GEORGE HARMON COXE – Fashioned for Murder.

Dell 678; paperback reprint; no date stated, but probably 1953. Hardcover edition: Alfred A. Knopf, 1947.

   Take a look at the cover of the paperback edition and compare with the one on the hardcover. Both are appropriate for their respective venues — sales mostly to libraries for the hardcover, where the artwork on dust jacket was all but incidental, versus sales on newsstands and drugstore spinner racks. The one on the paperback is nothing but eye-catching, and it does its job well. Besides telling you something about the story itself, wouldn’t it make you a whole lot more in the mood to fork over the 25 cents to took back then to take it home?

   And in the credit-where-credit-is-due department, the Dell cover was painted by Fred Scotwood, a new name to me, but done in very much a 1950s style, and it’s a pretty good example of GGA (Good Girl Art) as well. (According to Google, Scotwood appears to have done at least two other covers for Dell in the same time period, but so far, that’s all that I’ve found out about him.)

   As for the book itself, assuming that you’ve not tired of this mini-symposium on the author that’s developed this week, it’s one of Coxe’s non-series books, and without attempting to soften my comments any, it’s not one of his better ones, series or not.

   It starts out as a yawner, and in subsequent events it never manages to work its way up any higher than that. Even the hero’s name, Jerry Nason, a young fashion photographer based in Boston, bothered me. It reminded me too much of that book in which Atlas Poireau, Trajan Beare, Spike Bludgeon, Mallory King, Sir John Nappleby, Jerry Pason, Lord Simon Quinsey, Miss Fan Sliver, and Broderick Tournier all combine efforts to solve a murder together. (You do know the one I mean?)

   That’s a minor quibble. Forget I brought it up. Fashioned for Murder begins with Pason taking a series of photos of a model wearing some costume jewelry she happened to bring with her. The two of them hit it off, but a date they’d scheduled for later failed to come off. Pason decided to write it off as just one of those things until they meet again at another shoot.

   The jewels, it seems, have caught someone’s eyes, Linda Courtney has become very popular, and she needs to tell Jerry about it. Not only that, when she does, Jerry becomes a target, too. The two of them are held up in his studio, and the fake jewels are stolen. (This is were the front cover comes in.)

   Now you know as well as I do that the jewels are not phony, but it seems to take way too long for Linda and Jerry to catch on, even though he follows her back to Manhattan where she lives to check into some of the other strange things that had happened to her.

   When one of the participants in the aforementioned activities comes to Linda’s apartment only to collapse dead on the carpet, Jerry commits an amateur detective’s most common mistake — he becomes an amateur detective. He decides to investigate the dead man’s flat himself and holds back evidence from the police, for reasons that almost sound good, but in reality are as substantial as the dental floss the rest of the story is stitched together from.

   I even figured out who did it, which I have to confess does not happen all that often, so when it does happen, it is not my desire to pat myself on the back about it. As I said earlier, this is not one of Coxe’s better stories, but at least Linda and Jerry wind up in each other’s arms at the end.

RICHARD ELLINGTON – It’s a Crime. Pocket 756; 1st printing, Dec 1950. Hardcover: William Morrow, 1948.

   Richard Ellington (1914-1980) wrote only five mysteries, and all five featured a Manhattan-based private eye named Steve Drake. This is the second of them, and for the record, using Al Hubin’s Revised Crime Fiction IV as a basis, here’s a list of all five, along with (eventually) paperback covers for all of them:

      Shoot the Works. Morrow, 1948; Pocket #624, 1949.

      It’s a Crime. Morrow, 1948; Pocket #756, 1950.

      Stone Cold Dead. Morrow, 1950; Pocket #813, 1951.

      Exit for a Dame. Morrow, 1951; Pocket #941, 1953.

      Just Killing Time. Morrow, 1953; Bantam #1286 as Shakedown, 1955.

   Thanks to the Cook-Miller index to digest mystery magazines, we learn that Ellington also published three short stories in Manhunt and one in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine:

       “Fan Club” Manhunt, April 1953.
       “The Ripper” Manhunt, August 1953 .
       “Shadow Boxer” Manhunt, February 1954.

       “‘Good-By, Cora'” Mike Shayne, February 1968

   At least the first of these is a Steve Drake yarn as well. I’m not sure about any of the others. According to the brief biography of Ellington inside the front cover of this paperback edition, he was heavily involved with radio both before and after the war: acting, announcing and writing. What he ended up doing after the career in writing mysteries ended I don’t yet know; perhaps writing for television? (A later search on www.imdb.com turned up nothing.)

   The cover of the paperback edition of It’s a Crime will give you an idea of the kind of mystery it is, or if not, at least it’s a portrayal of the one scene that the people at Pocket thought might sell the book. Paul Kresse is the artist, and in the center foreground is the butt end of a gun being grasped by the barrel (only part of the fingers showing) and being used to clout a man in the head. Side view, tie askew, he’s obviously in excruciating pain.

   Quoted from the text: “My gun-butt smashed his skull.”

   Granted that the scene is in the book, and so is another in close proximity of the same guy with a tommy gun, firing away at Drake before he gets away, only to turn the tables, as shown on the cover, but …

   Steve Drake is really only medium-boiled, about 6 or 7 on a standard HB (hard-boiled) scale ranging from 1 to 10. I’ll quote Mr. Drake, who tells his own story, from pages 60-61:

   Drake actually has two cases in this adventure. The first is a wandering husband caper. The second is a case of blackmail, the victim being the male half of a famous Broadway husband-and-wife duo. That the two cases are connected comes as no surprise to anyone who has read as many mysteries as you and I, but Drake himself takes it in with a slightly perplexed stride.

   What is surprising, and it really shouldn’t have been, is that this prime example of lower-echelon tough-guy fiction turns out to have a complex and finely tuned detective story plot to go with it. There are many, many people with access to the dead girl’s apartment, and before her death there were enough of them going in and out that it would take a minute-by-minute timetable to keep it all clear.

   After the non-essentials have been eliminated, all of the suspects that remain have iron-clad alibis, and takes a huge effort in deduction on Steve Drake’s art to crack one of them. It’s a plot worthy of Ellery Queen, say, without quite the same finesse — relying on what seems like sheer chance on the part of the killer, and of course the aforementioned coincidence that involves Drake in both cases to begin with.

   It’s a neat double combo, in other words, and very much worth seeking out. I’d especially like to locate my copy of the next book in the series. The love affair that Drake seems to find himself in as this one goes along seems to bloom very quickly, and if I read the last couple of pages correctly, Drake proposes marriage and the same time he says he going to be spending the money he made on this case on a trip to St. Thomas. Does she go too, or will she wait for him patiently at home?

   These are things an inquiring minds like to know.

[UPDATE] 06-28-08.    Prompting my posting this review from the past was an email this morning from SF writer Robert Silverberg:

   Then from a follow-up email:

   A fascinating thread! As has been observed, Edgar Wallace was a very big name in thriller fiction in the 1920s and ’30s, but he was not, of course, part of the Golden Age of Detection, which makes comparisons with Christie — even Symons — in many ways inappropriate. Wallace was still a big name after the Second World War and right up to the 1960s, when I founded and edited the Edgar Wallace Mystery Magazine. At that time, his books and stories were already regarded as having a quaint flavor, which a daughter, Penelope Wallace, was largely responsible for trying to remove by supplying publishers with revised versions.

   Such revisions are, of course, an ultimately futile exercise and may even remove future points of appeal — something I realized even then though I was only 21 years of age. For the short time I ran the magazine, I concentrated on the “action” end of the mystery field, running the kind of stories Americans would have called “pulp fiction” and which I believe were written by authors who were worthy successors of Wallace himself. I also used full-color, vigorous pictorial covers that reflected this content.

   Ultimately, the publishing company running the magazine — and employing me as the editor of it and a raft of digest-size “pocket libraries” — ran into financial difficulties and the Wallace family took over the magazine. I was replaced by a “more experienced” editor: elderly writer Nigel Morland who was said to be a family friend, and as a contributor to the magazine had previously flattered me with consistently favorable comment on my editorial work and policies.

   The illustrated covers were replaced by wholly typographical, two-color covers that at best were a poor imitation of Ellery Queen’s. The content changed, too, certainly abandoning what I considered the true Wallace tradition in preference for material that had more of a “whodunit,” intellectual slant.

   From the online FictionMags Index:

Edgar Wallace Mystery Magazine

Publishers
      Aug-1964 – Nov-1964: Micron Publications, Micron House, Gorringe Park Avenue, Mitcham
      Dec-1964 – Jun-1967: Edgar Wallace Magazines Ltd., 4 Bradmore Road, Oxford
      1969? – 1970?: Edgar Wallace Magazines Ltd., 50 Alexandra Road, London SW19

Editors
      Aug-1964 – Nov-1964: Keith Chapman
      Dec-1964 – Jun-1967: Nigel Morland
      1969? – 1970?: Leonard Holdsworth, Kurt Mueller & James Hughes

   Another copy of COMPLETE DETECTIVE NOVEL MAGAZINE from my collection. It’s been a while, so please go back to this previous post for more information about the project this is a part of.

November 1931. Number 41. Total pages: 144, not including covers.

      * 8 * John T. McIntyre * Blows in the Dark * novel * illustrated by Leo Morey

      * 85 * Ward Andrus Scranton * The Almost Perfect Crime * short story (reporter Jimmie Reed)

      * 95 * Jack Martin * The Subway Murders * short story (reporter Hemming Byrd)

      * 114 * Ray Torr * The Doctor Crippen Case * true crime article * continued on page 116

      * 115 * Samuel Davenport * Final Extra! * short short story

      * 117 * James W. Poling * Steps of Death * short story

      * 132 * James Moynahan * Rat Poison * short story

Comments: Reporters seem to have been quite the rage, as far as the short fiction in this issue is concerned. The leading character in “Blows in the Dark,” which does not seem to ever have been published anywhere else, is Bob Craige, an adventurer recently returned from Mexico and Central America, only to find waiting for him in New York City a dying man, a beautiful girl, and a Chinese gentleman (I believe I am using the term lightly) named Hong Yo.

   As for John T. McIntyre, here is his entry in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. I’m quite positive that this is the same author as the one who wrote “Blows in the Dark.”

McINTYRE, JOHN (Thomas)

* In the Toils (play) Penn 1898
* -The Ragged Edge (n.) McClure 1902
* In the Dead of Night (n.) Lippincott 1908 [New York City, NY]

* -The Street Singer (n.) Penn 1908
* Ashton-Kirk: Investigator (n.) Penn 1910 [Ashton Kirk; New York City, NY]
* Ashton-Kirk: Secret Agent (n.) Penn 1912 [Ashton Kirk]

* Ashton-Kirk: Special Detective (n.) Penn 1912 [Ashton Kirk; New York City, NY]
* Ashton-Kirk: Criminologist (n.) Penn 1918 [Ashton Kirk; New York City, NY]

* “Slag” (n.) Scribner 1927
* The Museum Murder (n.) Doubleday 1929 [New York City, NY]

* Steps Going Down (n.) Farrar 1936 [Philadelphia, PA]

* -Signing Off (n.) Farrar 1938

   One of the books is available online. Follow the link above. About Ashton-Kirk, I’ve found a blogger who has said:

    “Until you read the Conan Doyle imitators who were roughly his contemporaries, you can’t understand how reasonable, comparatively, Sherlock Holmes is. Ashton-Kirk is clearly based on Holmes, and yet —

    “He’s one of those young, aristocratic cultured gentlemen. And yes, his eyes are piercing, and his fabulous house is in a bad neighborhood, and he’s irritatingly cryptic, but it’s all part of the formula.”

   This observation is corroborated by Jess Nevins on his Pulp and Adventure Heroes website, where he says in part:

    “Ashton-Kirk, one of the more obvious Holmes homages, was created by John T. McIntyre and appeared in The Popular Magazine and in four collections starting in 1910. Ashton-Kirk is much younger than Holmes, being only in his mid-twenties, the scion of wealth and an ancient line. He has an excellent physique and mind, capable of feats of deduction quite similar to Holmes’ own. Like Holmes, he has a talent for disguise and amateur theatrics, and has a Watson-like assistant.”

[UPDATE.]   Regarding the previous entry in this series, the lead novel for which was “The Murders at Hillside,” by Virginia Anne Roth, Bill Pronzini had this to say about the author, after I mentioned to him that I had all of her novels, but I haven’t read one yet:

    “I think you’ll enjoy the Rath novels. Good, solid Golden Age plotting, background, and characterization. A suggestion: Start with Death at Dayton’s Folly, her first for Crime Club and one of her best.”

   Another copy of COMPLETE DETECTIVE NOVEL MAGAZINE from my collection. See this previous post for more information about the project this is a part of.

July 1931. Number 37. Total pages: 144, not including covers. Cover artist (signed): Parkhurst. Cover price: 25¢.

      * 8 * Virginia Anne Rath * The Murders at Hillside * novel * illustrated by Parkhurst

      * 105 * Jonathan Eddy * A Vacant Lieutenancy * short story

      * 113 * Karl Nemmel * The Human Vampire * fact article

      * 118 * Leonard A. Hopkins * Jake Gets a Break * short story

      * 122 * Eddy Orcutt * Shots from Nowhere * short story (impossible crime)

      * 134 * Mark Mellen * Ivory O’Toole, Wise Hombre * short story

      * 142 * U. V. Wilcox * Police Problems * true crime feature

Comments: While Virginia Rath went on to have a long career writing hardcover mysteries, this early novel appears to have never been published in book form. Neither of her two primary series characters, Sheriff Rocky Allan or Michael Dundas appears in “The Murders at Hillside.” For more on Mrs. Rath, see her profile here as one of the authors who wrote for Ziff-Davis’s line of Fingerprint Mysteries.

   The blurb on the first page of “The Murders at Hillside” reads as follows: “Death strikes in the night and a gay house party becomes the scene of a series of baffling crimes. From the first murder to the startling solution of the last you will follow breathlessly this brand new book-length novel, complete in this issue.” It is not clear, but I believe the story takes place in the West Coast, probably California.

   Not a “cozy” as the term is used in today’s terminology, but most definitely neither a typical pulp story of gangsters and cops. What this novel is instead is one of those traditional murder mysteries very common in the 1930s, not only in England (manor houses and all), but in the US as well. Also note that the author was only 26 when she wrote it.

   From Crime Fiction IV:

RATH, VIRGINIA (Anne McVay) (1905-1950); see pseudonym Theo Durrant

* Death at Dayton’s Folly (n.) Doubleday 1935 [Sheriff Rocky Allan; California]
* Murder on the Day of Judgment (n.) Doubleday 1936 [Sheriff Rocky Allan; California]
* Ferryman, Carry Him Across! (n.) Doubleday 1936 [Sheriff Rocky Allan; California; Academia]
* The Anger of the Bells (n.) Doubleday 1937 [Sheriff Rocky Allan; California]

* An Excellent Night for Murder (n.) Doubleday 1937 [Sheriff Rocky Allan; California]
* The Dark Cavalier (n.) Doubleday 1938 [Michael Dundas; San Francisco, CA]
* Murder with a Theme Song (n.) Doubleday 1939 [Sheriff Rocky Allan; Michael Dundas; California]
* Death of a Lucky Lady (n.) Doubleday 1940 [Michael Dundas; San Francisco, CA]
* Death Breaks the Ring (n.) Doubleday 1941 [Michael Dundas; California]

* Epitaph for Lydia (n.) Doubleday 1942 [Michael Dundas; San Francisco, CA]
* Posted for Murder (n.) Doubleday 1942 [Michael Dundas; San Francisco, CA]
* A Dirge for Her (n.) Ziff-Davis 1947 [Michael Dundas; San Francisco, CA]
* A Shroud for Rowena (n.) Ziff-Davis 1947 [Michael Dundas; San Francisco, CA]

DURRANT, THEO; pseudonym of William A. P. White, Terry Adler, Eunice Mays Boyd, Florence Ostern Faulkner, Allen Hymson, Cary Lucas, Dana Lyon, Lenore Glen Offord, Virginia Rath, Richard Shattuck, Darwin L. Teilhet & William Worley.

      * The Marble Forest (n.) Knopf 1951 [California]
      * The Big Fear (n.) Popular Library 1953; See: The Marble Forest (Knopf 1951)

   Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting the covers and contents of all of the issues of a pulp called COMPLETE DETECTIVE NOVEL MAGAZINE that are in my collection. This is in conjunction with a far more reaching project called the Crime Fiction Index, which is being compiled under the direction of Phil Stephensen-Payne.

   Its intent is to index all of the crime fiction magazines ever published in English, expanding upon two previous such checklists, now both long out of print:

      1. Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Fiction: A Checklist of Fiction in U.S. Pulp Magazines, 1915-1974, compiled by Michael L. Cook and Stephen T. Miller.

      2. Monthly Murders: A Checklist and Chronological Listing Of Fiction In The Digest-Size Mystery Magazines In The United States And England, compiled by Michael L. Cook.

   Follow the link above for more information.

   As for COMPLETE DETECTIVE NOVEL MAGAZINE, Phil also has a checklist of all the issues, most with covers, online here.

   Some of the data is has for the magazine is missing or incomplete, nor does he have all the covers. As I have quite a few of the run, I’ve been promising to give him an assist on these for quite a while. To motivate me – sharp sticks haven’t seemed to work – I’ve decided to post the information here on the M*F blog before sending it along to Phil.

   There will be quite a bit of information that will duplicate his, but even if so it will serve as a check, and while he has quite a few of the covers, some I imagine will be upgrades, as the copies I have are in rather nice condition.

   As the title suggests, each issue contained a full-length novel, along with whatever short stories or other features were needed to fill out the magazine. I’ve estimated the content of the “The Lennox Murder” in the issue below to be 98,000 words, so I feel justified, as did the editors of the magazine, to call the lead story a novel.

   Some of these novels in CDNM can be found in hardcover form. Whether the pulp magazine versions were published before or after the hardcover appeared, I’m not sure, as I don’t have any of these in my collection. As far as I know, the novels in the issues I have were never published anywhere else, although some of the author’s other work may indeed have been. I’ll try to point out instances like this as I go along.

   But what this means to readers and collectors of 1920s and 1930s detective fiction, here’s a source of crime novels you may not have heard about before. Since they appeared in magazine form only, they aren’t included in Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV, for example, which cites only book appearances, although in either hardcover or paperback form.

   I won’t be presenting these in any particular order. I’m not organized well enough to do that. If I were to wait until anything like that happened, I would never get anything done.

September 1929. Number 15. Total pages: 144, not including covers. Cover price: 25¢.

      * 4 * Madelon St. Dennis * The Lennox Murder Case * novel * illustrated by J. Fleming Gould

      * 110 * Harry Van Demark * “The World’s Most Dangerous Woman” * true crime feature

      * 114 * Henry Leverage * The Prize Sucker * short story

      * 118 * Harold de Polo * “Tough Guy” Mahoney * short story

      * 125 * Mark Mellen & John Forbes * Held for Ransom * short story

      * 140 * Anonymous * Headquarters, Where the Readers Get Together * letter column

   Comment: The leading character is a female private eye named Tam O’Brien. The daughter of Ex-Chief of Detectives Rance O’Brien, she’s better known as Tam o’ Shanter, Inquirer. Female PI’s were still fairly scarce in 1929, and I don’t believe I’ve seen her name come up before. Historians of the genre are going to have to add her name to the short list of early ones. (On page 66 there is some discussion of some of the previous cases she’s handled, and they’ll probably come up again, as I start posting some of the earlier issues of CDMN.)

   From Crime Fiction IV:

ST. DENNIS, MADELON

       * The Death Kiss (Fiction League, 1932, hc) [Sydney Treherne; New York City, NY] Film: World Wide, 1933 (scw: Barry Barringer, Gordon Kahn; dir: Edward L. Marin).

       * The Perfumed Lure (Clode, 1932, hc) [Sydney Treherne; New York City, NY]

   The news of mystery writer Arthur Lyons’s unexpected death appeared quickly on the mystery blogs today. First to report was Jiro Kimura’s The Gumshoe Site, followed up soon after by Jeff Pierce at The Rap Sheet, with a long and personal homage to Mr. Lyons. The latter died on March 21st of complications from pneumonia and a stroke; he was only 62.

   Arthur Lyons’s primary character, the one who appeared in all the novels he wrote on his alone and not as part of a twosome, was a LA-based private eye named Jacob Asch. Borrowing Kevin Burton Smith’s words:

    “JACOB ASCH was a glib, cynical, half-Jewish reporter for the L.A. Chronicle until he got sent to jail for refusing to reveal a source. He did six months on a contempt of court beef, and when he was sprung, the glamour of journalism, for some reason, had lost its appeal for him. So now he’s a glib, cynical, half-Jewish LA private dick who gets involved in some very nasty murders, instead.”

   From an interview that Jeff Pierce did with Arthur Lyons some time ago, here’s the author’s take on his character:

    “You’ll never find Asch doing anything unlikely. He will not usually find stuff through coincidence. He’s a plodder. That’s what private detection is, going through papers. All of Asch’s cases come out of paper. He works with paper more than he does people, whereas in Ross Macdonald and with most of those guys, they do it with information people tell them. But there aren’t too many people out there who are going to spill their guts to an investigator, unless the guy has a handle on what’s going on.”

    Here’s a complete list of Arthur Lyons’s work, at least in printed form. Taken and expanded upon from Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, I’ve been able to find covers from all but one of the Jacob Asch books. I apologize that it’s a mixture of hardcovers and paperbacks, nor have I made note of the various reprint editions in which his books have appeared.

LYONS, ARTHUR (Jr.) (1946-2008)

* The Dead Are Discreet (n.) Mason/Charter 1974 [Jacob Asch; Los Angeles, CA]

* All God’s Children (n.) Mason/Charter 1975 [Jacob Asch; Los Angeles, CA]

* The Killing Floor (n.) Mason/Charter 1976 [Jacob Asch; Los Angeles, CA]

* Dead Ringer (n.) Mason/Charter 1977 [Jacob Asch]

* Castles Burning (n.) Holt 1980 [Jacob Asch; Los Angeles, CA]

* Hard Trade (n.) Holt 1981 [Jacob Asch; Los Angeles, CA]

* At the Hands of Another (n.) Holt 1983 [Jacob Asch; California]

* Three with a Bullet (n.) Holt 1985 [Jacob Asch; Los Angeles, CA; Idaho]

* Fast Fade (n.) Mysterious Press 1987 [Jacob Asch; California]

* Unnatural Causes [with Thomas T. Noguchi, M.D.] (n.) Putnam 1988 [Los Angeles, CA; Dr. Eric Parker]

* Other People’s Money (n.) Mysterious Press 1989 [Jacob Asch; Los Angeles, CA]

* Physical Evidence [with Thomas T. Noguchi, M.D.] (n.) Putnam 1990 [Los Angeles, CA; Dr. Eric Parker]

* False Pretenses (n.) Mysterious Press 1994 [Jacob Asch; Los Angeles, CA]

Films:

       Slow Burn, based on Castles Burning. Starring Eric Roberts as Jacob Asch.

Non fiction:

       The Second Coming: Satanism in America (1970)
       Satan Wants You: The Cult of Devil Worship in America (1971)
       The Blue Sense: Psychic Detectives and Crime (1991) (with Marcello Truzzi)
       Death on the Cheap: The Lost B Movies of Film Noir (2000)

[UPDATE] 03-26-08. For an insightful essay by Jeff Pierce on both Lyons and Jacob Asch, may I suggest a return visit to The Rap Sheet. It was written in 1981 or thereabouts, but its age does not diminish the timeliness of this followup post in any way whatsoever.

   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.

   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!

   The latest batch of covers uploaded to Bill Deeck’s Murder at 3 Cents a Day website are those for the Mystery House. The page is still under construction, but it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to make an announcement like this, even premature as it is. The years 1940 to 1943 are done, with three covers so far to begin 1944.

   Here’s the introduction to the page containing the publisher’s line of mystery titles:

   From the August 31, 1940, issue of Publisher’s Weekly: “Arcadia House, Inc., has announced the establishment of two new imprints, one for the publication of detective fiction and one for religious books. Detective novels will be published under the imprint of Mystery House, with Sally Frances as editor in charge. The following titles inaugurate the series: Clue in Two Flats, by R.L.F. McCombs, August 26th; The Corpse with the Listening Ear, by Laurence Dwight Smith, September 20th; Death in the Wheelbarrow, by Jan Gordon, October 10th; Abandon Hope, by Isabel Garland, October 22nd; Homicide Johnny, by Stephen Gould, November 12th. Each book is priced at $2.00.”

   Things didn’t go as planned. Not all of the books came out as scheduled, as you will be able to see for yourself, and I hope you will. Follow the link above.