MARY (THERESA ELEANOR) HIGGINS CLARK, author of some 50 plus crime and suspense novels died yesterday, January 31, 2020, at the age of 92. Her sales, in the millions of copies, must rank her as being among the greatest of any recent or current writer in the field.

   Theatrical films have been made of the following novels: A Stranger Is Watching (1982), Where Are the Children? (1986), Lucky Day (2002) , and All Around the Town (2002), and dozens more have been adapted into made-for-TV films.

   The following bibliography has been taken from the Fantastic Fiction website:

      The Alvirah and Willy series —

   [A lottery winner and her husband use their winnings to solve crimes.]

1. Weep No More, My Lady (1987)

2. The Lottery Winner (1994)
3. All Through The Night (1998)
4. Deck the Halls (2000) (with Carol Higgins Clark)
5. The Christmas Thief (2004) (with Carol Higgins Clark)
6. Santa Cruise (2006) (with Carol Higgins Clark)
7. Dashing Through the Snow (2008) (with Carol Higgins Clark)
8. I’ll Walk Alone (2011)
9. The Lost Years (2012)
10. As Time Goes By (2016)
11. All By Myself Alone (2017)

      The Regan Reilly series (with Carol Higgins Clark)

   [Regan Reilly is a private investigator based in Los Angeles.]

Deck the Halls (2000)

The Christmas Collection (2006)
Santa Cruise (2006)
Dashing Through the Snow (2008)

      The “Under Suspicion” series —

   [Laurie Moran is a producer on the television series ‘Under Suspicion’, a documentary program which investigates unsolved cold cases.]

1. I’ve Got You Under My Skin (2014)

2. The Cinderella Murder (2013) (with Alafair Burke)
3. All Dressed in White (2015) (with Alafair Burke)
4. The Sleeping Beauty Killer (2016) (with Alafair Burke)
5. Every Breath you Take (2017) (with Alafair Burke)
6. You Don’t Own Me (2018) (with Alafair Burke)

       Other Novels —

Aspire to the Heavens (1960) aka Mount Vernon Love Story (non-criminous)
Where Are the Children? (1975)

A Stranger Is Watching (1978)
The Cradle Will Fall (1980)
A Cry in the Night (1982)
Stillwatch (1984)
While My Pretty One Sleeps (1989)
Loves Music, Loves to Dance (1991)
All Around the Town (1992)
I’ll Be Seeing You (1993)
Remember Me (1994)
Pretend You Don’t See Her (1995)
Let Me Call You Sweetheart (1995)
Silent Night (1995)
Moonlight Becomes You (1996)
You Belong to Me (1998)
We’ll Meet Again (1998)
Before I Say Good-Bye (2000)
On the Street Where You Live (2000)
He Sees You When You’re Sleeping (2001) (with Carol Higgins Clark)
Daddy’s Little Girl (2002)
The Second Time Around (2003)
Nighttime Is My Time (2004)
No Place Like Home (2005)
Two Little Girls in Blue (2006)
I Heard That Song Before (2007)
Where Are You Now? (2008)
Just Take My Heart (2009)
The Shadow of Your Smile (2010)
Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting (2013)
Inherit the Dead (2013) (with C J Box, Lee Child, John Connolly, Charlaine Harris, Jonathan Santlofer and Lisa Unger)
The Melody Lingers on (2015)
I’ve Got My Eyes on You (2018)
Kiss the Girls and Make Them Cry (2019)

   Seven issues of Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine were published sporadically between 1996 and 2000.

ALLEN K. YOUNG “Reflection on Murder.” Short story. Professor Posenby #2. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, October 1968. Presumably never reprinted.

   The tenth rule of Ronald Knox’s Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction says that “twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.” This second of several stories Alan K. Young wrote about retired poetry and code expert Professor Ponsby (no first name known) takes this rule head on and makes an excellent story out of it.

   It doesn’t in any way break the rule, since the fact that Tom and Barnaby Varden are twins is stated up front with no denying it. There is also no denying that one of them murdered their uncle, but which one? Almost no one can tell them apart, so eye witnesses to the fact that one was seen leaving the house at the time of murder are of no value.

   What’s more, the other brother was seen at a boxing match the next town over at the time of the murder, gives one of the two an unshakeable alibi. But which one was which?

   Totally sure that no jury would ever convict either one “beyond a shadow of a doubt,” they boastfully send the following poem to the harried police chief, who comes to Ponsby with it. I hope you can read it:

   I believe I have read another story with exactly the premise, but without the poem, and yet, if so, I do not remember where I read it or who wrote it. You may be able to figure it out — all the clues are there — but I am chagrined to say I didn’t. This is a puzzle story only, with only a cursory attempt at characterization, but as such it’s exceedingly well done. It’s like admiring a solidly constructed crossword puzzle at the end of the week in the New York Times. I enjoyed it immensely.

   It probably won’t ever happen, but Young wrote enough Ponsby stories to put together a very decent collection. I’d buy it!

NOTE: Alan K. Young’s papers regarding his short story writing are stored at Columbia University. A short desription of the collection says that the author “is a former junior-college English instructor, with a B. A. in English from Harvard and an M. A. in the same subject from the University of California.”

       The Professor Ponsonby series —

Letter from Mindoro (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Mar 1968
Reflection on Murder (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Oct 1968
The Secret of the Golden Tile (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Jun 1969
Ponsonby and the Shakespeare Sonnet (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Oct 1969
Ponsonby and the Dying Words (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Aug 1970
Ponsonby and the Classic Cipher (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Dec 1971
Child’s Play (vi) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Jan 1972
Ponsonby and the Ransom Note (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Jun 1972
To See Death Coming (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Apr 1973
Truth Will Out (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Jun 1974
Incident on a Bus (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Feb 1975

     —

PostScript:   Since most you are not likely to ever read this story, I will give you a big hint as to the solution in Comment 1. Don’t read it until you’ve either given up or you want to know if the answer you’ve come up with is correct or not.

Added later: A full explanation is given in Comment #2.

REX BURNS – Blood Line. Gabe Wager #10. Walker, hardcover, 1995. No paperback edition.

   And yet another hardboiled writer moves down publishers’ economic row. Walker is picking up some good writers, and I hope it pays off for them. Buns’ stories of the Denver policeman have gotten a good bit of critical acclaim,but evidently not the requisite sales.

   Gabe Wager has a 13 year-old black male dead in what looks like a gang killing, and a young cousin a victim of what he’s afraid is the same disease. To add to his problems, a convicted felon that he shot in self-defense has filed a civil suit against him from prison. Life’s never simple in the big city, especially for a Hispanic cop.

   This seems to me to be of a piece with Burns’ earlier Wager books — a good solid police novel. He does a nice job of blending characterization with the procedural, and of working in the Denver background. Wager has become a well-developed character over the course of the series. Denver must be a lot different than Dallas, though, if a police sergeant could have even a close friendship that was common knowledge with a lady councilperson.

   I think Burns does about as good a job as anyone of writing “small” nitty-gritty police novels, and I’m glad that someone will still buy them.

       The Gabe Wager series —

1. The Alvarez Journal (1975)
2. The Farnsworth Score (1977)
3. Speak for the Dead (1978)
4. Angle of Attack (1979)
5. The Avenging Angel (1983)
6. Strip Search (1984)
7. Ground Money (1986)
8. The Killing Zone (1988)
9. Endangered Species (1993)
10. Blood Line (1995)
11. The Leaning Land (1997)

CHARLES ALVERSON, who died several days ago (January 19th), had a relatively minor career in the world of crime fiction, but his two books about San Francisco-based PI Joe Goodey struck me as being very done, both solidly in the Raymond Chandler tradition. After reading the two of them, I was constantly on the lookout for the third, but alas, it never turned out to be.

   Quoting from his first book (*), here’s the first paragraph:

   And from the second:

   According to Wikipedia, after deciding perhaps that mystery writing wasn’t going to pay the bills, Alverson Alverson was managing editor of the British environmentalist magazine Vole, financed by Terry Jones of Monty Python, and was co-screenwriter of Terry Gilliam’s film Jabberwocky, and was co-developer of the story and co-writer (uncredited) of the first draft of the screenplay that became Brazil (1985).

(*) This quote and the one following are included in Dick Lochte’s long essay on Joe Goodey you can find on the Thrilling Detective website.

        The Joe Goodey series —

Goodey’s Last Stand. Houghton Mifflin, 1975

Not Sleeping, Just Dead. Houghton Mifflin, 1977

    Plus one crime-related standalone novel:

Fighting Back. Bobbs Merrill, 1973

   Noted TV journalist and news anchor JIM LEHRER died today at the age of 85. Of his many other accomplishments, which will most assuredly be included in the many obituaries appearing now online and again in tomorrow’s newspapers, he also wrote a good many works of crime fiction, most of which I seem to have missed knowing about for all these years.

   The first series of note are the light-hearted adventures of One-Eyed Mack, Oklahoma’s lieutenant governor, who solves mysteries in his spare time. Lehrer also wrote two books about Charles Avenue Henderson, a former CIA agent who wants nothing more to do but retire in peace and quiet, , but who finds that actually doing so is not as easy as he thought.

      The One-Eyed Mack series —

Kick the Can. Putnam 1988

Crown Oklahoma. Putnam 1989
The Sooner Spy. Putnam 1990
Lost and Found. Putnam 1991
Fine Lines. Random House 1994
Mack to the Rescue. University of Oklahoma Press, 2008.

    The Charlie Henderson series —

Blue Hearts. Random House 1993. ISBN 0-679-42216-1.

Purple Dots. Random House, 1998.

      Crime-related standalone novels include —

The Special Prisoner. Random House, 2000.
The Franklin Affair. Random House, 2003.
Top Down: A Novel of the Kennedy Assassination. Random Houose, 2013.

   W. GLENN DUNCAN passed away on May 7th of last year. He was the author of six books about a PI named Rafferty (no first name known). Rafferty, whose home base was Dallas TX, was definitely in the Spenser tradition, but with a Gold Medal sensibility. if that makes sense. (All of his books were paperback originals published by Fawcett Gold Medal. )

   Rafferty is also known for the set of Rules he lives by, and many of them are quoted throughout his adventures. (See below.)

        The Rafferty series —

Rafferty’s Rules (1987). Film: Cinepix, 1992, as Snake Eater III: His Law.
Last Seen Alive (1987)
Poor Dead Cricket (1988)
Wrong Place, Wrong Time (1989)

Cannon’s Mouth (1990)
Fatal Sisters (1990)

   — By W. Glenn Duncan, Jr.

False Gods (2018)

        Rafferty’s Rules, as compiled by Kevin Burton Smith

2) Be lucky. (Wrong Place, Wrong Time)

3) If you’re going to be stupid, see rule number two. (Wrong Place, Wrong Time)

3) When all else fails, sit on your duff and await good news…

5) If a client can afford it, he — or she — pays top dollar.

6) Don’t forget the money.

7) Anxious clients who smile too much are usually trouble.

8) The client has to say out loud what he wants me to do. (Rafferty’s Rules)

8) When in doubt, raise hell and see who complains about the noise. (Last Seen Alive)

9) Dull won’t balance the checkbook.

11) Don’t worry about what’s right, worry about what’s possible.

11) To feel really dumb, be a smart ass once too often. (Wrong Place, Wrong Time)

12) Selling people is antisocial.

13) Get the money up front.

16) When you can’t tell the bad guys from the good guys, it’s time to get the hell out. (Wrong Place, Wrong Time)

17) Never take a client at face value.

18) Ribs should be eaten naked.

19) When you can’t tell the bad guys from the good guys, it’s time to get the hell out. (Wrong Place, Wrong Time)

20) Any hunch so strong that it hurts just has to be right. (Cannon’s Mouth)

21) Grow up and grow old.

22) Don’t skulk. You can get away with anything if you act like you’re supposed to be doing it.

23) You show me a man who always “fights fair” and I’ll show you a man who loses too often.

27) In one way or another, every client lies. (Even Rafferty isn’t sure if this is #27 or not.)

28) Hot coffee and nudity don’t mix. If you spill, it hurts.

33) Always obey your friend, the police man.

34) Sometimes good luck accomplishes more than hard work. (Rafferty’s Rules)

34) When in doubt, dodge. (Wrong Place, Wrong Time)

34) Clients always hold back something back. (Last Seen Alive)

35) If a client appears to be telling you everything, see rule #34. (Last Seen Alive)

39) Smiting the wicked sounds biblical, but mostly it’s good clean fun.

41) When someone mentions how good something “could” be, they’re really telling me how lousy that something is.

47) Wear steel-toed boots when kicking people on their bony parts.

   Sarah Andrews, her husband Damon and son Duncan died in a plane crash that occurred last July 24th. She was the author of eleven mystery novels featuring forensic geologist Em Hansen. Andrews herself had a BA in geology and an MS in Earth Resources from Colorado State University.

       The Em Hansen series —

1. Tensleep (1994)

2. A Fall in Denver (1995)
3. Mother Nature (1997)
4. Only Flesh and Bones (1998)

5. Bone Hunter (1999)
6. An Eye for Gold (2000)
7. Fault Line (2002)

8. Killer Dust (2003)
9. Earth Colors (2004)
10. Dead Dry (2005)

11. Rock Bottom (2012)

   Plus one additional book in what may have been intended to be the start of another series, this one featuring Val Walker, a master’s student in geology:

In Cold Pursuit (2007)

PHILIP DePOY – Sidewalk Saint. CPS officer Foggy Moscowitz #4. Severn House, hardcover, December 2019. Setting: Florida.

First Sentence: It doesn’t take long to wake up when there’s a gun in your face.

   Nelson Roan demands that Child Protective Services agent Foggy Moscowitz find his 11-year-old daughter Etta. He’s not the only one looking for her. It seems Etta has perfect memory and knows something she shouldn’t. How do you convince a bunch of bad guys that not even Etta doesn’t know what that is? It’s up to Foggy to find her and keep her safe until he can figure out how to neutralize the danger to Etta permanently.

   Talk about an effective hook. This is not a book where you read a paragraph for a quick try, planning to sit down with it later. This is a book where you read the first sentence and keep reading. The case is intriguing. One wants to know where it’s going, and the plot twists start very early on.

   DePoy not only captures your attention, but his unique descriptions bring the characters to life– “His skin was grey, and his eyes were the saddest song you ever heard, times ten.” His use of language is wonderful– “The camp seemed to have a life of its own. It wasn’t just the leftover smells, cook fires, swamp herbs and tobacco. It was like an eerie echo was still reverberating around the concrete walls. Like old conversations were still hanging in the air. Like ghosts were wandering free.”

   As for Foggy, DePoy informs readers of who he is, his background, and how he got where he is and eventually, the meaning of the book’s title. Foggy’s philosophy may make one think– “I was always a big believer in is. Not should be, or ought to. Is. That’s very powerful, because it is the only reality. Whatever it is you were doing, that was the only thing that truly existed. Everything else was a fantasy.”

   Foggy also makes an insightful self-observation– “To me that was the weird thing about having a reputation as a good guy. Too many people expected me to be good. Which I wasn’t especially. I was just a guy trying to make up for what he’d done wrong.” A nice explanation of the title helps one to understand Foggy better.

   DePoy’s characters, on both sides of the law, are far from ordinary, which is a large part of the appeal. They are quirky, interesting, capable and surprising. His children are refreshingly smart, capable, and astute– “You know you’re too smart for your own good, right?’ I suggested. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. That’s my main problem.” He really does write some of the best dialogue.

   There is a nice element of mysticism. It doesn’t overwhelm the plot, but instead, it adds another interesting layer too it. In a way, it balances the bad stuff. The turns this story takes are more dizzying than a state fair teacup ride. Not just any author can come up with a plot point to destroy a mobster and his business via a phone call

   Sidewalk Saint is a fun, twisty book filled with quirky, unique characters. There’s violence, but minimal on-page death, but the story also gives one plenty of ideas to consider.

Rating:   Good Plus.

       The Foggy Moskowitz series —

1. Cold Florida (2015)
2. Three Shot Burst (2016)
3. Icepick (2018)
4. Sidewalk Saint (2019)

GEORGE P. PELECANOS – Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go. Nick Stefanos #3. St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1995. Back Bay Books, trade paperback,July 2011.

   I started the last Stefanos book, Shoedog, but couldn’t get into it and gave up. I’d forgotten why, though, so I gave this one a shot because of the title.

   Nick Stefanos is a PI and pat-time bartender in Washington, DC, He’s an alcoholic, too. One night he ends up down by the river at the end of M Street, passed out in the weeds. He comes to early the next morning,just enough and in time to hear a black man and a white man execute someone, who turns out to be a young black man.

   It’s not something he can forget or let alone, and he begins a journey that ends with more death, and leaves a trail of empty bottles and shattered lies.

   A few things come quickly about this one. First, it’s a great title. Second, I don’t like “heroes” who are as generally screwed up in the head as Stefanos is. Third, Pelecanos writes a mean, effective, dark brand of prose.

   All of which says, I guess, that he is a very good writer, but I don’t like what and who he writes about. I got awfully tit=red of the gulp-by-gulp, bottle-by-bottle accounts of Stefanos’s drinking, and of his repeated pissing in the street.

   I never had much of a taste for noir fiction, and if this isn’t that, it’s close. Nasty stuff, well done, and I think I’ll pass on the next course, thank you very much.

      The Nick Stefanos series —

A Firing Offens.St. Martin’s 1992.
Nick’s Trip.St. Martin’s 1993.
Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go. St. Martin’s 1995.
The Big Blowdown. St. Martin’s 1996. (*)
King Suckerman. Little 1997. (*)
The Sweet Forever (1998) (*)
Shame the Devil. Dennis McMillan 1999.
Soul Circus (2003) (*)
Hard Revolution (2004) (*)

   (*) May be only cameo appearances.

Mike Resnick, who died yesterday or early today, was primarily known as a science fiction and fantasy author, editor and publisher, accumulating many significant awards over the years, but he wrote in many other categories as well, including mystery fiction.

   Here is his entry in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin:

RESNICK, MIKE [i.e., Michael Diamond Resnick] (1942-2019)

Eros at Zenith (n.) Phantasia 1984 [Future]
Santiago (n.) Tor 1986 [Future]
Stalking the Unicorn (n.) Tor 1987
Neutral Ground (ss) The Further Adventures of Batman, ed. Martin H. Greenberg, Bantam 1989 [Batman]
Origins (ss) Dick Tracy: The Secret Files, Max Allan Collins & Martin H. Greenberg, Tor 1990 [Dick Tracy]
Second Contact (n.) Easton 1990 [2065]
Museum Piece (ss) The Further Adventures of the Joker, ed. Martin H. Greenberg, Bantam 1990 [Batman]
Dog in the Manger (n.) Alexander 1995 [Cincinnati, OH]
Sherlock Holmes in Orbit [ed. with Martin H. Greenberg] (oa) DAW 1995 [Sherlock Holmes]
The Adventure of the Pearly Gates (ss) Sherlock Holmes in Orbit, ed. Mike Resnick & Martin H. Greenberg, DAW 1995 [Sherlock Holmes]
-The Widowmaker (n.) Bantam 1996 [Future; Jefferson Nighthawk (The Widowmaker)]
Mrs. Vamberry Takes a Trip (Vamberry the Wine Merchant) (ascribed to J. Thorne Smith) (ss) Resurrected Holmes, ed. Marvin Kaye, St. Martin’s 1996 [Sherlock Holmes]
-The Widowmaker Reborn (n.) Bantam 1997 [Future; Jefferson Nighthawk (The Widowmaker)]
-The Widowmaker Unleashed (n.) Bantam 1998 [Future; Jefferson Nighthawk (The Widowmaker)]

   The dash indicates perhaps only marginal criminous content, but for completeness, there was one additional Widowmaker story:

4. A Gathering Of Widowmakers (2006)

   From the Fantastic Fiction website:

   “The Widowmaker, the consummate bounty hunter-has been frozen for a century in order to defeat a deadly disease. Only now the cost of his care has risen, so the Widowmaker is called out of retirement for one special commission…”

    And two additional private eye Eli Paxton mysteries:

1. Dog in the Manger (1997)
2. The Trojan Colt (2013)
3. Cat on a Cold Tin Roof (2014)

   The following may qualify as criminous in nature:

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
1. The Amulet of Power (2003)

   Anthologies he edited of possible interest to mystery readers include:

Whatdunits (1992)
More Whatdunits (1993)
Alternate Outlaws (1994)
Sherlock Holmes in Orbit (1995) (with Martin H Greenberg)
Down These Dark Spaceways (2005)
Alien Crimes (2007)

   If you’re more familiar with Resnick’s many other novels, anthologies and collections than I, and know of others that qualify as crime or mystery fiction, please tell us about them in the comments.