.

   The Amos Walker series:

Motor City Blue (1980)

Angel Eyes (1981)
The Midnight Man (1982)
The Glass Highway (1983)

Sugartown (1984)
Every Brilliant Eye (1985)
Lady Yesterday (1987)

Downriver (1988)
General Murders: Ten Amos Walker Mysteries (1988)
Silent Thunder (1989)

Sweet Women Lie (1990)
Never Street (1996)
The Witchfinder (1998)
The Hours of the Virgin (1999)

A Smile on the Face of the Tiger (2000)
Sinister Heights (2002)
Poison Blonde (2003)
Retro (2004)
Nicotine Kiss (2006)

American Detective (2007)
The Left-Handed Dollar (2010)