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!

   What turned out to be unusual in this grouping of “A” authors taken from Part 23 of the online Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, is two incidental pairings of authors with the same name, two with the same year of birth.

ALFRED, WILLIAM. 1922-1999. Add as a new author entry. Longtime professor in medieval studies at Harvard University, specializing in early English literature.
      -Hogan’s Goat. New York City: French, 1965. [Play.] Setting: New York City, 1890. TV movie: PBS, 1971 (scw: William Alfred; dir: Glenn Jordan). “A play in blank verse about the bitter political maneuvering among Irish-Americans in Brooklyn in the late 19th century.”

ALLINGTON, MAYNARD. 1931- . Career US Air Force officer, 1951-76, when he became a writer. Author of three wartime thrillers included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      The Court of Blue Shadows. Washington: Brassey’s, hc, 1995. Updated setting: Europe, past. “A survivor of the Dachau concentration camp is haunted by his experiences […] as he searches for retribution.” [Reviewed in the New York Times.]

      The Fox in the Field. Washington: Brassey’s, hc, 1994. Setting: India, World War II. “Derek Carr, a gambler and former arms smuggler blackmailed into working for British intelligence.”
      The Grey Wolf. Warner, pb, 1986. [Corrected date.] Setting: Russia, World War II. “A thrilling tale of a British agent and his involvement in a military coup against Stalin, based on actual events in the USSR in 1942.”

ANDERSON, DON. 1931- . Add as a new author entry. BBC national and international television news reporter; left to form his own media, communications and web company in the 1990s.
      Heatshield. Pan, UK, pb, 1990. Setting: Ireland, future. “On a secret mission in the Russian space shuttle, a cosmonaut is forced into a crash landing off the coast of Ireland.”

ANDERSON, DON. 1931- . [Note that though they share the same name and year of birth, this is not the same author as the one above.] Author of one novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      The Price We Pay… Washington: Ye Galleon Press, hc, 1998. [Corrected spelling of publisher.] Setting: Seattle WA.

ANDERSON, LINDA. 1949- . Add as a new author entry. Member of the English Department of The Open University as Reader in Creative Writing, previously at Lancaster University.
      -To Stay Alive. Bodley Head, UK, hc, 1984. Setting: Belfast, Northern Ireland. “Set in the bleak months before the 1979 Republican hunger strike in Long Kesh prison.” Short listed for the Higham and Sinclair Prizes.

ANDERSON, LINDA (née KIRCHMAN). [Noted here to distinguish her entry from that of the author above.] Add maiden name. Author of two romantic suspense novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      The Secrets of Sadie Maynard. Pocket, pb, 1999. Setting: West Virginia. [Photojournalist Memphis Maynard returns to her West Virginia hometown to solve the 1936 murder of her grandmother, Sadie Maynard.]

      When Night Falls. Pocket, pb, 2000. Setting: North Carolina. [Former prosecutor Lannie Sullivan in reclusion is stalked by a rapist recently released from jail.]

LES SAVAGE, JR. – The Shadow in Renegade Basin. Leisure Books; paperback reprint, July 2001. Hardcover edition: Five Star, March 2000.

   For those of you who may have come in late, yes, I do do reviews of westerns on this blog. I know I don’t have to explain myself, but it has been a while since one has appeared here, so what I’m going to do is to repeat the following paragraph from the last one I did, which was of Edge of the Desert by Matt Stuart (L. P. Holmes):

    “… and whether or not they’re included in Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV – Al generally says no unless there’s a leading character who’s actually a detective and involved in solving a case – I have no compunction about reviewing them [westerns] here. Almost every western has a crime component of some kind, and if they don’t, I probably don’t read them. Rustling, gunfighting, horse thievery, burning out homesteaders, it’s all against the law, and therefore – when written up in book form – crime fiction.”

   But no more self-indulgent justification! Let me begin by giving you the titles of the three short novels (or long novelettes) included in this particular group of western tales, and the issues of the pulp magazines they first appeared in:

       “Plunder Trail.” Frontier Stories, Summer 1944. Savage’s original title: “Oregon Traitor Trail.”
       “Brand of Penasco.” Action Stories, Winter 1945, as “Brand of the Gallows Ghost.”
       “The Shadow in Renegade Basin.” Frontier Stories, Summer 1950, as “Tombstones for Gringos.”

   Savage had a short but prolific career as a western writer. He died in 1958 only 35 years old, but in the short time he had to live, he wrote 25 novels, the last one, Gun Shy, finished by Dudley Dean McGaughey after his death. This does not include a long list of short stories which Jon Tuska has been packaging into collections like this. (Savage’s first published short story was written when he was a mere 17.)

   Enough facts. If I’ve read anything by Savage besides this one, it would have been over 50 years ago, and opinions when one is 15 old, plus or minus a couple of years, simply do not count. Which assumes that I’d remember, which I don’t, but I’m sure I did – read one, that is.

   Let’s take the two earliest ones first. I appreciate the fact the three stories were published in chronological order. It does help in putting a writer’s career in perspective. Of the first two, I’d say that at time, when Savage would have been in his early 20s, he was absolutely terrific in describing western landscapes and capturing moods, but only so-so in connecting with connecting with his characters and convincing them to come to life.

   Something else he was very good at was writing action scenes, the parts of the stories where violence kicks in, delineated blow by blow, and….

    … in “Plunder Trail,” that is exactly where the story stops dead in its tracks, at least it did for me. It’s the story of a gambler at loose ends who finds himself part of a wagon train full of homesteaders headed west. Ed Manton also finds himself getting caught up in their hopes and new lives. And when Georges Arvada and his gang strike, as is totally anticipated, it is Manton whose abilities as a leader and with a gun are needed the most.

   The last 15 pages need only be skimmed. The fight seems to go on forever, and the last page, in which Manton and Leah are finally reunited, comes both as a relief and as no surprise at all.

   Story number two, “Brand of Penasco,” is one of seven short novels Les Savage wrote about Elgera Douglas, familiarly known as Senorita Scorpion, one of the most popular characters to appear in Action Stories, says Jon Tuska in his introduction.

   Elgera is blonde and quite a pistol-packing lady, just the right combination to win the hearts of every adolescent boy and young man who might have read the magazine back in 1945. More of her background than this, however, is not given in the story itself.

   Truth in advertising. The cover shown to the right is from the Winter 1949 issue, not the one in which the story in this book appeared. Nor is the lady masked in this tale, as she is in most (if not all) of the covers she was featured on. (I just happen to think that she’s shown to her best advantage on this one.)

   I think a mistake has been made in terms of not putting all of her adventures into two volumes, say, instead of of scattering them around one at a time in other collections. The impact that she made would have been far greater, I’m sure, with her exploits being able to be read in the order they occurred, as well as the romances she had.

   It’s still a good story, but after her friend Chisos is shot and left for dead, the story seems to sag a little, caught up in too much action without enough motivation. The capture of a fellow named Penasco, an outlaw known to have been hanged many years ago but rumored to still be alive and on the loose again, is the primary focus, but the tale, populated by people named Tequila, Bighead and El Cojo, seems to go off in too many directions from there.

   It is the title story, “The Shadow in Renegade Basin,” that Jon Tuska, in his introduction to it, seems the proudest of to present. He compares it to Greek tragedy, and describes it as filled with “fratricide and incest.” No kidding. The story had to be rewritten considerably before it could be published in a pulp magazine in 1950. The restored text is supplied.

   Unfortunately I do not relate to Greek drama very well, a failure that no teacher of great literature was able to cure. The shadow in the title is that which is supplied by a sinister-looking mountain called El Renegado, and the legends that are told about it. In the rich, fertile valley at its foot, there are no farms, no ranches, no people, until the arrival of two brothers and their mother, hoping there to settle down and prosper.

   Enter Christina Velasco, who is beautiful, of course, lives alone somewhere in the area, and equally of course both brothers fall in love with her. There is also a Mexican peddler of rare birds named Pajarero and an hombre named Nacho, both of whom are also, in their differing ways, under Christina’s spell.

   As was mentioned earlier, it is no surprise that the ending was changed. And as it was originally written, the story is filled with tantalizing wisps of beautifully described countryside and fragmentary glimpses of fascinating characters who seem to have no control over the events they are in.

   It is like no pulp story I have read before, and I have no way of explaining exactly why, other than I’ve done so far.

   I also apologize for allowing this review to go on so long. Paraphrasing what I remember someone else much more famous than I having once said, I have not taken the time to make it shorter.

   I don’t suppose many of the authors in this blog entry are going to be familiar to many of you. They certainly weren’t to me, and there wasn’t much I was able to add by searching the Internet. These came from the top end of Part 24 of the online Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, speaking alphabetically again, all in the A’s, except where pen names came into play.

   A number of the entries in Part 24 are for authors whose works were published by Major Books, a rather minor paperback company that started up in the late 1970s. They published a wide array of books, though, including fiction in all genres. Of interest to us is their crime fiction, of course, including a number of gothics. Most of their books are rather hard to find today. Getting their wares into sales venues was more than likely their greatest problem.

   The added settings for the Major Books were sent to Al Hubin by Ken Johnson. Dan Roberts provided me with the cover images. Thanks to both!

ADDLEMAN, D. R.
      A Contract on Stone. Major, pb, 1977. Add setting: Los Angeles. “He’d been set up, trained, and programmed; John didn’t know he was also the target!”

ALEXANDER, MARSHA. Pseudonym of Marsha Bourns, 1940- , q.v. Under this pen name, the author of romantic fiction, including four gothic or occult paperbacks cited in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      Birthmark of Fear. Major, pb, 1976. “There was something evil about the house on Scorpion Crest, but Thea tried to ignore it … until the ‘accidents’ began!”

      The Curtis Wives. Major, pb, 1979.
      House of Shadows. Major, pb, 1977.
      Whispers in the Wind. Major, pb, 1977. Add setting: California. “What was the strange horror that gripped the house when the baby was born…?”

AMES, EDNA. Pseudonym of Andrew J. Collins, q. v. Under this pen name, the author of one gothic romantic suspense novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      The House of Secrets. Major, pb, 1976. Add setting: California. “Her brother’s mysterious death brought her back to the lonely beach house … back to the edge of terror!”

ANONYMOUS.
      The Orphan Seamstress: A Narrative of Innocence, Guilt, Mystery, and Crime. New York: Burgess, hc, 72pp, 1850. Setting: New York, New Jersey, 1840s. Add: also contains ss: The Step-Mother [also no author stated]. The book is referred to several times in a doctoral thesis by Paul Joseph Erickson entitled Welcome to Sodom: The Cultural Work of City-Mystery Fiction in Antebellum America. Note: Shown below is a later edition published by Dick & Fitzgerald, no date given, but circa 1860s.

ANTHONY, JED. Pseudonym of Theodore D. Irwin, 1907-1999, q.v.
      _Divorce Racket Girls. Design Publishing, pb, 1951. (Intimate Novels #6.) Previously published as Collusion (Godwin, 1932) as by Theodore D. Irwin. “A bombshell of a true story which blows the lid off a whole foul world and explosively discloses the debauches and treacheries of the divorce racket.”

BOURNS, MARSHA. 1940- . Pseudonym: Marsha Alexander, q.v.

COLLINS, ANDREW J. Pseudonym: Edna Ames, q.v.

IRWIN, THEODORE D. 1907-1999. Add pseudonym: Jed Anthony, q.v. Author of one work of fiction included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV, possibly true crime in novelized form. See below. This now constitutes the author’s complete entry.
      Collusion. Godwin, hc, 1932. Add: also published (abridged) as: Divorce Racket Girls (Designs, 1951), as by Jed Anthony. Setting: New York City. Film: Majestic, 1934, as Unknown Blonde (scw: Leonard Field, David Silverstein; dir: Hobart Henley). Delete reference to film previously cited: Age of Indiscretion (MGM, 1935). The lurid cover below is of the Hillman paperback reprint, #18, 1949.

   I’ve been too long away from working on the online Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, and it felt good to get back. This afternoon I tackled the further end of Part 24, alphabetically speaking. Nothing seems to be known about James Yardley, the second of these two authors. I’ll report back later if more digging turns anything up.

WOLFERT, IRA. 1908-1997. Noted journalist and war correspondent during World War II; received the Pulitizer Prize for The Battle of the Solomons, published in 1943. Author of one novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. The following is now the author’s complete entry.
      Tucker’s People. L. B. Fischer, hc, 1943. Add: Victor Gollancz, UK, hc, 1944. Also published as The Underworld (Bantam, 1950). Add setting: New York City. Film: MGM, 1948, as Force of Evil (scw: Abraham Polonsky, Ira Wolfert; dir: Polonsky). “Based loosely on the rise and fall of Dutch Schultz, the book presented a vivid picture of life among the poor and restless in New York City.” [The movie, starring John Garfield as a crooked lawyer, is considered by many a classic film noir.]

      _The Underworld. Bantam, pb, 1950. See Tucker’s People.

YARDLEY, JAMES. Author of two spy novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below. The leading character in each is Kiss Darling, the “chick with the computer brain and the venus body.”
      A Kiss a Day Keeps the Corpses Away. Michael Joseph, UK, hc, 1971. Signet, US, pb, 1971. Add setting: England. “A madman millionaire […] holds the fate of mankind in a handful of pills.”

      Kiss the Boys and Make Them Die. Michael Joseph, UK, hc, 1970. Signet, US, pb, 1970. “As the rising waters of the Nile build up behind the Aswan Dam, the entrance to a 3000 year old temple of Rameses II is dramatically exposed.”

   I first met Ed Hoch in 1971 when Al Hubin brought him and Pat along to one of our Mystery Reader parties in the Bronx. After that, we met almost every year at Bouchercon and once at Left Coast Crime. We also got together whenever I was in New York for an Edgar banquet.

   Ed was not only one of my favorite writers but also one of my favorite people. He was one of those people about whom it was impossible to say anything negative. He was modest and generous. He played a huge role in my receiving an MWA Raven in 1997, and he generously wrote the introduction to my last book. As fellow “obituarians” we were in constant touch, sharing the sad but necessary news about the death of writers. Now, he will be in one of my future columns for CADS.

   Twice I had the opportunity of interviewing him at a Bouchercon. I was happy to see him recognized, and, of course, he was his usual cooperative self during the interviews.

   I shall miss him more than I can say.

             — Marv Lachman

   Since last July she had been in medical facilities near her home on the Jersey shore. Even after a tracheotomy she could never get back to breathing normally. She couldn’t speak and had to be tube-fed for months. Then she improved and was moved from the ICU to a rehab center but at best she could say only a few words.

   I spoke with her on Thanksgiving and her birthday and Christmas. I went to the east coast at the beginning of January and was to have seen her on the 6th but she had a major relapse on the night of New Year’s Day and almost died. Then she improved again and I arranged to visit her three days later, on the 9th. She had another relapse on the evening of the 8th and from then on she was out of it.

   She died three days later. What hideous timing: I never got to say goodbye to her.

   She was the first love of my life. I met her when JFK was in the White House and was separated from her for almost thirty years — my fault, I fear — and during that endless hiatus before we got together again (a story too complex to be told here) she became the model for the doomed Lucy in my first novel.

   Paging through Publish and Perish the other day, I was shaken by how many passages written more than 35 years ago capture how I thought and felt about her. Perhaps the last line says it best. “He knew that she would come to life as a sudden stab of loss within him, whenever he saw the gleam of starlight on dark water.”

   Death never rains but it pours. She died on Saturday, January 12. A few days later, on the morning of Thursday the 17th, I lost one of her favorite authors and one of my closest friends in the mystery-writing community.

   Ed Hoch’s death was the sort we wish for ourselves and those we care about, instant, without pain. He got up and went to take a shower and his wife heard a thump from the bathroom and he was already gone, apparently a massive heart attack.

   He would have been 78 next month. His ambition was to write 1000 short stories but he died something like 50 short of that goal.

   I first met him in the late Sixties, a year or two after he had left his advertising job to write full time. Over the decades we corresponded endlessly, appeared on panels together, did things for each other. I edited two collections of his short stories, recommended him for Guest of Honor at the Pulpcon the year after I had that slot (he should of course have been asked long before I was), gave him my extra copy of Fred Dannay’s all but impossible to find autobiographical novel The Golden Summer (1953, as by Daniel Nathan).

   The morning after each year’s MWA dinner, I’d have breakfast with Ed and Pat at the Essex House on Central Park South, where they habitually stayed on their frequent visits to town, and we would talk the morning away. All the things he did for me would fill a book even if one didn’t mention the countless hours of reading pleasure his stories gave me.

   He was such a kind man, so generously giving of himself to so many others, so modest and tolerant and thoughtful. It was typical of him that when an interviewer wanted to describe him as a devout Catholic, Ed said it would be presumptuous to apply that adjective to himself and that he preferred “observant,” a word generally associated with the Jewish tradition.

   If there was anyone remotely like him in the genre, it was Anthony Boucher. Both men loved and were immensely knowledgeable about mystery fiction, both wrote far more short stories than they did novels, both edited superb anthologies of short fiction in their genre, both combined deep religious feeling with total openness of mind and heart and deep respect and appreciation for those of another faith or none.

   Ed was the polar opposite of a stereotypical Type A personality. He never seemed harried or rushed, never lost his temper, always had time for others’ concerns and yet never fell behind schedule with his own work.

   His ability to devise mystery plots was astonishing. Where did they come from? Wide and constant reading — almost anything he came across in a novel or story or nonfiction book might become a springboard for him—coupled with a mind like no other.

   About twenty years ago we attended a cocktail party at a New York publisher’s office whose roof garden offered a fine view of the then new Marriott Marquis hotel with its glass-walled elevator traveling nonstop up and down the side of the building from top floor to street and back again. “What if someone was seen entering that elevator,” I asked Ed idly, “and wasn’t there when it stopped at the other end?”

   Almost anyone could come up with a wild premise like that. Ed made it work, made one of his neatest impossible crime stories out of it, and thanked me by naming one of its minor characters Nevins.

   He’s gone now. The genre he loved and to which he contributed so much will never again see anyone like him. But maybe in a sense he’s still with us. There’s a Jewish saying that you haven’t really died until the death of the last person with fond living memories of you.

   In that sense Ed Hoch will live for generations as his finest stories will.

CHARLES TODD – A False Mirror. Harper; paperback reprint, January 2008. Harper hardcover edition, January 2007.

   Some facts first, some of which you probably know already, but if so, please bear with me. Or not, if you prefer, if your interest in mystery fiction consists more often of espionage thrillers, comic heists and/or high grade private eye dramas, none of which applies here.

   According to Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, “Charles Todd” is the joint pen name of the (I believe) unique mother-and-son writing team of David Charles Todd Watjen & Carolyn L. T. Watjen. A Test of Wills, their first mystery novel, was also the first case solved by Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard. The book appeared in 1996, and they’ve averaged close to a novel a year ever since. A False Mirror is their 10th, and Rutledge has appeared in all but one of them, a standalone entitled The Murder Stone.

   From here it gets complicated. As a survivor of World War I (as yet unnumbered in 1919 and the 1920s, when the stories take place), Rutledge carries bitter memories of the conflict wherever he goes. In particular, in his head he hears the voice of Hamish MacLeod, a young Scottish soldier he had executed for refusing to obey orders during the worst of the war. The irony is that Rutledge now knows that given one more day of battle and the bloody onslaught, he would have refused orders to keep fighting on as well.

   Such is the background if not the underlying theme, and for folks like me, who pick up the ninth one as the first one, it takes some time for the explanation to be worked into the opening pages without disrupting the flow of the new tale being told. Hamish acts not only as a nagging conscience, but also as a Watson upon whom Rutledge tests his thoughts and observations, except that this particular (and antagonistic) Watson is not at all interested in telling the tale himself.

   It’s an interesting concept, and the Todds’ books have attracted a lot of attention, including mine, although until now only in terms of curiosity, having not picked one up to read until now. My first reaction: This is a dark and gloomy tale filled with sharply drawn characterizations.

   In the small coastal town of Hampton Regis, a man Rutledge knew not well (and not favorably) in France has taken a woman as a hostage in her home, and he refuses to budge until Rutledge arrives. The man is believed to have attacked the woman’s husband, once of the Foreign Service, and left him near death on the shore.

   Rutledge arrives, and my second reaction is this: Very few detective stories can withstand the weight of nearly 400 pages of small print. Rutledge seems to do a lot, but very little gets done; and what seems as though should have been done as standard procedure seems to get little thought. Such as (primarily) the failure to keep a guard over the badly wounded victim, who disappears into the night soon after he begins to gain consciousness, leaving the doctor’s wife bludgeoned to death.

   The ending – the revelation of the killer’s identity – is equally mismanaged – not badly, but without the sureness (and brilliance) that one expects (and hopes for!) after several nights of intense reading just before bed. (It took me around eight installments averaging fifty pages each.)

   To be more precise, the tale is not strong on fair play detection, although the opportunity’s there. It could have been done. Toward the end an accusing finger is pointed at each of the possible killers in turn, but to do this well, an expert is needed. When the strings trailing from the authors’ hands begin to show, that’s when you’ll know the authors aren’t that kind of expert yet. (Or at least, not this time.)

   On the other hand, I wouldn’t have kept reading if the authors who write as Charles Todd didn’t know people, and knew how to make them come alive, as often in anguish (mental) as they are. Noir? You bet. All the way.

   A giant has left us, not in height, but in terms of his stature in the field. Marv Lachman emailed me earlier today with word from his wife Pat that Ed Hoch died this morning, and the news is spreading quickly. Bill Crider was perhaps the first to post it on the web, followed quickly by Jeff Pierce at The Rap Sheet.

   Even though I’d met Ed only once, back a few years ago when he was one of the Guests of Honor at Pulpcon, I’d interviewed him before that by for the print version of Mystery*File, and we’d corresponded ever since. In recent months we’d been in touch most often as he, Marv, Al Hubin and I came across the deaths of other mystery writers and we informed each other of them.

   Ed may have been the last living link to the detective pulp era. He wasn’t published in Black Mask, only the more recent trade paperback revival, but “Village of the Dead,” his very first story, was published in the December, 1955, issue of Famous Detective.

   And of course he was still very much active, with well over 900 short stories to his credit and hoping to reach 1000. While his first story in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine appeared in December 1962, his appearance in the May 1973 issue began a streak of consecutive appearances in EQMM that has not ended, there being a story even now in the issue cover-dated February 2008.

   It’s a record that will not be surpassed. As a person, Ed Hoch was both a gentle man and a gentleman, loved by all. He will be missed.

   Here’s an email I’ve just received from Fender Tucker, head exec at Ramble House:

    “Ramble House has just released its fourth Rupert Penny mystery, The Lucky Policeman, available at the Ramble House web site and their Lulu store. That leaves four more Penny books to bring back for modern readers.

    “Ramble House has few resources for finding and acquiring these books and in the past has relied on generous collectors who have loaned us copies of the book to scan, OCR and edit. If you have one of the remaining Penny books — in any condition, in fact, the worse the better — and would loan it to me, I will return it as soon as I’ve got the book edited and will send you a copy of the Ramble House edition as soon as its available.

    “This is the modern way of reviving old books so ordinary readers can enjoy them. The traditional method appears to have failed and the big publishers don’t seem to be interested in the classic old books of yesteryear. Ramble House doesn’t have to make any money — I assure you it doesn’t — but we’re eager to do it for love. And a damn good read.”

      From the Ramble House website:

   Between 1937 and 1941 British writer Ernest Basil Charles Thornett wrote several puzzle-oriented mysteries that until now have only been available in the UK. Using the pseudonym Rupert Penny and the first person friend of Police Inspector, Tony Purdon, the author takes you to the stodgiest of English manors where murder dwells, if not reigns. Inspector Beale must use all of his puzzle-solving skills, including acrostics and elaborate timelines, to track down the murderer in classic not-so-cosy style.

   1938’s The Lucky Policeman takes Tony Purdon and Inspector Beale to an insane asylum where an inmate has escaped and townspeople are dying from a mysterious spike to the lower brain. And they are all missing their left shoe!