NORBERT DAVIS “Walk Across My Grave.” Short story. First published in Black Mask, April 1942. Reprinted in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, November 1953.

   I was talking about humorous private eyes after reading Loren D. Estleman’s story “State of Grace” a short while back. The PI in that tale was a chap named Ralph Poteet, a relatively recent hero of sorts based in Detroit. Going back in time, to the early 1940s, the leading character in this story is a chap named Jim Laury, who’s not a PI at all, but a matter-of-fact sort of fellow whose fictional existence was even shorter than Mr. Poteet’s. According to all the evidence I’ve been able to find, this is the only story he was ever in.

   He’s a quiet, unprepossessing ,man. Here’s the first couple of paragraphs that was used to describe him as he comes into the story, a two or three pages in:

   Not too much there to stoke anyone’s sense of humor there, I suppose, but I think it’s an excellent piece of writing. No, what I found really funny comes later, speaking of myself in particular, as he listens to his deputy (a man named Waldo) wild and woolly theories about the case, bods thoughtfully as if they had any real bearing about the case, and continues on about business.

   Which begins with a figure in black being seen stumbling around in a cemetery at night banging into tombstones and all, then seguing into a murder that has to be solved. Which Mr. Laury does, calmly and in very cool pulpish fashion.

   It’s too bad that Norbert Davis never tool the time to wrote down any other of his cases. He wrote lots of other tales equally fun to read, though, in a career that was far too short. He died in 1949, at the age of only 40.

LOREN D. ESTLEMAN “State of Grace.” PI Ralph Poteet #1. . First published in An Eye for Justice: The Third Private Eye Writers of America Anthology, edited by Robert J. Randisi (Mysterious Press, hardcover, 1988). Collected in Match Me Sidney!, (No Exit Press, 1989), and in People Who Kill, (Mystery Scene Press, 1993). Reprinted in Under the Gun, edited by Ed Gorman, Robert J. Randisi & Martin H. Greenberg, (NAL, 1990_ and in Murder Most Divine ed. Ralph McInerny & Martin H. Greenberg (Cumberland House, 2000).

   Comical PI’s are not common, fictional or otherwise, but you can add Ralph Poteet to the short list that (someone else) has been busy putting together over the years. You can tell about the funny business in it first of all by the name of the detective. Now I suppose the name Ralph Poteet is common enough is some parts of the country – Detroit, for example? – but  in sturdier country, such as New England, for example, just reading the name is bound to give us folk a serious case of the giggles.

   Not that the comedy in this tale is likely to do more thay. Mr Estlemna, as its author was wise to make the humor in it quieter and more subtle than that, but I think that he had fun writing it. It begins with the hooker who lives in the apartment above him calling him to tell him that she has a dead priest in her bed. Dead. Heart attack? Maybe. What she wants is for him to get rid of him.

   Ralph is the kind of guy who thinks well of himself, but when it comes down to it, he’s a sleazy kind of fellow, and he takes the job. The first person he calls is a bishop named Stoneman, who is ready and willing to help. When he comes back, well I won’t say exactly, but it’s a close call.

   The story goes on from there, and if you haven’t been able to tell, I recommend this one to you highly. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find, if I’ve intrigued you enough.

The Ralph Poteet series —

       Short stories:

“State of Grace” (1988, An Eye For Justice)
“A Hatful of Ralph” (2003, Flesh and Blood: Guilty as Sin)

        Novels:

Peeper. (Bantam, 1989.)

LIA MATERA. “Dead Drunk.” Laura Di Palma. First published in Guilty As Charged, edited by Scott Turow ( Pocket, paperback, 1996). First collected in Counsel for the Defense and Other Stories, Five Star, hardcover, 2000). Reprinted in Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories: Sixth Annual Edition edited by  Joan Hess, Ed Gorman & Martin H. Greenberg (Carroll & Graf, 1997); in Shamus Winners, Volume II: 1996-2009, edited by Robert J. Randisi (Perfect Crime Books, softcover, 2010; and in A Century of Noir, edited by Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins, New American Library, 2002). Winner of the  PWA Shamus Award for Best Short Story, 1997.

   There is a small problem with the credentials for this story, not really a serious one, unless you would to argue more about it than I do. Laura Di Palma, the protagonist in this tale is a lawyer, not a PI, but the PWA decided that the job she does in it is close enough to qualify. (See the fact that it won a Shamus Award for that year;s Best Story.)

   She is, in fact, hired by a client who fears that he is sbout to be arrested for the deaths of a number of homeless men. There has been a sequence of four of them, all found frozen to death in the park after having been doused with water while asleep there on very cold nights.

   Since she hasn’t made enough money to pay the PI who works for her, she has to do all of the legwork on her own. It’s not a long story, and the story has all the credentials for it to be considered as a well better than average tale (see above), which it is, but I have a quibble anyway. I think her finding the killer is more a lucky accident on her part than by doing any significant amount of any real detective work — not that clues and deduction are necessary in a PI story, I have to admit.

   And Lia Matera is a good writer. I think you may gobble this story down in no time flat anyway. As I did.

FREDERICK NEBEL “Murder à la Carte.” PI Jack Cardigan. First published in Dime Detective Magazine. 15 November 1933. Collected in The Adventures of Cardigan. (Mysterious Press, softcover, 1988), and in The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 2: 1933 (Steeger Properties, softcover, 2012).

   Cardigan’s main source of work comes from the Cosmos Agency, but he’s hired on his own by a baseball pitcher and a good friend in this one. The fellow was picked up in bar by a lady of some disrepute and after a few drinks they head off to her place in a cab. He doesn’t remember much after that, or so he tells Cardigan.

   He also doesn’t remember signing a check for the lady, a sizable one, but he thinks he might have. This presents a problem on two fronts. He’s married,for one,  and for two,  the World Series is coming up. With him pitching that’s almost a sure two wins for his team. Otherwise, they wouldn’t stand much of a chance. One more problem, and it’s a doozy: when Cardigan finds the lady’s apartment, he finds her dead.

   Nebel’s prose has a smooth, crisp flow to it, and the chase for the two guys Cardigan’s client vaguely remembers being in the girl’s room is a good one. Until, that is, there is a development in the tale that takes the case to a quick ending. Maybe, I thought, just a little too quick. It’s a weak transition point, and it’s far from a fatal one. Maybe it was just me, and maybe I should better just keep my mouth shut.

   Overall it’s a good story. Neither Nebel nor Cardigan are remembered today. Neither is up to Hammett or Chandler’s standards, but on the other hand, nobody else is, either.

JACK RITCHIE “The Many-Flavored Crime.” Unnamd PI. First published in MD’s Companion, December 1975. Reprinted in Best Detective Stories of the Year—1976, edited by Edward D. Hoch (Dutton, hardcover, 1976).

   Sometimes in writing a review you can do no better that starting off with the first paragraph of the book or story itself:

   
   Not the first instance of the prank – or crime, as Gerald persists in calling it – but the private eye who is called in on it is perhaps is hard up for employment. He doesn’t say. But he is a pretty good detective. He solves the case in only ten pages.

   And that includes finding the killer of the butler in the household, a man who was wearing his master’s smoking jacket, a fact that complicates things. There is a light touch that permeates the whole matter, as you can tell from the Jello connection, but the murder itself is totally serious.

   As for finding a copy of the magazine that first published the story, well, Good Luck with that.

TIMOTHY ZAHN “The Dreamsender.” First appeared in Analog SF, July 1980. Collected in Cascade Point and Other Stories (Blue Jay Books, hardcover, 1986).

   One of Timothy Zahn’s earliest stories, its leading character a fellow named Jefferson Morgan who has the rare ability to contact people through their dreams. He has been using this talent in a career he has built for himself as something in the nature of  a private eye. In this tale which falls on the border of science fiction and just a tinge of fantasy, he is hired by a woman trying to find her husband, who has in essence, disappeared.

   The task, as it happens, is easy. The husband is on the moon. That she knows, but in one short phone call (or the equivalent) she has had with him, he was very evasive, and in a followup conversation she has had with his superior officer, she is told that he is on a secret expedition, and that while he is fine, she should not try to contact him again.

   This is not enough information for her, certainly, and Morgan allows himself the opportunity to go to the moon to learn more. (Most of his cases do not lend themselves to his actually leaving his home or office.) What follows from here is a bit of puzzle, one that’s equally clever. straight forward and easily solved, told in an easy to read style that sucks the reader in from page one on.

   You might think that Zahn could have used the character several times over – his ability is actually more interesting than this story itself – but he did not. This makes sense, though. Once he’s cracked the case, he’s set up for life.

GAR ANTHONY HAYWOOD “And Pray Nobody Sees You.” PI Aaron Gunner. First published in Spooks, Spies and Private Eyes, edited by Paula L. Woods (Doubleday, hardcover, 1995). Reprinted in Shamus Winners, Volume II: 1996-2009, edited by Robert J. Randisi (Perfect Crime Books, softcover, 2010). Winner of PWA Shamus Award for Best Short Story, 1996.

   Private eye Aaron Gunner, whose cases may take him elsewhere, has an office of sorts in a back room of a barber shop in one of the less savory sections of Los Angeles. Most of his cases have been told in print in the form of full length novels, the first of which was Fear of the Dark, which won the 1988 SMP/PWA Best First P.I. Novel Contest. In terms of shorter work, he’s appeared appeared in three short stories, two of which have won PWA Shamus Awards.

   Gunner, for those unfamiliar which him, is also black. He’s hired in this case he find a car that’s been hijacked, a classic 1965 Ford Mustang. Gunner makes short work of the job, for a hefty fee, but when he finds the car, it starts him thinking. And this is the crux of the affair: what he finds and what he does about it.

   Haywood has a smooth enjoyable style of writing, but it’s also the kind of case that’s deceptively subtle when it comes to the ending. It’s a kind of conclusion that can make the reader suddenly sit up straighter and say to himself, What was that? What just happened?

   Not to worry, though. The story’s solidly constructed, and if you go back and follow along maybe a littler more carefully, you’ll find the ending is perfectly well set up. I’m happy with it, in any case, very much so, and I think you will be, too, should a copy ever land in your hands.

TIM AKERS “A Murder of Knights.” Published in Sword and Planet, edited by Christopher Ruocchio (Baen Books, trade paperback, 2021).

   As the story begins, two men are on a quest, one they apparently have been ordered to be upon. We gradually learn what they must do. We never do quite learn who ordered them, but since the thrust of the tale does not depend on that, it does not matter. At some short length, they arrive at an isolated village where the mayor’s daughter has been abducted by a broodmother (think of something comparable to a monstrous spider-like creature, but worse).

   The question of the quest, and the tasks they are bound to do are now apparent.

   It is never quite clear on what world they are in. It may be Earth, it may not. It most probably isn’t. Technology seems to have previously existed on the planet. It does not now. Life is primitive in the world they are. The weapons they have are little better than swords, but magic also plays a part in their attack on the monster they must kill — or be killed by.

   There is, of course, little that is new in this tale. Many of us have read this short adventure many times, and for some of us, for a long time. Tim Akers, the author, tells it well. Here’s a short example:

   
   You might think Mr. Akers is a young fellow, as I did when starting this tale, but he is 53 and has written several novels and short stories, perhaps all in a similar vein, but none of which have I noticed before. From the ending, I thought a sequel could easily have followed, but so far, such an event has not occurred.

   I would happily read it if it had.

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN “All You Zombies –.” First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1959, after reportedly being rejected by Playboy after that magazine had requested a short work of adult fiction from the author. Collected in The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag (Gnome Press, hardcover, 1959). Reprinted many time since, including The Arbor House Treasury of Modern Science Fiction, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Robert Silverberg (Arbor House, 1980) and Time Troopers, edited by Hank Davis & Christopher Ruocchio (Baen Books, 2022).

   A guy walks into a bar and eventually begins telling on the other side of the counter his life story. It’s a strange one. It turns out that he, so far, has had a very strange existence. He was born a girl but was stolen from his mother when he was born. He did have a child while still female…

   And from there it gets complicated. I think I have explained everything as best I can without telling you everything, but between you and me and a handy time travel machine, there is only one major character in the story. Only one.

   I loved this story when I first read it, I don’t remember where or when, was totally puzzled the second time. Third time, a couple of days ago, and I loved it again, the pieces all falling into place as smoothly as anyone could make it. If there were any flaws, but given the number of times it’s collected and reprinted, someone else would have found them by now.

   The title? That’s one the first things that comes to our protagonist’s mind once he comes to grips with his life in the world. Where (or how) do the rest of us come in?

   For the record, reading this yesterday and trying to keep the threads of the story straight, I was struck by how smooth a writer Robert Heinlein was when he was at his prime. He was one of the best.

JOHN LUTZ “What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You.” Alo Nudger. First appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, November 1982. PWA Winner for Best Short Story. Collected in The Nudger Dilemmas (Five Star, 2001). Reprinted in The Shamus Winners, Volume I: 1982-1995, edited by Robert J. Randisi (Perfect Crime Books, 2010).

   Alo Nudger is the St. Louis-based PI with the nervous stomach who appeared in ten novels and nine or more short stories, of which this is the fourth. One theme in all of his appearances is his constant use of antacids whenever the going gets tough, but you should also know that whenever that happens — and it always does — he never falters or turns aside. He always carries through, no matter how tough the going gets.

   In this short tale he awakens on the floor of his office after having been visited by a couple of goons who had worked him over, followed by a female nurse, linebacker-sized, who, when his answers prove unsatisfactory, doses him with truth serum.

   No matter. He didn’t reveal anything about his clients, because none of the cases he’s working on are worth that kind of questioning.

   It is a mystery, but after a visit to the doughnut shop downstairs beneath his office, he begins to have a glimmer of what’s going on. I could tell you more, but I’m reluctant to, because that’s really all the story’s about: his learning what it is that’s going on as well as helping out a friend who needs help.

   In many ways this in only a minor tale in Alo Nudger’s career, but in other ways, you can think of it as one that tells you what kind of man he is.