HAYFORD PEIRCE “Fire in the Islands.” Short story. Joe Caneili #2. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, April 1995. Collected in Trouble in Tahiti: P. I. Joe Caneili, Discretion Assuree. (Wildside, paperback, 2000).

   Joe Caneili, a former farmboy from Bookbinder, Kansas, had spent twenty-three years in the French Foreign Legion before retiring and setting up shop in Tahiti as probably that island’s only licensed private investigator. There is not a lot of call for his services in that lightly populated economic and political center of French Polynesia, and in this, his second recorded case, it is personal as much as anything else.

   For when the husband of the house next door burns down the house next door, Caneili’s home next door, which he rents from the couple, go up in flames with it, along with all of his possessions, as sparse as they are. His assignment, find the husband, who has disappeared. His client, the wife. It isn’t much of a case, and the husband, widely known as a practical joker, is not difficult to find. But the story is fun to read, largely because of the light, semi-humorous touch Peirce uses to tell the tale.

   Hayford Peirce, the author, is better known as a SF writer, often using time travel in his work and having, according to one reviewer, a Jack Vance style of writing, which is not a bad style to be using at all. He has also written several stories about extra-sized Commissaire Alexandre Tama, also of Tahiti, whose cases sometimes overlap with Caneili, as it happens here. His adventures have also been collected in paperback form by Wildside Press.
   

      The Joe Caneili series —

The Stolen Grandfather (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine July 1985
Fire in the Islands (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine April 1995
The Missing House (nv) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine July 1995
A Matter of Face (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine February 1998
The Girl in the Picture (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Sep/Oct 1999
Le Père Noël on Christmas Island (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Januay 2012
Crime Wave Batters Tahiti (ss) Trouble in Tahiti (Wildside Press, 2000)
The Lethal Leeteg (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine August 2013

BILL PRONZINI “One Night at Dolores Park.” Short story. Nameless PI. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, April 1995. Collected in Spadework (Crippen & Landru, 1996) and Dago Red: Tales of Dark Suspense (Ramble House, 2015). Reprinted in The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories: Fifth Annual Edition, edited by the staff of Mystery Scene magazine (Carroll & Graf, 1996) and A Century of Noir: Thirty-two Classic Crime Stories, edited by Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins (Berkley, softcover, 2002).

   When this story was written, the section of San Francisco dubbed Dolores Park was falling into urban decay, complete with drug dealers, burglaries and constant intimidation, with people moving out left and right. And in this short tale, that’s where Bill Pronzini’s Nameless PI has quite a night for himself. (Also noted, but only incidentally, one of the characters mistakenly calls him Orenzi.)

   Nameless is there in the first place on a stakeout to serve some papers on a resident who’s a reluctant witness in case handled by the lawyer who hired him, then he himself is a witnesses to a would-be mugging of another resident, a woman who really ought to have known better.

   But do muggers generally have guns? Nameless intervenes and takes the would-be victim safely home, only to find himself in the midst of a marriage that’s falling apart as decisively as the neighborhood in which the couple find themselves living. This is a powerfully done tale of parallel and contrast, and yes, of course, it’s a detective story, too.

EDWARD D. HOCH “The Problem of the Snowbound Cabin.” Short story. Dr. Sam Hawthorne. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, December 1987. Collected in Nothing Is Impossible (Crippen & Landru, hardcover/paperback, 2014). Reprinted in Never Shake a Family Tree, edited by Billie Sue Mosiman & Martin H. Greenberg (Rutledge Hill, paperback, 1998), and perhaps elsewhere.

   This is the quintessential story in the small but potent subcategory of locked room mysteries called “murder in a cabin surrounded by snow with no footprints leading in or out.” Although neither of them is interested in skiing, Dr. Sam Hawthorne and his nurse April are taking a platonic vacation together up in Maine in January. And as ever, wherever the good doctor goes, murder seems to follow right along with him.

   What makes this one special is that there is not only one solution to the mystery, nor two, but three. The first one doesn’t count, however, is that it’s the old canard that someone can be stabbed by an icicle, killing him, and having the weapon melt, leaving no clue to be found. Dr. Hawthorne makes quick riddance of this suggestion. The second solution is quite adequate, and I’m sure that several other mystery writers have used variations of it at one time or another.

   It does have the quality of being realistic, though, while the real solution is, shall we say, rather far-fetched – but certainly doable. What you have do when reading any one of Hoch’s miracle mysteries, and they’re short enough that you shouldn’t forget this: almost every element of the story is important. Keep an eye on everyone and everything. Every fact is not to be ignored. More than likely the one you pass over quickly is the one you had to keep your eye on.

   I know. From experience!

ANNE McCAFFREY “A Proper Santa Claus.” Short story. First published in Demon Kind, edited by Roger Elwood (Avon, paperback, 1973). Collected in Get Off the Unicorn (Del Rey, paperback, 1977). Reprinted in Christmas Stars, edited by David G. Hartwell (Tor, paperback, 1992) and Treasures of Fantasy, edited by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman (Harper, softcover, 1997), among others.

   Anne McCaffrey is best known for her many books of SF and fantasy in several long-running series, especially her Pern novels. But she was no slow hand at writing short fiction as well, as this small tale demonstrates full well. Please note that in what follows, I will need to tell you more than you may like to know!

   It begins when a young boy named Jeremy is about three years old. It seems that he has a special talent. Whenever he draws something or creates something out of clay, and if he does in a proper way, it becomes real. If he draws a cookie on a piece of paper and cuts it out, it is dry but very tasty, but when he paints a glass of Coke, it’s flat, because he forgot to draw in the bubbles.

   This remarkable ability stays with him until kindergarten, when at Christmas time he draws Santa Claus bringing him lots of presents. A conflict arises when he can’t do it in a proper way, after his teacher tries to tell him what a proper Christmas is all about, and his special talent is gone forever.

   An obvious fantasy, but I’d like to think that it’s also a sort of a “growing up” tale that applies to everyone. Short but extremely well done.

HARLAN ELLISON “Find One Cuckaboo.” PI Sheckley Scodell #1. First published in The Saint Mystery Library #11, edited by Leslie Charteris; paperback original, 1st printing, February 1960. Collected in Again, Honorable Whoredom at a Penny a Word (Edgeworks Abbey, trade paperback, September 2014).

   I’m not 100 percent positive, but in all likelihood this was the first and only appearance in print of New York City based PI Sheck Scodell. In the early days of his writing career Harlan Ellison scraped out a living writing all kinds of stories, not only science fiction, but crime stories, too, mostly in the lowest level magazines, such as Guilty, Trapped, Pursuit, and so on, and I wouldn’t be surprised to be told he wrote westerns as well.

   Of these, several others were private eye tales, three with Jerry Killian and one with Big John Novak (who in reality was three foot two). You can read more of them by following the links to the Thrilling Detective website. Scodell describes himself as being a dead ringer for the man in all of these shirt advertisements: “the fellow with the slight moustache, wearing a black eye patch, smiles at a wench..”

   He also admits that he’s not always the brightest bulb on the block, and that’s probably why he was hired on this case, which if the word wacky hadn’t be invented, they’d have to in order describe this one properly.

   It seems as though one of three eccentric sisters, all in their fifties and each a  millionairess several times over, has been raped and murdered. All three of them hated each other, even though they lived together in the same house, but nonetheless the two remaining ones have taken up with guns and have vowed to kill the culprit on sight.

   Their financial advisors call on Sheck for help. His job: stop them.

   This one comes straight from the old pulp magazines, but with a somewhat distasteful twist to it that the pulps most certainly wouldn’t have allowed their writers to get anywhere near. It’s one of those tales in which all kinds of crazy things happen but they all get straightened out in the end. Ellison always had  imaginative ideas and a very readable way with words, even when he was first starting — and probably getting a fraction of a cent a word — and “Find One Cuckaboo” is no exception.

NANCY SPRINGER “Milk of Human Blindness.” Mr. Jefferson #1. First published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, September 1996. Probably never reprinted.

   There can’t be a lot of business in Lancaster PA – the heart of Amish country – to keep a private eye in business, so it could very well be that this particular story was not only the first but also the last recorded case for Mr. Jefferson, as his client in this tale calls him. If so, that’s a shame, because as an introduction, it works fine, but it also leaves the reader (me) wanting more.

   Jefferson, by the way, is black, and he has kind of a sour outlook on life, with most of it taken up by doing repo and process serving. His client in this case is a young girl named Sarah, maybe eleven, twelve years old, and having found $200 on the street, she wants Jefferson to find out who her real parents are. Unfortunately when she discovers who lost the money (not drug money, as she thought), she needs the money back.

   And she agrees to go to work for Jefferson, to pay off her bill. And Jefferson, on his part, finds that yes, indeed, he needs the help, being as he is, not nearly as up to date in the new world of computers as he should be. By the story’s end and between the two of them, they have solved her case, and they’re ready for another. I hope there was one, but alas perhaps not.

PostScript: Nancy Springer is far better known as a fantasy writer, with several novels to her credit, but she also has written a long series of young adult mysteries about Enola Holmes, the fourteen-year-old sister of the far better known Sherlock Holmes, some twenty years older. A movie adaption of one the books is said to be currently in production.

RACHEL SWIRSKY “Scene from a Dystopia.” Short story. First published in Subterranean, Issue #4, 2006. Collected in How the World Became Quiet: Myths of the Past, Present, and Future (Subterranean Press, hardcover, 2013).

   Guest-edited by science fiction author John Scalzi, the theme of this particular issue of Subterranean is that of SF Cliches. Quoting from his introduction, “You know, those ideas like sentient computers and Amazon women on he moon that are so been there done that in the field that even the souvenir t-shirt doesn’t fit anymore.”

   Rachel Swirsky’s story, which is given the first slot in the magazine, is her first story as well, but there’s no one in the world who would otherwise believe it, without being told, it’s so well written. She takes the idea of a future world in which an all-knowing computer takes students about to graduate and places them in their future jobs for the rest of their lives.

   But of course there is always a rebellious one, an individual who is going to fight back against the machine and give everyone the opportunity to make their own choices in life. That’s the cliche.

   But what would really happen? Swirsky takes the question and answers it in another extreme, or at least she suggests the possibility. Natalie aches to become an opera singer. In the Technocracy, should she settle for being a piano teacher? And at the expense of what?

   The story is quietly but powerfully told, with a lyrical sensibility that seems an impossibility for a first time writer. Nor is the story a fluke of any kind. Look at her resume, taken from her page on Wikipedia: “Her novella “The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window” won the 2010 Nebula Award, and was also a nominee for a 2011 Hugo Award and for the 2011 World Fantasy Award. Swirsky’s short story “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” won the 2013 Nebula Award for Best Short Story, and was nominated for the Hugo award for best short story of 2013.”

   This is the only story I’ve read in the magazine so far. Hopefully the rest are as good as this one.

ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS “Home for the Holidays.” Short story. PI Andy Hayes. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, January-February 2020.

   Andy Hayes’ base of operations as a PI is Columbus OH, which may be a first. He’s best known, however, as a former quarterback for the Ohio State football team, and in particular for messing up on a crucial play in a game for the national championship. He’s already appeared in six novels, but this seems to be his first case that’s been told in the form of a short story.

   The story takes place just before Christmas, hence the title, but besides an office party he goes to at the end with a comely companion he meets along the way, that’s the extent of the holiday trappings. He’s hired by the wife of a man who’s gone missing to find out why. The man turns out to be an auditor for a huge firm that manages the state’s retirement fund. Somebody’s been messing with the books? You the reader wonder.

   And you the reader would be correct. There’s little more to the story than that. It’s capably told, but it’s as plain (but not bland) as vanilla pudding. So’s Columbus for that matter, unless you live there, in which case it’s a fine town in which nothing worse ever happens than someone making off with the state employee’s retirement fund. (Notice, though, that I didn’t say who.)

   There’s potential here, but maybe the short form doesn’t show Andy Hayes off to best advantage. Here below is a list of his longer adventures. I may check out the first one sometime soon.

      The Andy Hayes series –

Fourth Down and Out. Swallow Press, 2014.
Slow Burn. Swallow Press, 2015.
Capitol Punishment. Swallow Press, 2016.
The Hunt. Swallow Press, 2017.
The Third Brother. Swallow Press, 2018.
Fatal Judgment. Swallow Press, 2019.
An Empty Grave. Forthcoming, Spring 2021.

RAOUL WHITFIELD “Mistral.” Short story. Anonymous (“Benn”). First published in Adventure, 15 December 1931. Reprinted in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, 22 April 1981, and in Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories, edited by Bill Pronzini & Jack Adrian (Oxford University Press, 1995).

   The unnamed narrator of this short but very tough, hard-boiled tale is an European operative for an international detective agency based in Paris. After finishing one job in Genoa, he heads west along the Riviera coastline to Monte Carlo, Nice and Cannes. Along the way his path keeps crossing that of another man, one with a red and very visible scar on his neck. The man is almost certainly an American. He is unfamiliar with European customs, but he seems to have money, spending one night in a casino playing with thousand-franc chips.

   The narrator is intrigued, but is nonetheless surprised when a bulletin from his home office informs him that a client is on the lookout for him. Reporting in, he is told to back off, and that the client will handle things from that point on. Telling the man, whom he has taken something of a liking to, that his name is Benn, most probably not his real one, and what the score is, he then lets events take their own course from there.

   Telling the story tersely against a backdrop of a continually rising wing (a mistral), Whitfield keeps the tension rising right along with it, to an absolute knockout of an ending. Other than the Pronzini-Adrian anthology, this story may be hard to find, but it’s well worth the effort.

MARGARET LAWRENCE “Winston and the Millennium Man.” Winston Marlowe Sherman. Short story. Published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, January 2006. Probably never collected or reprinted.

   This is a strange one. Winston Marlowe Sherman, English teacher and secretly the author of a long list of mystery novels, was the leading character in five mystery novels himself. Appearing in rapid succession between 1990 and 1993. (Since three of them appeared in 1990, the exact order of the three as given below is quite possibly not accurate.) The author of record of those novels was M. K. Lorens, but this sixth and final tale is under the byline of Margaret Lawrence, another of true author Margaret Keilstrup’s pen names.

   As Margaret Lawrence, she also wrote three well-regarded mysteries about Hannah Trevor, an 18th century midwife in Maine, the first of these being nominated for several awards. What I found strange, besides the change in bylines for this story, is that the introduction to it does not mention the five previous mysteries that the leading character was in.

   And this is important, or it should have been, for in this story Sherman has come to the end of both his careers: his book publisher has declines to extend his writing contract, and the story begins as he leaves campus for the last time, having been forced out at age 70 for having grading standards too high for modern student bodies. What’s more, it is Christmas time, 1999, just before the disaster that wasn’t, but no one was sure at the time.

   And whatever the equivalent to cyberbullying was before computers came along, Sherman being harassed by someone unknown, both by verbal heckling and crank telephone calls. All of the other characters in the books are in this story, too, including Sarah, his longtime living companion of some forty years. In this tale, two things are accomplished: the “Millennium Man” is caught, and Sarah finally says yes to Sherman’s proposal of marriage. It’s a comfortable and oddly satisfying story, a final coda of sorts, except for the fact that Sherman’s life is not ending, only marking a milestone and a change of direction.

   For fans of the five previous Sherman adventures, wouldn’t it have been nice to have let them know about this?  And wouldn’t the readers of this story have liked to have known about the previous five books, and not have read it in a vacuum?
   

   The Winston Marlowe Sherman series —

Deception Island. Bantam 1990.
Ropedancer’s Fall. Bantam 1990.
Sweet Narcissus. Bantam 1990.
Dreamland. Doubleday 1992.
Sorrowheart. Doubleday 1993.