I spent part of this afternoon annotating the following authors’ entries in Part 25 of the online Addenda to Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. Looking over the list after I was done, the only connecting feature these authors have in common is that they are in this blog post, and nothing else at all.

LEITE, GEORGE THURSTON. 1920-1985. Joint pseudonym with Jody Scott, 1923-2007: Scott Thurston, qq.v. Under this pen name the co-author of one crime novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. Owner of Daliel’s Bookstore in Berkeley, editor of Circle Magazine, and a long-time publisher.

RICH, A(RTHUR) T. [Show byline thus.] Author of one detective novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      The Curate Finds the Corpse. Bear Hudson, UK, pb, 1945. Setting: England.

SCOTT, AMANDA. Add as a new author entry. Pseudonym of Lynne Scott-Drennan, 1944- , q.v. Under this pen name, the author of some 40 romance novels, many of them Regencies. The titles below appear to have at least marginal crime content.
      -The Bawdy Bride. Pinnacle, pb, 1996. Setting: England, 1800s. [Who is responsible for the mysterious events at Lord St. Ledgers’s ancestral estate – including the suspicious death of his brother, the duke?]
      -Dangerous Angels. Pinnacle, 1997. Setting: England, 1829. SC: Lady Letitia Deverill, in a non-leading role.

      -Dangerous Lady. Zebra, pb, 1999. Setting: London, 1800s. SC: Lady Letitia Deverill. [Letty discovers a plot to assassinate the Queen Victoria.]

SCOTT, JODY. 1923-2007. Add year of death. Full name: Jody Hugelot Scott Wood. Born Joann Margaret Huguelet. “Mr. Scott came later closely followed by Mr. Wood.” Joint pseudonym with George Thurston Leite: Thurston Scott, qq.v. Under her own name, the author of two sf/fantasy novels, Passing for Human and I, Vampire.

SCOTT, THURSTON. Joint pseudonym of George Thurston Leite & Jody Scott, 1923-2007, qq.v. Correct full name of the latter to Jody Huguelet Scott Wood, q.v., and add year of death. Under this pen name the author of one crime novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      Cure It with Honey. Harper & Bros., hc, 1951. Setting: California. Also published as: I’ll Get Mine (Popular Library, 1952). [Confirm this later retitling.]
      _I’ll Get Mine. Popular Library, pb, 1952. See: Cure It with Honey (Harper, 1951). “She loved men, money and marijuana.”

SCOTT-DRENNAN, LYNNE. 1944- . Pseudonym: Amanda Scott, q.v. Born and currently living in California, prolific writer of romance fiction, under both her own name and her pen name.

WOOD, JODY HUGUELET SCOTT. See Jody Scott.

   This is a continuation of a post made a couple of weeks back, based on a couple of discoveries made by Ken Johnson. First of all, here are the previous Addenda entries, repeated as they were given then:

FRITCH, CHARLES E(DWARD). 1927- . Add pseudonym Eric Thomas, q.v. For many years editor of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, beginning in 1979. Under his own name, a science fiction writer and the author of one private eye novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV.
      _Negative of a Murder. Sydney, Australia: Phantom, pb, 1960. See: Negative of a Nude (Ace 1959).
      Negative of a Nude. Ace, pb, 1959. Australian title: Negative of a Murder (Phantom, 1960). Setting: Los Angeles, CA. Add series character: Hollywood private eye Mark Wonder. Rewritten as Strip for Murder, by Eric Thomas (Kozy, 1960). As described by James Reasoner on his blog: “Mark Wonder […] is hired to recover some blackmail photos.”

THOMAS, ERIC. Add: pseudonym of Charles E. Fritch, 1927- , q.v. Under this pen name, the author of two novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV; see below:
      Psycho Sinner. Athena, pb, 1961. Add series character: Hollywood private eye Mark Wonder. Says James Reasoner on his blog: “Mark Wonder is hired by beautiful starlet Silvi McClair to find out who’s trying to kill her.”
      Strip for Murder. Kozy Books, pb, 1960. Add setting: Los Angeles, CA. Leading character: private eye Christopher Sly. [Sly is hired by a stripper to recover some photos shed posed for.] According to James Reasoner on his blog, this book is “a very loose rewrite of Negative of a Nude (Ace, 1959), written under the author’s own name.

   After these entries were posted, Ken emailed me with the following information:

    “I have a different book called 7 Deadly Sinners by Christopher Sly, published by Athena Books in 1961, also featuring Sly as the lead character. This book was reprinted a year later by Carousel Books, another porn house, as Fury in Black Lace by Charles Brockden. Here’s the interesting part: Carousel Books were published by Frimac Publications which, it is my understanding, was owned by Charles Fritch and Jack Matcha.”

   We’ll have to leave Frimac Publications to discuss another day — this was certainly news to me — but by pure coincidence, Jack Matcha’s entry was included in the same post as Charles Fritch’s.

   For now, though, the following revised entries will appear in Part 25 of the ongoing online Addenda to Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. Until perhaps Mr. Fritch confirms that he wrote the following books, we’ll reserve the possibility that some plagiarizing may have been going on, as was common in the sleaze-based paperbacks of that era.

SLY, CHRISTOPHER. Possible pseudonym of Charles E. Fritch, 1927- ; other possible pen name: Charles Brockden; qq.v. Confirmed pen name for Mr. Fritch: Eric Thomas, q.v.
      7 Deadly Sinners. Athena, pb, 1961. Setting: Los Angeles CA. Series character: Private eye Christopher Sly. [Sly is hired as a bodyguard to seven beautiful movie starlets.] Note: This book was rewritten as Fury in Black Lace, by Charles Brockden.

BROCKDEN, CHARLES. Possible pseudonym of Charles E. Fritch, 1927- ; other possible pen name: Christopher Sly, qq.v. Confirmed pen name for Mr. Fritch: Eric Thomas, q.v.
      Fury in Black Lace. Carousel, pb, 1962. Setting: Miami Beach FL. Leading character: Private eye Nicholas Gamble. [Gamble is hired as a bodyguard to seven beauty contest contestants.] Note: This book is a rewrite of 7 Deadly Sinners, by Christopher Sly.

KATHERINE HALL PAGE – The Body in the Fjord.

Avon, paperback reprint; 1st printing, November 1998. Hardcover first edition: William Morrow, November 1997.

   False advertising. Although her name is not on the front cover, it’s on the back cover and all over the first couple of blurb pages. This is supposedly a “Faith Fairchild” mystery, and it isn’t.

   Faith Fairchild, for those of you who may not know, is a minister’s wife who lives in Aleford MA (a small fictional village somewhere outside Boston), and she’s solved many a case in her day, but not this one. She appears in a few pages at the beginning, a couple in the middle at the other end of a telephone call, and a few more at the end. That’s all.

   Besides being a sleuth, a wife and a mother, and not necessarily in that order, Faith also has a catering business on the side. Working for her part-time is Pix Miller. What Pix knows about murder cases, she’s learned from Faith, but it hardly seems enough for her to tackle a book’s worth of adventure on her own – and it isn’t, I’m reluctantly sorry to say.

   Pix and her mother Ursula head for Norway in this book – which should hardly come as a surprise, given the title of the book – where they try to track down Kari, the granddaughter of Ursula’s best friend Marit. Kari and Eric, her boy friend, had been working as stewards on a guided tour through the land of the fjords for a group largely consisting of Americans.

   But Eric has been found dead, and Kari is missing. You might think it would be the utmost in audaciousness for two American women to come to a foreign country to do the job of the local police, and for the most part, you would be right. Mitigating this rather shaky basis of the story line is the picturesque quality of the tour they join, asking all kinds of questions as they go. Most of the central part of the book is as much a travelogue as it is a mystery, which is what we primarily signed up for, or at least I did, complete with recipes in the back.

   Possible reasons for Kari’s disappearance: she and Eric may have stumbled upon a stronghold of Nazi survivors or sympathisizers; or a gang of smugglers of Norwegian artifacts; or a cabal of industrial spies in the oil business; or the romance between the two young people may have ended in a lovers’ spat and that is that.

   Or any combination of the above. The police don’t make an appearance until page 167, leaving Pix and her mother the only ones on the scene asking questions and getting into serious trouble, especially Pix. It’s all a case of too much, which is quite a paradox, since it’s also a case of far too little.

   Here’s a list of all the Faith Fairchild books, expanding upon the entry in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. I’d recommend that you read one or another of this list instead, at least for the first one. If you’ve already read one, you’re probably way ahead of me on this.

LES ROBERTS – The Cleveland Local.

St. Martin’s; paperback reprint, December 1998. Hardcover first edition: St. Martin’s, November 1997. Trade paperback: Gray & Company Publishers, June 2005.

   I’ll begin, not at the beginning, or not really, with a list of all the mystery fiction that Les Roberts has written. This I put together from what I found in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, plus the bibliography that Mr. Roberts provides on his own website:

         The Saxon Series:     [A Los Angeles actor turned private eye.]

• An Infinite Number of Monkeys (St. Martin’s Press, 1987)
• Not Enough Horses (St. Martin’s Press, 1988)
• A Carrot for the Donkey (St. Martin’s Press, 1989)
• Snake Oil (St. Martin’s Press, 1990)
• Seeing the Elephant (St. Martin’s Press, 1992)
• The Lemon Chicken Jones (St. Martin’s Press, 1994)

         The Milan Jacovich Series:      [A private eye of Slovenian heritage based in Cleveland OH.]

• Pepper Pike (St. Martin’s Press, 1988)
• Full Cleveland (St. Martin’s Press, 1989)
• Deep Shaker (St. Martin’s Press, 1991)
• The Cleveland Connection (St. Martin’s Press, 1993)
• The Lake Effect (St. Martin’s Press, 1994)
• The Duke of Cleveland (St. Martin’s Press, 1995)
• Collision Bend (St. Martin’s Press, 1996)
• The Cleveland Local (St. Martin’s Press, 1997)
• A Shoot in Cleveland (St. Martin’s Press, 1998)
• The Best-Kept Secret (St. Martin’s Press, 1999)
• The Indian Sign (St. Martin’s Press, 2000)
• The Dutch (St. Martin’s Press, 2001)
• The Irish Sports Pages (St. Martin’s Press, 2002)

         Stand Alones:

• The Chinese Fire Drill (Five Star, 2001)
• The Scent of Spiced Oranges (Five Star, 2002)

   Here’s the real beginning, the first sentence of The Cleveland Local: “It was a black-and-white-movie morning when I opened my office, looked out the window down the Cuyahoga River, and saw the angry thunderheads hunkered over Lake Erie.”

   And here’s how the man pronounces his name: MY-lan YOCK-o-vitch, which he proudly makes sure the reader knows by page 3. Milan is an ex-football player and pretty much of a blue-collar kind of PI. He knows his way around every section of Cleveland, though, from the ethnic neighborhoods where he grew up to the ritzier parts of downtown and areas where the richer people live.

   In The Cleveland Local he’s hired to tackle a rather cold case, that of the shotgun murder of a young professional lawyer on the Caribbean island of San Carlos ten weeks earlier. Obviously there’s no way the Cleveland cops can get involved, so the case is steered Milan’s way. The dead man’s sister, also an attorney, is picking up the tab.

   What Milan can’t understand is why the dead man’s father, a noted well-to-do labor attorney, wants nothing to do with the investigation, making him wonder if the sister might be right, and that there’s a local connection, not just another botched robbery attempt in a foreign country and international resort area.

   And of course there is. That’s almost not the point. What Roberts is equally interested in, besides the mystery, is to illustrate why and how he loves the city of Cleveland, the ins and outs, the people who run it, mostly behind the scenes, in a fictional paean to the town, with a hint of melancholy for the older days. There’s also some introspective father-son stuff involved as well, without being overly blatant about it, plus a generous hint of a budding romance. (Milan is divorced from his two boys’ mother.)

   Milan’s technique consists of asking good common sense questions, persistence, a tough guy attitude (which at over 40 he can still back up) and persistence. An excellent combination, marred by the fact – and I dislike having to bring it up – by the relative weakness of the mystery. The motive for the murder seems too slight, the method too complicated, and people in retrospect don’t seem to have behaved in appropriate fashion to it.

   Can I say that and still say that I enjoyed the book? I can, and if you didn’t notice, I just did. I should also point out, as many of the reviewers on Amazon also do, that the ending is one that will have readers immediately reaching for the next book in the series, which – thanks to the bibliography above – would have been A Shoot in Cleveland. It looks like a must read to me.

   I’ve not been able to do much posting here on the blog this week, but I hope to get back in the routine again soon. Pushing me in the right direction this morning was Al Hubin, who sent me Part 25 of the online Addenda to his landmark bibliography Crime Fiction IV, and I was able to upload it this afternoon.

   Follow the first link directly to Part 25. The second one will lead you to the main page, which has a little more information about what this long ongoing project is all about.

   There are no major pieces of information in this installment, only a slow but steady accumulation of answers to trivia questions, perhaps: newly identified settings, corrected publication dates, added movies or TV films based on mystery novels, newly discovered series characters, new editions of old books under new names or titles, on and on. Even though the cutoff for titles is the year 2000, additions and corrections like these keep coming in.

   A small percentage of the information, by the way, has been previewed on this blog over the past few weeks. Al sends me the basic data, and eventually I expand and annotate the individual entries. I’ve not yet had a chance to do any of that for Part 25, but it’s on my agenda of things to do over the next few days.

JEAN HAGER – Sew Deadly.

Avon, paperback original. First printing, December 1998.

   At one time Jean Hager had three different mystery series going, but while I’m not 100% sure, there doesn’t seem to have been any books to appear from her in a while. She was born in 1932, so if she happens to be retired from writing, as seems likely, she’s had a very decent career to show for it.

   Ms. Hager wrote romances in the beginning, under both her own name and under several pseudonyms, before edging her way into mystery fiction by writing Gothics (as Amanda McAllister and Sara North) in the late 1970s. Her first true detective novel may have been The Grandfather Medicine in 1989 — but let’s do it the easier way. Here’s a complete list of all the books in each the three series that I mentioned just a minute ago, thanks primarily to Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin:

   Chief Mitchell Bushyhead: [half-Cherokee and head of the four-man police force in Bushkin, Oklahoma]

      The Grandfather Medicine. St. Martin’s, 1989.
      Nightwalker. St. Martin’s, 1990.
      Ghostland. St. Martin’s, 1992.
      The Fire Carrier. Mysterious Press, 1996.

      Masked Dancers. Mysterious Press, 1998.

   Molly Bearpaw: [a major crimes investigator and advocate for the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma]

      Ravenmocker. Mysterious Press, 1992.
      The Redbird’s Cry. Mysterious Press, 1994.
      Seven Black Stones. Mysterious Press, 1995.

      The Spirit Caller. Mysterious Press, 1997.

   Tess Darcy: [owner of the Iris House, a bed-and-breakfast in Victoria Springs, Missouri]

      Blooming Murder. Avon, pb, 1994.
      Dead and Buried. Avon, pb, 1995.
      Death on the Drunkard’s Path. Avon, pb, 1996.
      The Last Noel. Avon, pb, 1997.
      Sew Deadly. Avon, pb, 1998.
      Weigh Dead. Avon, pb, 1999.
      Bride and Doom. Avon, pb, 2000.

   Relative to the Tess Darcy books, there’s a long online interview with Jean Hager about the series at http://bandb.about.com/library/weekly/aa060898.htm.

   Any mystery novel with an amateur female detective, especially one who operates a bed-and-breakfast establishment, is going to be called a “cozy,” no matter that two people are murdered in it, and more or less on stage rather than off, one of them in fairly gruesome fashion. (While sometimes I wonder exactly how cozy “cozies” really are, I’m not going to argue, or least not here.)

   Probably because a B&B can’t have too many murders take place in it and stay in business, the primary setting of Sew Deadly has shifted by this time, the 5th book in the series, to the local seniors’ center, where Tess volunteers during the winter months, with no reservations in sight until March.

   The first victim comes as no surprise. It is a meddlesome little old lady who lives in near poverty and seems to delight in finding various ways of annoying her fellow seniors, even to the extent of a little minor blackmail, just for fun. (The second to die is more of a shocker, as I mentioned above, both as to who the victim is and the manner of death.)

   It does mean that there are plenty of good suspects, including the dead woman’s nephew and his supposed wife, who just happen to be visiting to make sure he’s remembered in her will, for whatever small amount it might be. And because Jean Hager as an author is quite good as describing what might have been totally stereotypical regulars to the senior center, the detective work is for the most part very well done — and in fact the emphasis is on the detective work, and not Tess’s love life, which seems to be moving well enough along so as not to cause anybody any concern.

   Perhaps you noticed that I used the phrase “for the most part.” The killer is fairly obvious to spot, but while there are lots of clues planted along the way, some of them leading to dead ends, of course, the clincher is not discovered until page 202 (of a 210 page book), meaning that Tess knows for sure only a fraction of a moment before the reader does.

   If the reader has been paying attention, that is. The end result is an “almost but not quite” fair play detective story, but in some cases, like this one, the “almost” is almost good enough.

   Just so that you know that not all of the books in my basements are gothics, here are a few that I unboxed this past weekend coming from the other side of the crime fiction spectrum. These entries as I’ve annotated and expanded them will appear in Part 25 of the online Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV.

BARCLAY, JOHN. Pseudonym of Jack Matcha, 1919- 2003, q.v.; other pseudonym John Tanner, q.v. Under this pen name, the author of one novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      Ask for Lois. Monarch, pb, 1962. Add setting: Hollywood CA.

DAVIDSON, JOHN. Pseudonym of Charles Nuetzel, 1934- .
      Delete: Blues for a Dead Lover. (Uptown, pb, 1962.) No crime content. [A jazz musician goes on a book-long binge when his girl friend dies in a plane accident.]

FRITCH, CHARLES E(DWARD). 1927- . Add pseudonym Eric Thomas, q.v. For many years editor of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, beginning in 1979. Under his own name, a science fiction writer and the author of one private eye novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV.
      _Negative of a Murder. Sydney, Australia: Phantom, pb, 1960. See: Negative of a Nude (Ace 1959).
      Negative of a Nude. Ace, pb, 1959. Australian title: Negative of a Murder (Phantom, 1960). Setting: Los Angeles, CA. Add series character: Hollywood private eye Mark Wonder. Rewritten as Strip for Murder, by Eric Thomas (Kozy, 1960). Says James Reasoner on his blog: “Mark Wonder […] is hired to recover some blackmail photos.”

MATCHA, JACK (B.) 1919-2003. Pseudonyms: John Barclay, John Tanner, qq.v. Born in New York City; degrees from Columbia (1942) and USC (1959). A reporter with the Baltimore Sun; playwright and TV writer in the 1970s. Taught at Los Angeles Southwest College circa 1978. Under his own name the author of one crime novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV.
      Prowler in the Night. Gold Medal, US, pb, 1959. Digit, UK, pb, 1959. Setting: Los Angeles, CA.

MERRICK, GORDON. 1916-1988. Actor from 1938-41; journalist from 1941-44, with the Washington Star, Baltimore Evening Sun, and New York Post. Beginning in 1947, the author of 14 novels, including three cited in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV, one marginally; to this list add the one below:
      The Strumpet Wind. William Morrow, hc, 1947. Reprinted as The Night and the Naked, (Pop. Library, 1952). Setting: France, 1944. [Espionage novel and love story “told against the turmoil of occupied France during the Second World War.”]
      _The Night and the Naked. Popular Library, pb, 1952. See: The Strumpet Wind (Morrow, 1947).

NORTON, (FRANK ROWLAND) BROWNING. 1909-1989. Born in Ohio; reporter and editor for the Youngstown Vindicator, 1941-1959. Professor of journalism, Ohio State University, 1959-71. Short story writer and co-author of one mystery novel previously included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. To this add the title marked with an asterisk below.
      I Prefer Murder (with Charles A. Landolf). Graphic, pb, 1956. Phantom, Sydney, Australia, pb, 1957.
      * Tidal Wave, Ace, pb, 1960. Setting unknown: “Lake Iroquois.” [A man investigates the death of his brother by drowning.]

TANNER, JOHN. Pseudonym of Jack Matcha, 1919-2003, q.v. Other pseudonym: John Barclay, q.v. Under this pen name the author of two books included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV, , the first one of which is to be deleted:
      Delete: Gambler’s Girl. Athena, pb, 1961.   [The book is a western.]
      The Killer Came Naked. Brandon House, pb, 1974.

THOMAS, ERIC. Add: pseudonym of Charles E. Fritch, 1927- , q.v. Under this pen name, the author of two novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV; see below:
      Psycho Sinner. Athena, pb, 1961. Add series character: Hollywood private eye Mark Wonder. Says James Reasoner on his blog: “Mark Wonder is hired by beautiful starlet Silvi McClair to find out who’s trying to kill her.”
      Strip for Murder. Kozy Books, pb, 1960. Add setting: Los Angeles, CA. Leading character: private eye Christopher Sly. [Sly is hired by a stripper to recover some photos she’d posed for.] According to James Reasoner on his blog, this book is “a very loose rewrite of Negative of a Nude” (Ace, 1959), written under the author’s own name.

WALTERS, HANK. Add as a new author’s entry.
            Hood’s Mistress. Novel Books, pb, 1961.
            Lucky Rape. Novel Books, pb,1960. Setting: Maine. [Tough noirish novel about hoodlums, bank robbery, rape and other assorted criminal activity.]

A. B. CUNNINGHAM – Murder Without Weapons.

E. P. Dutton & Co.; hardcover first edition, 1949. No US paperback edition.

   The backwoods region of the Deer Lick country is pretty nearly an alien world to me, a city feller for most of my life. (The exact state doesn’t seem to have been mentioned, but presumably it’s somewhere in Appalachia.) Even the title is one that makes more sense to an outdoorsman, seeing as the murder occurs with the death of a young girl going over the edge of a logging chute, a drop of all of fifty feet, frightened by the snuffling sounds of an approaching bear. A nonexistent bear, as it turns out, since dogs are not so easily fooled.

   Sheriff Jess Roden is the reluctant detective — reluctant, that is, to claim there’d been murder done if in fact there hadn’t. To the trained, inquisitive mind of the inveterate mystery reader, there’s a surprising lack of questions asked, both by those who find the body and by her family, but in many ways the roles of country folks are as fixed, as categorized, as those of us city people, and things do work out a little more slowly and in their own way.

   Roden does do a fine, though irrelevant, piece of detective work to impress an inquiring reporter, but I was disappointed with the ending. All the traipsing around at the top of the cliff where the dirty work was done seems highly unlikely, and at best, it needs a bit more explanation. The killer was fairly obvious, but even now I’m not convinced I know why he did it.   [C]

[UPDATE] 03-05-08. This book is one that was published as part of Dutton’s Guilt Edged series of mysteries, and as such it’s included in the online article that Victor Berch, Bill Pronzini and I did on them.

   It’s still the only book by Cunningham that I’ve read, but I hope my comments didn’t suggest that such would always be the case. In fact, now that I’m (much) older, I have the feeling that I might enjoy one of Sheriff Jess Roden’s adventures even more than I did back then, in my youthful 30s.

   Most of his cases I’m more likely to have in paperback. Many of them were published as Dell mapbacks, others as digest-sized softcovers from Detective Novel Classics and so on. None are particularly collectable — after all Jess Roden is not a detective that anybody brings up in conversation very often today — so unless you want them in Fine or better condition, they should be relatively easy to find.

   And oh, one last thing. I didn’t know then, and apparently in the book it was never stated or made clear, but Deer Lick is in Kentucky. Not only that, but it’s a real town, just up the road from Lewisburg. The population today is about 1400.

   Which leads me to a question. Is there a smaller town in the US with as many mysteries taking place in the immediately surrounding area as Deer Lick? According to Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, there were 20 of them, plus one Roden adventure set in Texas, all published by Dutton:

   The following grouping of authors came from Part 20 of the online Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV and the top portion of the alphabet, along with various offshoots along the way.

ABBOTT, MONICA. 1914-2003. Add both dates. Joint pseudonym with Stanley Abbott: Lesley Howard, qq.v.

ABBOTT, STANLEY. 1906-1976. Add both dates. Joint pseudonym with Monica Abbott: Lesley Howard, qq.v.

ADAMS, HERBERT. 1874-1958. Pseudonym: Jonathan Gray. Attended City of London School; a surveyor (and member of the Surveyors Institute) before turning to writing. Noted as the author of a number of golfing mysteries; Adams’s most frequently recurring series character was amateur sleuth Roger Bennion. A review of Death of a Viewer earlier here on the Mystery*File blog contains additional bibliographic information.
      The Golden Ape. Methuen, UK, hc, 1930. Lippincott, US, hc, 1939. SC: Jimmie Haswell. [From page 32: Haswell is a lawyer who “solves the crimes that baffle Scotland Yard. Makes a hobby of it.” He appears in nine of Adams’s detective novels.] Note: See The Scarlet Feather.

      The Scarlet Feather. Cherry Tree, UK, pb, 1943. Add note: This is a reworking of The Golden Ape with the same plot but different character names.

ALEXANDER, RUTH. 1879-1958. Married name: Ruth Alexander Rogers. Correct previous information about the author’s name and date of birth; add date of death. Her earliest books were novelizations of plays and films, many of a criminous nature. One of these is shown below (Readers Library, UK, hc, 1932). After World War II, her output seems to have been limited to romance novels.

      Sorry You’ve Been Troubled. Readers Library, UK, hc, 1930. Novelization of play written by Walter Hackett, 1876-1944, q.v., and later published by French in 1931. Add note: The novelization was actually written by Ruth Alexander, although she was not credited.

ALLEN, WILLIAM EDWARD DAVID. 1901-1973. Add as a new author entry. British historian and businessman. Pseudonym: Liam Pawle, q.v.

ANONYMOUS: CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL ANTHOLOGIES. The actual authors of many of the stories in the following story collections are now identified. The complete contents appear to be online ● here and ●● here:

      ● Chewton Abbot and other tales. W. & R. Chambers Ltd., UK, hc, 1887. Series: Tales from Chambers’s Journal; add date. With some crime:
         Among Queer People, by ??
         Chewton Abbot, by Hugh Conway
         A Flight in the Dark, by ??
         The White Hart Inn, by ??

      ● Five Brothers’ Five Fixes. W. & R. Chambers Ltd., UK, hc, 1885. Series: Tales from Chambers’s Journal. Short story collection, some criminous, including at least those indicated with an asterisk:
         A Black Mare with a White Star, by Thomas W. Speight (*)
         Daisy’s Choice, by ??    [add]
         Five Brothers’ Five Fixes, by Rev. C. Elliot
         A Hand and a Ring, by G. Lamley (*)

      ●● The Lighthouse of the Gannets, and other stories. W. & R. Chambers Ltd., UK, hc, 1884. Series: Tales from Chambers’s Journal. With some crime:
         The Lighthouse of the Gannets, by John Berwick Harwood
         The Monks of Cockaigne, by ??
         Under Godfrey, by W. Thornbury
         An Unexpected Blessing, by Robert Black
         Zekel Flint, by George Manville Fenn

      ●● My Friend Ching and other tales. Chambers, UK, hc, 1884. Series: Tales from Chambers’s Journal; add date. With some crime:
         The Cabman’s Story, by ??
         Children I Have Met, by James Payn
         My Friend Ching, by John Berwick Harwood
         A Narrow Escape, by ??

      ● Our Feather Farm and other tales. W. & R. Chambers Ltd., UK, hc, 1886. Series: Tales from Chambers’s Journal; add date. With some crime:
         Blamyre’s Chambers, by W. Thornbury
         The Jansetjee Jeejeebhoy, by W. Thornbury
         Miss Fyfe’s Adventure, by Thomas W. Speight
         Our Feather Farm, by John Berwick Harwood
         The Phantom of Deadmoor Tower, by Lewis Hough
         The Wife’s Secret, by ??

ARMER, ALAN (ARTHUR). 1922- . Correct birth date confirmed; add middle name. American screenwriter, producer and director; retired Cal State Northridge professor in the Radio-Television-Film department. Producer for the following television series, among others: The Untouchables, The Fugitive, and Cannon. For The Fugitive he received both an Emmy and an Edgar Award (1965) from the Mystery Writers of America. Co-author of one book of plays for television included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV.
      Vest Pocket Theatre: Twenty Tested Television Playlets (with Walter E. Grauman). New York: French, hc, 1955. A collection of one-act plays, three of them criminous in nature.

ARTHUR, FRANCIS. A new author’s entry.
      The Touch of a Vanished Hand. Remington, UK, hc, 1889.

ARTZ, EMILY S. 1942- . Add middle initial and year of birth. Joint pseudonym with Fran Pokras Yariv: Emily Francis, q. v.

AUGUST, VIENNA. A new author’s entry.
      -Eye of the Crow. New Orleans: High Humidity, pb, 1998. “A Romantic Voodoo Tale.”

FRANCIS, EMILY. Joint pseudonym of Emily S. Artz, 1942- , q.v. and Fran Pokras Yariv. Under this pen name the co-authors of one book included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      Elena. Leisure, pb, 1977. Setting: Greece.

HOWARD, LESLEY. Joint pseudonym of Monica Abbott, 1914-2003, and Stanley Abbott, 1906-1976, qq.v. Under this pen name, the authors of one mystery novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below. (The cover shown is that of a British paperback published by NEL, 1977.)
      Invitation to Paradise. Coward-McCann, hc, 1974. Add: Cassell, UK, hc, 1974. Setting: Mediterranean Island.

PAWLE, LIAM. Add: Pseudonym of William Edward David Allen, 1901-1973, q.v. Under this pen name, the author of one crime novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      Strange Coast. Lovat Dickson, UK, hc, 1936. Setting: Russia.

MARY JO ADAMSON – The Blazing Tree.

Signet, paperback original; first printing, June 2000.

   Adamson, whose previous mysteries featured Lt. Balthazar Marten and were set in present day Puerto Rico, starts a new series with this book. Taking place in 19th century New England, The Blazing Tree is the first case tackled (and solved) by Boston police reporter Michael Merrick.

   Merrick, at one time a serious opium-eater, has been rehabilitated and given his previous position by an unknown benefactor. The newspaper’s owner, Jasper Quincey, will not say who that good soul is, but he gives Merrick a new assignment: to become his eyes and ears and find out who is responsible for a number of fires that have been set near and around Hancock, a Shaker village somewhere in western Massachusetts. One of these fires, not accidental, has now caused a fatality. Perhaps murder was not what was intended, but a death it is all the same.

   Masquerading as a new member, Merrick joins the community of Shakers and his investigation begins — and which is where the mystery comes to a near dead stop. Or at the least, it proceeds in only fits and starts. For history buffs, there is a goodly amount of background to be filled in, all very interesting, but that’s not the real problem.

   Which is this: there is simply too much story involved. One of the Shakers in Hancock is the same man who was the partner of Merrick’s father, and who may have cheated his mother out of his share of the business. The man’s son is tormented by a strange affliction now known as Tourette’s syndrome. Another boy is lame and unable to speak, traumatized by some earlier accident or bad treatment. And there is Sister Esther, with whom Michael soon finds himself falling in love. This causes problems, as celibacy is one of the main tenets of the Shaker religion.

   So it is no wonder that the mystery falters and stutters. Adamson has very good intentions, but in spite of a semi-uplifting ending — the mystery is solved, given some of Quincey’s eventual input, but not all of Michael’s problems — the tale doesn’t quite get out of second gear.

   As an aside to more devoted detective fiction fans, the resemblance to Nero Wolfe and his second-in-command, Archie Goodwin, is probably quite intentional.

          — May 2000. This review first appeared in The Historical Novels Review. It has been revised and expanded since then.

[UPDATE] 03-03-08.    Using Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV as a guide, here’s a complete list of all of Ms. Adamson’s mystery fiction:

       ADAMSON, M(ARY) J(O).  1935- .

   According to the calendar, Adamson’s first series ended far too early. I’ve not read any of them, but from what I’ve read, Marten was a homicide detective for the NYPD who traveled to Puerto Rico and decided to stay.

      — The Balthazar Marten books:    [Setting: Puerto Rico.]

         * Not Till a Hot January. Bantam, 1987.
         * A February Face. Bantam, 1987.
         * Remember March. Bantam, 1988.
         * April When They Woo. Bantam, 1989.
         * May’s New Fangled Mirth. Bantam, 1989 .

   Until I checked online just now, I was positive there were more in Ms. Adamson’s second series than two, but that’s all there seems to have been:

      — The Michael Merrick books:    [Setting: Massachusetts, 1870s.]

         * The Blazing Tree. Signet, 2000.
         * The Elusive Voice. Signet, 2001.