EDWARD D. HOCH “The Theft of the Toy Mouse.” Nick Velvet #3. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, June 1968. Collected in The Thefts of Nick Velvet (Mysterious Press, 1978).

   Of the several series characters created by Ed Hoch over his long writing career, I think Nick Velvet, professional thief, is my favorite. Not only is he always hired to steal something outrageous (a complete baseball team, the water from a swimming pool), with all the intricate care that’s required, but he almost always endeavors to learn why anyone would hire him to steal that particular item.

   In this story, which falls early in his early days in his unique line work, he is given $20,000 to steal a toy mouse which, when wound up, runs in circles. It is the focus of a modern film being shot in France, just outside of Paris, a setting which certainly boosts the story’s sense of place. (He does manage to convince his girl friend Gloria to stay home.)

   The story rambles comfortably along and is a lot of fun to read. Unfortunately the location of toy mouse is in a building which has been built (by Hoch) to make it, on reflection, an easy task to steal. And the reason behind the caper is rather mundane. But not, of course while, the story is rambling on.

   Overall, the tale is a bit of a letdown. Being “lot of fun to read” does manage to make up for a good portion of that, though.

PAT CADIGAN “The Sorceress in Spite of Herself.” First published in Isaac Asimov’s SF, December 1982. Reprinted in Isaac Asimov’s SF-Lite, edited by Gardner Dozois (Ace, 1993). Collected in Dirty Work (Mark Ziesing, 1993).

   Pat Cadigan has had a long career as a SF writer, mostly shorter fiction, starting in the late 70s, but she’s produced a handful of well-regarded novels, plus an even longer list of movie and TV tie-in’s.  (These I knew nothing about until I looked up what I could learn about her online just now.) In spite of her long resume, this is the first of her work that I’ve read.

   So, based on very little, or perhaps even on nothing, I’ve assumed she’s been involved solely with what’s called cyberpunk fiction, or perhaps stories centered on near future concepts such as virtual reality. “The Sorcerer in Spite of Herself” proves how wrong I was about that.

   It involves a young woman, married perhaps for half a year, who’s been plagued her whole life by her habit of losing things. She doesn’t know why or how, and when she finally breaks down and tells her husband, he doesn’t believe her. As she explains at some length, he begins to change his mind, gradually of course, but eventually so much so that he begins to wonder how they might cancel out this curse she’s been under for so long.

   It all works out, in a most logical fashion, in a climax that is as funny, say, as it is chilling. A minor work, but one most nicely done.

WAYNE D. DUNDEE “The Judas Target.” PI Joe Hannibal. First published in An Eye for Justice: The Third Private Eye Writers of America Anthology, edited by Robert J. Randisi (Mysterious Press, hardcover, 1988).

   Of the various authors included in this third PWA Anthology, Wayne Dundee is probably the least well known. But when you’re included in a book that also includes original stories by authors such as Lyons, Lutz, Grafton, Estleman and Pronzini, I’d have been pumped if it were me, and I’ll bet Dundee was too.

   His primary PI character was a fellow named Joe Hannibal, and although it’s been a while since he’s made an appearance, over the years he’s been featured in a couple of dozen short stories and eight or do novels. His stomping ground is, of all places, Rockford, Illinois, a place which if you’re a PI in, you’re probably the only PI in town.

   In “The Judas Target” it’s his good buddy, bar owner Bomber Brannigan, whose life has been threatened – twice before he lets Joe know about it, and once after the Joe talks him into letting him help.

   The case develops slowly but assuredly from that point on, ending in one slam bang of a finish. It’s difficult to learn much about a character after reading just one short story about him, but I can safely say that if someone were after me, for reasons unknown, I’d sure like to have someone like Joe Hannibal on my side.

MICHAEL COLLINS “Black in the Snow.” PI Dan Fortune. Published in An Eye for Justice: The Third PWA Anthology, edited by Robert J. Randisi (Mysterious Press, 1988). Collected in Crime, Punishment and Resurrection (Donald Fine, 1992).

   Of the several pen names used by author Dennis Lynds, I believe (but am not absolutely certain) that Michael Collins is the one he  used most often. And of the books and shorter fiction he published under that name, most of them were about PI Dan Fortune.

   The most distinguishing physical aspect of Dan Fortune as a man is that he has only one arm. This fact sometimes comes up as a crucial part of story; sometimes, as in “Black in the Snow,” it’s mentioned only in passing. Which is interesting, and maybe someone could write a master’s thesis about it someday, but in all honesty, I don’t think it’s likely to be all that interesting to anyone else but me.

   Fortune is hired by a lawyer in this one to look into the death of the female half of a married couple, middle-aged or perhaps later. The husband claims he came home to find her dead, stabbed to death by persons unknown. The man suggests a burglar, which is certainly a possibility. The “black in the snow” is that of the wife’s dog, thrown there by the killer. Quite possibly, but why? Fortune has a job to do.

   His investigation is limited. He scours the house for clues and has long conversation with the husband’s sister. I may have made the case sound lengthy and boring, but a writer as good as Lynds can make reading the phone book sound palatable, and Fortune gets to the bottom of things very quickly. (I’d sound like a grouch if I said coming up with all the details he does makes the ending a little sketchy, so maybe I won’t. Or maybe I will.)

LAWRENCE BLOCK “By the Dawn’s Early Light.” Matt Scudder. First published in Playboy Magazine, August 1984, Collected and reprinted many times. Winner of the Shamus Award for Best Short Story.

   Matt Scudder, of course, does not legally have a license to work as a private eye, or at least he doesn’t at the time this story takes place. That doesn’t stop him from taking cases such as the one in this story that PI’s always take on, with or without the proper credentials. This time around he agrees to help out a casual drinking buddy who’s being accused of hiring a couple of guys to kill his wife.

   As it turns out – and this is important – Scudder knows the fellow’s girl friend even more than he does the drinking buddy. What he’s hired to do — not having all of the resources the police do – is to ask around and see what people on the street know about, first of all, his client, but more importantly, the two guys who got caught and are now implicating the client. They never did the killing.

   Or so they say.

   This may sound way too complicated for a simple short story, and maybe it is, but Lawrence Block could write a story with a lot more going on, ten times as much, and he’s such a smooth talker (well, writer) you’d go along with it all in a heartbeat.

   And yet, I said complicated, and I meant it. Even while reading it and the 21 pages of the story are vanishing more and more quickly, and I’m thinking, he could have made a novel out of this. The structure? Exactly the same.

   There’s a hint of darkness in the ending, too. Maybe Playboy didn’t get too excited about it, but the story’s a lot tougher than what Alfred Hitchcock’s Magazine was publishing at the time. Face it, though. Lawrence Block is a writer’s writer, and he always has been. This one’s a winner.

BILL PRONZINI “Cat’s Paw.” Nameless PI. First published in separate form by Waves Press, hardcover, 1983. Reprinted several times, including in The Eyes Still Have It, edited by Robert J. Randisi (Dutton, 1995). Shamus Award winner for Best Short Story.

   PI stories make up a sizable chunk of the world’s supply of published mystery and detective fiction. There are fewer locked room mysteries, but there’s a sizable amount of them. And of course, as all you already know, the Venn diagram circles for each of these two subgenres, as we shall call them, do overlap.

   And while I’ve never made a count, I’m willing to wager that over half of those stories that exists in that aforesaid overlap section were written by Bill Pronzini.

   This is one of them. And it’s a good one.

   Pronzini’s nameless PI has taken a side job helping guard the expansive grounds of a zoo which has been the victim of several recent robberies. Some of its more valuable birds and animals have gone missing. On the night the story takes place, something more sinister happens. Another guard is found dead in the lions’ cage, shot at close range, but … the cage doors are locked, with the only accessible entry being through the grotto where the lions stay overnight. No way in, without keys, and no way out. Not even for the most expert of thieves.

   It is a puzzle. I stopped reading at this point and waited two evenings before getting on to the solution. The extra time? It didn’t help. Didn’t even come close.

   It’s a complicated solution, and as usual when it comes to locked room mysteries, explaining it all in the requisite detail is the weakest part of the tale. At least for me. But the clues are there, and with them in hand (and properly noted) the case is wrapped up as tight as a drum.

   As I said there up above, this one’s a good one.

SUE GRAFTON “Full Circle.” PI Kinsey Millhone. First appeared in A Woman’s Eye, edited by Sara Paretsky (Delacorte Press, 1991). An audio reading is available on You Tube (see below).

   According to the brief introduction to this story in the Sara Paretsky anthology, this story appeared just after G Is for Gumshoe, or early towards the middle of Sue Grafton’s lengthy A to Y series of book-length adventures of PI Kinsey Millhone, based in invariably sunny Santa Teresa California.

   “Full Circle” begins with Kinsey being involved in a multi-can accident on the freeway, but she leaves, hours later, without realizing that one young woman is dead. She assumes her death was of course caused by her injuries in the accident, and she is surprised to learn later that the girl actually died from bullet wounds.

   She is soon hired by the girl’s mother who believes the police are not working hard enough on the case, which is where the story begins in earnest – meaning the usual footwork a PI has to do on a case such as this, investigating family and friends, as well as any other suspects, all the while keeping on the right side of the law.

   I wish, though, that while it turns out not to be essential to the story, that as well as the footwork described above, Kinsey had followed up more on how the shooting was done. Given the lack of focus on the physical evidence, this left me a lot more puzzled than I think I should have been. And yet, after some consideration, I finally decided that the ending made up for it.

   At least in part. I’d like to say more, but I’ve decided not to. I’ll just use the word “karma” and say that the title of the story is all I will do to give you a hint. It’s an ending that a woman writing a story about a female PI is more likely to have written that a male author might have. Or at least I think so.

   To sum up, though, it’s an above average story, but for me, it’s one that just doesn’t come together as well as Grafton intended it to. I’ll leave it at that.

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN “–All You Zombies–” First published in Fantasy & Science Fiction, March 1959 (after having been rejected by Playboy). Reprinted a number of times, including The Worlds of Science Fiction, edited by Robert P. Mills (Paperback Library, 1965), and Time Troopers, edited by Hank Davis & Christopher Ruocchio (Baen Books, 2022), among others. Collected in The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag (Gnome Press, 1969) and 6 x H (Pyramid, 1961), again among many others. Film: As Predestination (Australia, 2014, starring Ethan Hawke). [See Comment #6.]

   The story begins in a bar, for no better reason that is where any story of its kind should begin, with a fellow who calls himself an Unmarried Mother (actually a writer for true confession magazines) telling his life story to the other fellow, the one on the other side of the bar. It’s a lengthy tale, and it includes the fact that the fellow telling the story was born as a girl.

   And this is the point in my telling you the story is exactly where I knew I was going to get stuck, as while I know many of you have read the story, I’m sure there still are several of you who haven’t, and by telling you anything more in any kind of detail, I’m going to end up telling you the entire story.

   There is no way I’m going to do that. Robert Heinlein did it a whole lot better back in 1959, and it’s still the best time travel story that I’ve ever read. It takes the fellow from the bar through a well charted trip across time and space and (in fact) his entire life It’s clean and smooth, and I can’t find a single flaw in it. What more can I tell you?

   I don’t rate many stories 10 stars out of 10, but this one deserves it.

JOHN LUTZ “What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You.” PI Alo Nudger. First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, November 1982. Reprinted in Home Sweet Homicide, edited by Cathleen Jordan (Walker, 1991), The Eyes Still Have It, edited by Robert J. Randisi (Dutton, 1995). Also released individually on audio cassette (1997). Winner of the Shamus Award for Best Short Story.

   Alo Nudger’s day begins with two lugs beating him up in his office, followed by a moon-faced female doctor asking him a series of questions after injecting him with truth serum. Problem is, Nudger doesn’t know any of the answers. After the troupe leaves, a client comes in with a wad of money to offer him. After some thought, Nudger turns him down.

   But what, he wonders, is going on?

   Lutz must have had a lot of fun writing his stories about Nudger, because they’re sure a lot of fun to read, with lots of light sarcastic touches. This most certainly includes the St. Louis-based PI’s predilection for antacid tablets whenever the going gets tough – a circumstance that occurs frequently in all of his recorded adventures.

   In one sense the plot of this tale is rather skimpy, but it certainly fulfills its duty of covering the ground as well as it needs to have been done. Stories such as this one are highly addictive.

“Lucky Dip.” First appeared in A Woman’s Eye, edited by Sara Paretsky (Delacorte Press, 1991). Reprinted in Bad Behavior, edited by Mary Higgins Clark (Gulliver Books, 1995). Collected in Lucky Dip and Other Stories (Crippen & Landru, 2003). Winner of an Anthony for Best Short Story of the Year.

   As the leading protagonist of “Lucky Dip,” Crystal, who is merely eighteen, lives as much on the street and using her wits as anywhere else. But when she robs a dead man she finds in a bad section of town called the Trenches, she learns that fortune may actually have turned against her as quickly as her new gains have boosted her spirits.

   But only for the moment. Someone was responsible for the man’s death, and what she has taken from him they want very badly. And of course, on the other side are the police, and she knows better to take any chances with them.

   She is caught in a trap, in other words, one of her own making. But she is only eighteen and while the trap is truly and honestly a desperate one, she — who tells her own story — is not one to despair.

   She comes close, though.

   What struck me the most after finishing this one was not that the ending was not yet paved out for her, but that the story as it was told rang true all the way through. Crystal’s world is not an easy world to live in, but she’s used to it, and she’s a survivor.