Phyllis A. Whitney’s books have been great favorites of mine for as long as I remember. I discovered her juvenile mysteries about the same time that I discovered her adult suspense novels, and I read both groups of books with great pleasure. Growing up on a farm in Mississippi, I did all my world-traveling in those days through books. Miss Whitney took me to far-flung, exotic places that I could never hope to go on my own, and after I read one of her books I felt I had been to those locales, if only for a brief while.

   I found her address in a reference book, back in 1983, and I wrote her the first fan letter I ever wrote to an author. Within ten days, I received a reply. What she had to say in that letter told me that she had read my letter and thought about what I had to say, and I was touched by the time she obviously took to respond.

   Later on I had the great pleasure of meeting her in person, twice. First was in 1988 at the Edgar Awards Banquet; Miss Whitney had been named Grandmaster for that year. I found my way to her table before the festivities started, clutching one of my favorite of her books (Emerald, in case anyone is curious), and rather shyly introduced myself and told her how much pleasure she had given me over the years through her books. Her face lit up, and she was obviously so delighted by talking to a reader, she charmed me completely.

   I saw her again a few years later at Malice Domestic, and Dorothy Cannell (another big fan of hers) and I stood in line waiting to get books signed, happily discussing our favorites. Once again, when I had the chance to speak to her, I received that same beaming smile and obvious joy she had when talking to readers. She was over 90 by that time, and her body might have been frail, but her mind was still razor-sharp. She delighted many people that day during the panel she did at Malice.

   Sometime last year I decided it was time to reread some of her work, and I was just as enthralled with it as I had been when I read the books for the first time. Despite the fact that she was (by this time) considerably older than her heroines, she had this uncanny ability to understand what hurdles young women of that particular decade were facing and write credibly about them.

   She told me in her letter, back in 1983, that the reason she had stopped writing historical novels was that she was far more interested in the problems of women of the present, and I think she did it with great compassion and understanding. Emerald is a prime example of this.

   Phyllis A. Whitney was a wonderful storyteller, and I will always relish the time I spent reading her books, and the times to come when I will read them again.

   I have both Gold Medal versions of The Name of the Game is Death, but I don’t have the Black Lizard version to compare them to. However, some time ago, I posted this comparison, so perhaps [from this] you can tell us which BL used:

   I recently found a copy of the 1962 The Name of the Game is Death. I haven’t read it yet, but I have compared it to the copy I already had [which was] “Copyright 1962, 1972 … Printed in the United States of America, January 1962/January1973”

   The story is exactly the same. The earlier one has one extra chapter, but that is only because the later edition combines Chapters VIII and IX. However, the book has been extensively rewritten, from first page to last. The language of the earlier one is a bit more clipped, more “just the facts” simple sentences, but longer paragraphs.

   Here are two examples. The first two paragraphs from 1962:

   From 1973:

   So it’s close, but subtly different.

   And the last chapter, from 1962:     [SPOILER ALERT]

   And from 1973:

   Again, same content, slightly different presentation. Nothing had to be changed to make it a series. As a matter of fact, the prologue in my copy of One Endless Hour (March 1969/January 1973) begins with yet another close, but not quite the same, version of the last chapters of The Name of the Game. I don’t have the Vintage edition, so I can’t tell you which version they used, one of these or yet another one.

   Thanks for your question on the two versions of The Name of the Game Is Death.

   There are indeed two versions, both published as Fawcett Gold Medals. The original one was published in 1962, and the revised version was published in 1973. It is sometimes said that the 1973 version is a “toned-down” version, but, with a couple of exceptions, that really isn’t true. In fact, it’s basically just a rewrite with some different phrasing, paragraph structure, etc.

   The significant differences in the story in the two versions, and they are rather subtle, have to do with a couple of passages in which the main character discusses his sexuality with his new girlfriend, Hazel Andrews. In the 1962 version, the character appears to be a bit more uncertain about his heterosexuality than he does in the 1973 version.

   Also, in the 1962 version, there’s the implication that killing turns him on, which is removed from the 1973 version. The change probably was made to make the character fit more closely the “secret agent” Drake character readers knew by then, one who was sexually potent and a tough guy, but not a wanton killer.

   The Black Lizard edition actually is a re-issue of the 1962 version, so you’ve read the story as Marlowe originally wrote it.

CYRIL HARE – The Christmas Murder.

Mercury Mystery 190; digest paperback reprint. No date stated, but circa 1953. Original title: An English Murder. British hardcover edition: Faber & Faber, 1951; US hardcover: Little Brown & Co., 1951. Other paperback reprints: Penguin, UK, 1956, 1960; Perennial, US, 1978; Hogarth Crime, UK, 1986; House of Stratus, UK, 2001.

   This is not a difficult book to find, in other words, if all you want is a copy to read. Even so, the only cover image I’ve been able to come up with is the one I discovered last week in a stack of previously unsorted digest paperbacks beside my desk. It’s a throwback to the Golden Age of Detection, in terms of plot, but the setting and general ambiance – postwar England – has the players at odds with each other for reasons not usually associated with the previously mentioned Golden Age.

   Post-war England was in a stage of upheaval, with the lower classes beginning to feel that the upper classes perhaps need not always be bowed down to, and politicians on either side – and politics in general – were becoming more strident as a consequence. Clashes between various segments of society (the aristocracy vs. the radical socialists, for example) were growing more common, including (it appears) between the old, who remembered pre-war traditions, and the young, who did not. (Not to mention the young who simply wished the old would step aside, having had their day.)

   Neither of Cyril Hare’s most commonly used series characters makes an appearance in this novel. Inspector Mallet was in six of the author’s nine novels. Francis Pettigrew, an elderly and somewhat embittered barrister was in five of them, with an overlap of three in which they both appeared. If this sounds like the beginning of a math problem, I apologize. (I am also not counting two collections of Hare’s short stories.)

   Most of Cyril Hare’s mystery fiction, the author himself a barrister and a judge, deals with courtroom trials and/or the finer points of law, and British law at that. So does this one, so much so that the original title is a perfect fit. That the story takes place at Christmas time is almost entirely incidental. It’s only an excuse to get several members of one family together, along with a few choicely selected friends, at one time, at one place, and snowed in with no recourse to get along with one another – or not.

   There are two detectives of note. First by default, Sergeant Rogers, the bodyguard of Sir Julius Warbeck, M.P.; and secondly — and one wishes that this were not the only detective he ever appeared in — Dr. Wenceslaus Bottwink, a history professor and a refugee from many ism’s in Europe. It is Bottwink who does the true detective work, looking on as an interested observer of both British society at the time and the small microcosm of the same that find themselves isolated in Warbeck Hall, the “oldest inhabited house in Markshire.”

   In terms of “fair play” detection, it might help the reader if he or she were a historian him or herself, but on reflection at book’s end, I think the motive should have been clear, or at the least, clearer than it was to me at the time.

   One disappointment to me, after finding myself elated at the early-on discovery of the kind of story I was in for, was that the book felt too short, without quite enough suspects nor sufficient false trails to be led down. There is an explanation for this. According to mystery historian Tony Medawar, An English Murder was based on “Murder at Warbeck Hall,” a half hour radio play broadcast by the BBC in 1948.

   No matter. I will always gladly accept examples of detective work like this, no matter if short work is made of it or not. The social unrest that provides the setting is a pure 100% bonus.

   I have sad news to report. There is an obituary in today’s New York Times for one of the mystery field’s grandest ladies, Phyllis A. Whitney. The following is the mini-biography that appears in A COMPLETE SET OF FINGERPRINTS: An Annotated Checklist of the Fingerprint Mystery Series published by Ziff-Davis, by Bill Pronzini, Victor Berch & Steve Lewis:

   Of the various authors who wrote books for the Fingerprint line, Phyllis A. Whitney may not have the honor of having written the most books in her career – that honor goes to Judson Philips / Hugh Pentecost – but the time span involved in her case is surely the longest. Red Is for Murder was her first work of adult fiction, published when she was 40 years old. The most recent of her approximately forty novels is Amethyst Dreams (Crown, 1997), which was published when she was 94. That book is still in print, as are many of her earlier ones. [FOOTNOTE.]

   In 1988 the Mystery Writers of America gave Ms. Whitney their Grand Master award for lifetime achievement, the highest honor they can bestow. As for the type of story on which her reputation is based, she is an author whom the New York Times once called the “Queen of the American Gothics.” Last year [2006] at the age of 102, it is reported, she was working on her autobiography. (The link will take you to her home page.)

   For several years after Red Is for Murder, Whitney concentrated on children’s fiction. (Her first book, A Place for Ann (1941) was also in the young adult category.) Her next adult mystery, The Mystery of the Gulls, did not appear until well after the war was over, in 1949. The majority of the titles for which she is best known were published in the 1960s through the 1980s.

   The jacket blurb for Red Is for Murder reads in part as follows: “How does it feel to be in a big [Chicago] department store after the customers have hurried home and the lights have been darkened so that eeriness reigns over the vast reaches of the floors? To Linell Wynn, who writes sign copy for Cunninghams’, such a scene has always seemed perfectly natural until the day that murder walks the floors at dusk.

    “The matter-of-factness of the police as they question people whom she knows, works with every day, does nothing to dispel the feeling that they are only temporarily holding back the powers of darkness. Evil has struck once – and evil is hovering, waiting to strike again [and soon] she stumbles upon death for the second time.”

FOOTNOTE. Phyllis A. Whitney was born in Yokohama of missionary parents. Her middle name is “Ayame,” which is the Japanese word for “iris.” Her mother’s first marriage was to Gus Heege, who claimed to be the originator of the Swedish dialect play, his most famous being “Yon Yonson.” After Whitney’s father died in Japan, she and her mother returned to the US, where in 1920 (according to census records) she lived with her mother in the Devin household, where her mother worked as a maid. In 1930 as Phyllis Garner, she worked as a librarian in a circulating library in Chicago. She must have married George Garner around 1925, as she claimed to have been married for five years. For more information on her long and productive life, follow the link above to her home page.

[UPDATE] In a later post, mystery novelist and long-time fan Dean James shares with us his memories of Phyllis Whitney.

   More than seventy years ago the English writer Peter Cheyney, who knew the U.S. about as well as a toad knows existentialism, launched a series of thrillers starring two-fisted FBI agent Lemmy Caution, whose first-person narrative in Cheyney’s version of American English is of a unique eyeball-popping awfulness.

   At least I thought it was unique until I stumbled upon Michael C. Peacock’s “Bait” (Clues, May 10, 1931) and its protagonist Whisper Timkins, a good-hearted pickpocket who narrates not only in first person present tense like a Damon Runyon street character but also in dialect like a Harry Stephen Keeler ethnic. “I lowers me hands and flops back onta the chair. Everythin’ is as plain as me Aunt Maggie’s face.” He also uses nouns for verbs and all sorts of other silly said substitutes as if, as he might have put it, there wuz no tomorrah.

       “Rule me out,” I lips.

       “You’re ruled in…,” he menaces.

       “This way,” chills a icy voice.

       “As for you, Garvin,” he threats.

       “Now use your ears!” he grits….

       “Mr. Wade,” Hope yodels, fondlin’ the gat, “have you ever been to Coney Island?”

       He…oaths, “We’re leaving for there right away!”

       “Terrible,” I throats, mournful.

       “Sorta mixed up,” I warbles.

   More than half a century after the tale got published for the first and only time, I met the author, a Canadian who had lived in the States only a few years before perpetrating this collage of howlers. I got to like him and he’s dead now so I’ll leave his real name unmentioned. No, he didn’t become a professional mystery writer.

   Last month I discovered the finest film music I’ve heard in many a year. The Philip Glass score for THE ILLUSIONIST is full of the hypnotic repetitions that are the Glass trademark but it’s also hauntingly evocative of my beloved Bernard Herrmann. If you love Herrmann’s score for Hitchcock’s VERTIGO, you’ll love this one too, and probably play the CD again and again as I’ve been doing.    [The link will lead to a trailer for the film. —Steve.]

   In our Poetry Corner this month is THE LEAGUE OF FRIGHTENED MEN (1935), the second of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novels. Wolfe’s adversary in this one is Paul Chapin, who was crippled and apparently emasculated in a fraternity hazing incident at Harvard in 1909 that went horribly wrong. A quarter century later Chapin has attained something of a literary reputation. As members of the group that maimed him begin dying off, the survivors receive anonymous poems that send them scurrying to Wolfe in fright. The first, following the apparently accidental death of a judge in a fall over a cliff, begins:

      Ye should have killed me, watched the last mean sigh
      Sneak through my nostril like a fugitive slave
      Slinking from bondage.
      Ye should have killed me.
      Ye killed the man,
      Ye should have killed me!

   Wolfe, who admits that he “cannot qualify as an expert in prosody” but claims to be “not without an ear,” calls the poem “verbose, bombastic, and decidedly spotty.” Suspecting that a few lines were influenced by Edmund Spenser, he has Archie Goodwin pull down the collected works of that poet: “dark blue, tooled…. A fine example of bookmaking… Printed of course in London, but bound in this city by a Swedish boy who will probably starve to death during the coming winter.” The hunt for parallel passages fails but in any event, says Wolfe, “it was pleasant to meet Spenser again, even for so brief a nod.” The second death, the apparent poison suicide of an art dealer, triggers a second poem:

      Two.
      Ye should have killed me.
      Two;
      And with no ready cliff, rocks waiting below
      To rub the soul out;…
      I found the time, the safe way to his throat….
      Ye should have killed me.

   Then comes the mysterious vanishing of a Columbia psychology professor and yet another effusion:

      One. Two. Three.
      Ye cannot see what I see;
      His bloody head, his misery, his eyes….
      One. Two. Three.

   We occasionally find Wolfe savoring a volume of poetry but in none of the full-length or short novels is poetry as central as in this longest and perhaps finest exploit of the obese and infuriating genius of West Thirty-Fifth Street.

   Of all the silly lines in mystery fiction, one in particular has clung like a barnacle to the underside of my memory for more decades than I care to count. It’s in THE BLACK GOLD MURDERS (1959), a long-forgotten novel by a long-forgotten author — John B. Ethan, if you must know — in which a woman introducing the narrator to two beatniks says: “The one on the right thinks he’s Zen Buddha.” You remember Zen from World Religions 101, right? Wasn’t he Prince Gautama’s kid brother?

   It’s been a while since I’ve printed one of these reviews from TMF, so I’ll repeat the introductory explanation that came with the first one I did, back in last July.

HELEN NIELSEN – After Midnight.

Curtis 07204; paperback reprint, no date stated. Hardcover edition: William Morrow, 1966; hardcover reprint: Detective Book Club [3-in-1 edition], July 1966.

   When I think of defense attorneys and mystery stories, I think of Perry Mason. Sam Drake is a part-time lawyer only, and in the author’s own words, a full-time bon vivant, which is hardly promising. He does don the appropriate suit of shining armor at the proper time, however, to take up the defense of a beautiful client accused of stabbing her husband to death. But then rather than tackling the case as a personal challenge to his own flamboyant sense of justice, he takes the considerably more dangerous step of becoming more and more personally involved with the new widow.

   After an emotion-packed trial in which all the unanswered questions are carefully avoided, some hops and skips in logic combine with what at first seems insurmountable coincidence to lead the solution off in perversely contrary directions. The writing is often noticeably pulpy, to match the hero, I guess.     [C minus]

[UPDATE] 02-07-08. I have only the barest recollection of reading this book. The review you’ve just read is as new to me as it is to you. I can’t locate my copy, nor can I find a cover image online, so for once we’ll have to go without one. (If you happen to have either the paperback or the hardcover, a scan would be welcome.)

   Of Helen Nielsen, born in 1918 and died 2002, Contemporary Authors says:

    “Helen Nielsen writes mystery stories in which she carefully plays fair with the reader, providing enough information for the mystery to be solved. Nielsen mixes her detective puzzles with realistic character studies and often sets her stories in southern California, where she has lived since her childhood. Her California, however, is often the “the chilling rains or the thick, yellow, and dripping fogs of winter,” according to Mary Groff in the St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers.”

   Here are excerpts from reviews of some of her other books, by such critics as

Anthony Boucher: “… in a vein of quietly observant realism, underlined by sustained emotional horror.”

Jon L. Breen: “Nielsen has successfully combined the chase-adventure-espionage tale with a formal, fairly clued detective puzzle, a rarer feat than one might imagine.”

Newgate Callendar: “… a smooth piece of work . . . urbane and agreeable.”

   Two of her novels were considered either hard-boiled or noirish enough for them to have been reprinted by Black Lizard. These are the two covers you’ll see somewhere here above or below.

   After all of this accumulated evidence, I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to read After Midnight again, if I could, and see if I have the same opinion as I did back in 1979. I may have been wrong on this one.

   As for Steve Drake, I did not know he was a series character then, but thanks to Al Hubin and Crime Fiction IV, I do now. Here’s a list of all of the cases he handled:

      After Midnight. Morrow, 1966. Setting: California.
      A Killer in the Street. Morrow, 1967. Setting: Tucson, AZ.
      The Darkest Hour. Morrow, 1969. Setting: California.
      The Severed Key. Gollancz, UK, 1973. Setting: California.
      The Brink of Murder. Gollancz, UK, 1976.

   These last two books, which were also the last two she wrote, were never published in the US.

   This collection of authors came from Part 7 of the online Addenda to Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV. Al recently received an email from the first of these writers, Kip Chase, who lives in San Luis Obispo CA. Mr. Chase cleared up several questions about his entry in CFIV, which we’re very pleased to include here.

CHASE, KIP. Pseudonym of Trevett Coburn Chase, 1928- , q. v. Under this pen name, the author of three detective novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below. SC in all three: Mr. Justine Carmichael, a retired LAPD chief of homicide, now confined to a wheelchair. (Note: That the detective’s name is Justine, rather than Justin, as intended, was a typing error which was not caught and perpetuated its way through all three books.)
      Killer Be Killed. Hammond, UK, hc, 1963. Setting: Mexico
      Murder Most Ingenious. Hammond, UK, hc, 1962. Add setting: California. [An impossible crime included in Locked Room Murders by Robert Adey: A wealthy estate owner is found knifed to death in his well-guarded art gallery, and a valuable Gaughin painting stolen.]

      Where There’s a Will. Hammond, UK, hc, 1961. Setting: California.

CHASE, OLIVE (MAUD?). 1908-1987?. Add tentative middle name and year of birth. With either Stanley Clayton or Stewart Burke, co-author of four mystery-oriented plays published by French (UK) between 1965 and 1978. All four are included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. To these add the following:
      Impact, with Maureen Nield, 1935-2004, q.v. French (London), 1982. (Play.) Synopsis: “Wife kills unfaithful husband, doctor helps cast suspicion on sister-in-law.”

CHASE, TREVETT COBURN. 1928- . Add confirmed year of birth. Pseudonym: Kip Chase, q.v.

CHITTENDEN, F(RANK) A(LBERT). 1910-1998. Add year of death. Author of five crime novels published in the UK between 1947 and 1954; all are included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. Of these, only one was later published in the US; see below:
      Strange Welcome. T. V. Boardman, UK, hc, 1949. Coward-McCann, US, hc, 1949. Setting: England. [Shown is the cover of a German edition.]

CLAPPERTON, RICHARD (GUY). 1934-1984. Add year of death. Born in Scotland; miltary service in Australia, early 1950s. Proofreader, cartoonist; author with three novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below. SC: Private eye Peter Fleck appears in all three.
      No News on Monday. Constable, UK, hc, 1968. Setting: Australia. US title: You’re a Long Time Dead, Putnam, 1968. [Peter Fleck is hired to find a woman but finds her dead.]
      The Sentimental Kill. Constable, UK, hc, 1976. Setting: Australia. [Is famous British author Temple Wilde really missing, or has he just chosen to disappear on a sentimental journey to Australia?]
       Victims Unknown. Constable, UK, hc, 1970.
      _You’re a Long Time Dead. Putnam, US, hc, 1968. See: No News on Monday (Constable, 1968).

CLARK, LAURENCE (WALTER). 1914-1987. Add year of death. Born in England; journalist & free-lance writer, founder of the publishing firm Veracity Ventures Ltd., 1964. Author of one novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      Murder of the Prime Minister. Veracity Ventures, UK, hc, 1965. Setting: England, 1812. [The assassination of President Kennedy is juxtaposed against that of Spencer Perceval 151 years earlier.]

CLAY, MICHAEL JOHN. 1934-2000. Add year of death. Pseudonym: John Griffin, q.v.

GRIFFIN, JOHN. Pseudonym of Michael John Clay, 1934-2000, q.v. Add year of death. Under this pen name, the author of 11 espionage thrillers included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. All were published Robert Hale in the UK between 1976 and 1981. SC: Richard Raven, in all.

GRUDIN, ROBERT. 1938- . Ref: CA. Add as a new author entry. An educator, editor, and writer, including a study of William Shakespeare.
      -Book. Random House, 1992. Setting: Academia. [A parody of scholars, literary ideologies, and the academic novel: an author of an out-of-print novel that offended other academics in its parodies of literary thinking is threatened by murder.]

NIELD, MAUREEN. 1935-2004. Add as a new author entry. Playright; co-author of the mystery drama listed below:
      Impact, with Olive Chase, 1908-1987?, q.v. French (London), 1982. (Play.)

   At the tail end of a previous posting on pulp writer Carl Buchanan, aka James Robert Peery, including a long bibliography, I closed with the following:

    “In addition, James Robert Peery had a letter published in the July 1939 issue of Clues, which neither Victor nor I have seen. If anyone has a copy of the magazine, we’d love to know what he had to say.”

   Thanks to the assistance of pulp collector Paul Herman, I now have a copy of that issue. Not only did Peery have a letter quoted, but some of the others who write in had interesting things to say as well.

H. L. Melleney:

    “I got a kick out of ‘The Drums Drone Death,’ by J. Allan Dunn, in the last issue of Clues. This fellow Dunn certainly knows his locale, and the character, John Carter, is swell. I would like to read some more John Carter yarns, with the New Hebrides background.”

Editor: “Mr. Dunn is now writing a John Carter complete novel for Clues.”

Ray Robinson:

    “Your all-star authors for Clues are a splendid choice. I want to compliment you especially on J. Allan Dunn.

    “His ‘The Drums Drone Death’ makes the New Hebrides really there for us. His character is alive and human. Let us have more of these interesting stories.

Editor: “Mr. Peery, whose new book is a sensation, used to be our ‘Carl Buchanan.'”

James Robert Peery:

    “Heap long time I have been a reader of Clues — from ’way back when I sold the former editors an occasional short or novelette under my Carl Buchanan pseudonym. The Donald Wandrei yarn [“The Painted Nudes”] in the current issue is good. Also liked the short story [“ Murder Is a Pipe”] by [Otis Adelbert] Kline — but the best yarn in the April issue was by J. Allan Dunn. Note that you asked for reader comment on this one. I believe a John Carter series would go over in a big way. Of course, I read from the point of view of a writer — can’t quite relax and enjoy a story for admiring or criticizing technique of the author.

    “I think your readers appreciate authenticity. Personally I’d like to see John Carter in action again. I get bored with these super-detectives. The change to a human, red-headed young fellow feeling his way is quite a relief. The locale should provide Dunn with plenty good ideas for plots.

    “You’re doing a swell job of editing. Keep up the good work!”

   Unfortunately, in spite of this groundswell of support from readers for another story about John Carter, about whom I know nothing more than this, it never happened. I could have missed it in my search through the Cook index, true, but “The Drums Drone Death” appears to have been the only story that J. Allan Dunn ever had published in Clues. If the novel was ever written, it was published elsewhere.

JOHN FARRIS – Sacrifice. Tor; paperback reprint, June 1995. Hardcover edition: Tor, September 1994.

   It has just occurred to me that John Farris has one of the longest careers of any mystery writer still active. His first novel, The Corpse Next Door, was published by Graphic Books, a small but solid line of mostly paperback originals, in 1956. Farris was born in 1936, so if the book wasn’t published until he was 20, the odds are the most of it was written when he was still nineteen.

   He switched to the pen name of Steve Brackeen for his next few books, typical Gold Medal thrillers, except that Gold Medal didn’t do them. One of them, Baby Moll (Crest, 1958), will be reprinted by Hard Case Crime later this year under his own name, a mere 50 years later.

   Farris eventually became the author of the “Harrison High” books, which sold in the millions, and he became an even bigger seller once he started writing horror fiction that was invariably tinged with the supernatural. Books like The Fury (1976) and All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes (1977) are as close to classics in the field as you’re going to get, and yet … even though Farris has averaged close to a book a year since those two books, unlike Stephen King, Dean R. Koontz and mystery-wise, Ed McBain, who came along about the same time he did, it is as if no one’s ever heard of him. Nobody knows his name.

   (As a special note, back when Mystery*File was a print magazine, Bill Crider did a column on John Farris’s early career for me, and you can find it online here. You should go read it.)

   Even though his later books veered convincingly away from standard mystery fare, there’s enough criminous element in them that most of them are included in Crime Fiction IV, Al Hubin’s bibliography of the field. Sacrifice is listed marginally, for example, but in Part 24 of the online Addenda to the Revised CFIV, the dash before the title has been removed.

   Rightfully so. One of the characters is C. G. Butterbaugh, a detective on the trail of the mysterious Greg Walker, who tells the first part of the story, and whose miraculous recovery from a gunshot wound to the head simply amazes the doctors on his case. When Walker and his daughter Sharissa then disappear into the mysterious interior of Guatemala from their sleepy town in Georgia, Butterbaugh needs all of his reading of Sherlock Holmes not to be shaken from the case.

   Nor to be overwhelmed from what he discovers. Take the title of the story, Sacrifice; the fact that Sharissa, although a high school senior, is still a virgin; and the Guatemalan jungle – and what does that add up to you?

   I won’t say, but every reviewer on Amazon will tell you, and as a matter of fact, so does Farris, long before this 379 page novel is halfway over. The question really is, how to we get to the ending from where we are, and who among the sizable cast of characters will survive?

   I doubt that anyone could call this great literature, but once picked up, this is a book not easily put down. There might be something deeper going on, if you were analyze the all of the various relationships, many of them sexual in nature, that develop and entangle each other in this tale – the ending being particularly observant and poignant –

   I’ll take that back. There’s no “might” about it. What this book demonstrates is why Farris has survived as a writer, and those who wrote most of the novels published during the horror boomlet in the 1980s and early 1990s have not. There’s some food for the mind in his fiction, at least this particular example, not just a slug to the gut.

   The artist for this nifty paperback cover isn’t identified, so I won’t hazard either a guess or an opinion, but if you believe you know, I’d surely like to hear from you.

   That the girl looks something like Betty Grable, for those of us old enough to remember her, is not too surprising, as she starred in the 1941 film version with Victor Mature, Carole Landis, and Laird Cregar. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen the film, and now I’m itching to.

   Frank Loose sent me the following publication data for the book, supplemented by my own records:

Hardcover:

   Dodd, Mead & Co., 1941.
   Robert Hale, UK, 1943.

Paperback:

   Handi-Book #27, 1944.
   Popular Library #129. No date stated. Frank says 1948; Graham Holroyd says 1947. Dealers on ABE seem to be 50-50 either way.
   Bestseller Mystery B204, digest-sized, 1957.
   Bantam Books A2145, 1960.
   Black Lizard, 1988.
   Vintage, 1991.

   Frank also adds, “I have a copy of the Black Lizard, but I want to read the original. If I understand correctly, the revised version starts with the Bantam book in 1960. Everything before that date should be the original unedited, unrevised version.”

   I’m sure Frank is right about this. I’m not sure, but I believe the reason for the revision is that Fisher himself wanted to “modernize” the book. If so, it’s the same thing John D. MacDonald did toward the end of his career when he published two collections of short stories taken from the 1940s pulp magazines. He rewrote some of the stories to make them seem as though they were taking place in the 1980s.

   It was a really bad idea, as far as I was concerned — something like “colorizing” black-and-white movies.

   But I don’t know for sure if that’s what Fisher did, nor why Black Lizard didn’t go back to the original novel for their edition. Once again, if you have more information, I hope you’ll pass it along.

      From the back cover:

Once there was a girl named Vicky Lynn. She met Pegasus, a screen writer, and they fell in love. Then Pegasus and three friends pooled their resources to sponsor Vicky. They built her into a glamorous personality, and she won a screen contract. And the next day she was murdered.

For Pegasus, Vicky’s death was the end of the world, until he became aware of Vicky’s lovely sister Jill, who believed in him when everyone branded him killer.

To escape the police, Peg and Jill ran away, but their flight turned into a cycle of terror, of hiding and running from the ever-approaching shadow of a relentless, obsessed pursuer!