GEORGE BAGBY – Dirty Pool. Inspector Schmidt #34. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1966. Curtis, paperback, date?

   The transit strike New York City recently suffered through brings forth a mystery, initially so tense that it isn’t even noticed that the victim has no name!

Trapped in in the rain in the midst of ignoring traffic, a girl is placed in a commandeered automobile by a sympathetic policeman. To say it was against the wishes of the driver is an understatement – a fourth man in the car has just been fatally stabbed, and now the killers have both a corpse and a witness to worry about.

   Her escape brings her in contact with bumbling Bagby, and nothing can convince her that he is not one of the gang. Even Inspector Schmidt loses her confidence with his friendship with Bagby, adding to her problems.

   The tale as told is a bit contradictory with respect to the girl’s cool behavior in the car and her later hysterical fears – but can it be justified as being “just like a woman”? Accept the basic premise, and you will have a lot lively reading ahead of you.

Rating: ****½

THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION. December 1967. Cover artist: Jack Gaughan. Editor: Edward L. Ferman. Overall rating: ***½.

DAVID REDD “Sundown.” Novelette. The confrontation between man and creatures of fantasy; creatures not of love, but of hate, yet capable of understanding, and of pity. (5)

LARRY EISENBERG “The Saga of DMM.” Emmett Duckworth. The discovery of a new chemical stimulant. (4)

STUART & JENNIFER PALMER “Brain Wave,” Novelette. Telepathic contact with another galaxy – anticlimactic, like a long bad joke. (3)

ALGIS BUDRYS “Carberus.” Not Sf, or even fantasy, but four long puns. (3)

DEAN R. KOONTZ “To Behold the Sun.” Adventure and trauma upon an expedition to the sun. (3)

GAHAN WILSON “The Power of the Mandarin.” A series character not unlike Fun Manchu comes to life and to have power over the author (and editor). (4)

LEONARD TUSHNET “The Chalmlins.” The guardian angels of some Jewish Polish-Americans, who need them. (3)

J. G. BALLARD “The Cloud Sculptors of Coral D.” Vermilion Sands. Three, no, four men who sculpt clouds, and the insane woman whose portrait they create. Haunting. (4)

THE SAINT DETECTIVE MAGAZINE – September 1957. Editor: Hans Stefan Santesson. Overall rating: ***

LESLIE CHARTERIS “The Good Medicine.” Simon Templar (The Saint). Novelette. The Saint brings pills to the rescue of a man whose wife has used him to build up a large pharmaceutical business. Pills guaranteed to keep away insects, but not the Saint’s brand of justice. (4)

AARON MARC STEIN “Battle of Wits.” A man patiently builds up a lot to get rid of his wife, but it fails by being smarter than the sheriff it’s supposed to fool. (3)

AUGUST DERLETH “Adventure of the Little Hangman.” Solar Pons. Novelette. Solar Pons discovers the murderer, but provincial solidarity keeps the man from prison, in its own form of absolute justice. (4)

LOUIS GOLDING “The Vandyke Beard.” A man’s return from prison, and his effect on his family and relatives. (3)

RICHARD HARDWICK “He Came Back.” Murder on a shrimp boat, and retribution, pulp-style. (3)

RICHARD SALE “Ghosts Don’t Make Noise.” Daffy Dill. Novelette. Published previously as “Ghosts Don’t Make No Noise” in Detective Fiction Weekly, 07 June 1941. Daffy Dill is almost convinced that a ghost does exist, and this fact helps trap the murdered man’s killer. (3)

FREDRIC BROWN “Mr. Smith Kicks the Bucket.” Henry Smith. Published previously in Detective Story Magazine, August 1944, as “Bucket of Gems Case.” Mr. Smith, insurance investigator, is on the scene when a candy jewel is stolen, and then has the real one, to the surprise of all. (4)

SAX ROHMER “The Headless Mummies.” Morris Klaw. Published previously in The New Magazine (UK) October 1913, as “Case of the Headless Mummies.” Morris Klaw knows the secret of why museum mummies are being decapitated. Oriental poppycock. (1)

CHARLES FRITCH “First Job.” Illuminating story of how a juvenile delinquent is born. (2)

FRANK GRUBER – The Laughing Fox. Johnny Fletcher & Sam Cragg #5. Farrar & Rinehart, hardcover, 1940. Serialized earlier (?) in Short Stories magazine, July 10 through August 25, 1940. Penguin, paperback, May 1944. Belmont-Tower, paperback, 1972.

   Book salesmen Johnny Fletcher and Sam Cragg, on the scene at a midwestern cattle convention, are forced to act as detectives when a man is found murdered in their hotel room. The man was a fox breeder, with enemies among the other exhibitors, but he was killed as the consequence of a mystery involving a missing heir who disappeared twenty years before.

   With a story meant primarily as fun, Gruber has too casual an attitude toward his plot, Fletcher and Cragg are happy scoundrels who mostly enjoy the scrapes they get into. But on page 49 [of the Penguin edition], Fletcher tells the police the whole story of how they found the body in their room, then on page 99, he is confronted with the story as if the previous episode had never happened.

   Not for serious deduction

Rating: **

EDMOND HAMILTON – The Weapon from Beyond. Starwolf #1. Ace G-639. Paperback original; 1st printing, 1967. Cover art by Jack Gaughan. Collected in Starwolf (Ace, paperback, 1982); and in Starwolves and the Interstellar Patrol (Baen, paperback, 2008).

   Space opera in the old tradition, but with an added measure of characterization and ideas.

   Margan Chane, ex-Starwolf, hunted by his former allies in pirating and raiding, joins a crew of mercenaries from Earth in a hunt for a weapon supposedly hidden in the depths of Corvus Nebula. There is no weapon, only the remains of a wrecked alien spaceship, but there are indication that a rescue fleet is on the way.

   The mercenaries, interesting in themselves, are the realization of Earth’s most valuable resources in a universe of riches: Men. Men capable of doing the job asked of them. Chane has to sort out his emotions in a personal conflict caused by his sudden change of environment, now having to be hunted and perhaps having to fight his old comrades on the side of fellow Earthmen, with one he can like and even respect.

   Humans of this future have their scientific research oriented toward weaponry, while the liens do not seem to have had to suffer and learn to turn away from violence. Which is better?

   Logically constructed, except that the mercenaries still expect to fin the “weapon” after landing when the enemy cruisers leave the planet “defenseless.” Otherwise, the story has both action and thoughtful passages in the right proportion. Most entertaining,

Rating: ****

THRILLING DETECTIVE. Fall 1952. Overall rating: *½

MARTY HOLLAND “The Sleeping City.” Novel. Plainsclothesman Wade Reed is assigned as undercover job posing as a Chicago gunman in town to help out with a bank robbery, In spite of a fiancee waiting for him, he falls for a monster’s moll and nearly turns criminal. Capture means the girl’s death and Reed’s resignation from the force. The literary symbolism which is included is forced, generally trying too hard (2)

JOE BRENNAN “Dive and Die,” A stunt diver, recently returned from Korea, investigates the death of his former partner. (1)

JEAN LESLIE “Dead Man’s Shoes.” The sad history of a pair of shoes is traced. Almost Woolrichian in tone. (2)

WILLIAM G. BOGART “Death Lies Deep.” Novelet. Almost standard private eye story. Steve Morgan is hired by an old flame to find her husband, whom she has already killed. Guess who would be the fall guy? (1)

AL STORM “Alive by Mistake.” A writer becomes the center of a hurricane of death about him, as he hunts down a narcotics peddler. Bad writing, but has excitement. (1)

PHILIP KETCHUM “Backfire.” A kid is framed fo robbery and murder by his best friend. Mostly miserable. (1)

HARVEY WEINSTEIN “Two-for-One Dame.” Confused and confusing story of a treacherous blonde. (0)

WILLIAM L. JACKSON “Run of Luck.” Escaped killer fouls his own getaway, (2)

PIERS ANTHONY – Sos the Rope. Pyramid X-1890. Paperback original; 1st printing, October 1968. Cover art by Jack Gaughan. Serialized earlier in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July-Aug-Sept 1968, Collected in Battle Circle (Avon, paperback, 1978).

   A strange triangle formed between two men and a woman becomes the key to the future of a post-war semi-feudal society, There are the warriors whose problems are solved by the force of arms, by trial by combat. And there are the crazies, who supply the traditions of learning and the past.

   Any form of unifying leadership is discouraged by the secret underground manufacturers of all supplies, and it is Sos’ friend Sol who threatens to provide that leadership, with the help of Sos, which would upset the balance of this precarious society. Sola is the wife of Sol, who bears the daughter of Sos. And it is Sos who is sent to end Sol’s leadership, and who then becomes the one who must be destroyed, What he has built, he must also destroy.

   A dilemma, unresolved. To strive for the benefits of civilization again, or to maintain the present because with it civilization brings destruction? What to do with an empire that cannot withstand those who have the power and wish to keep it for themselves?

   Much much more than for Lin Carter’s “swords and sorcery.”

Rating: *****

ELLERY QUEEN’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE. December 1967. Overall rating: ***

JON L. BREEN “The Austin Murder Case.” A parody-pastiche of Philo Vance, who uncovers a murderer at a masquerade party, Hilarious footnotes. (5)

JACOB HAY “The Name of the Game,” A Russian school for spies sends a couple to pose as Americans. Expected ending, but with a haunting sense of unreality, (4)

JOHN DICKSON CARR “The Man Who Saw the Invisible.” Colonel March. First published in The Strand Magazine, April 1938, as “The New Invisible Man” by Carter Dickson. An impossible situation revealed as a magician’s trick. (3)

ANTHONY GILBERT “The Intruders.” After terror, a twist makes everything OK for the old lady, but happily? The terror is real. (4)

CHARLOTTE ARMSTRONG “More Than One Kind of Luck.” A would-be killer finds that he makes his own bad luck. (2)

G. C. EDMUNDSON “A Question of Translation.” It would help the reader to have knowledge of both Spanish and Italian. (3)

EDWARD D. HOCH “The Spy Who Didn’t Exist.” An obscure piece of knowledge helps Rand decipher a calendar code. (3)

AGATHA CHRISTIE “The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb.” Hercule Poirot. First published in The Sketch, September 26, 1923. Belief in the supernatural is a powerful force, one Poirot must face, But why does he fake being poisoned? (2)

JOHN HOLT “Number One.” First story. A “practical” joke on a paroled con backfires into murder. (5)

PHYLLIS BENTLEY  “Miss Phipps Goes to the Hairdresser.” If the wig wasn’t obvious, I don’t know what was. A waste. (1)

URSULA CURTISS “Change of Climate.” An elaborate buildup is ruined by an editor’s note which explains the whole story. Climate as a murder weapon. (3)

JOE GORES “File #1: The Mayfield Case.” Daniel Kearny Associates. Telling it as it is in the private eye game: repossessing cars. (2)

NEW DETECTIVE MAGAZINE, May 1944. Cover art by Gloria Stoll. Overall rating: *½.

BRUNO FISCHER “Fatally Yours.” Novelette. A draft board official, accused of selling deferments, is also framed for the murders of those who might have found out, Could only have been written in those days of all-out mobilization, except for those fighting to stay out. (3)

F. ORLIN TREMAINE “The Dagger from Singapore,” Novelette. The love of a sailor with a memory for crime is interrupted by murder. Action, but little else. (1)

FREDERICK C. DAVIS “Death Marks the Spot.” Novel. After six years, an arsonist turned murderer is caught, allowing a falsely convicted gunsmith to work for the war effort, Hard to swallow at times, and overly dramatic. (1)

J. F. HUTTON “Three Days to Howl.” In the time remaining before his induction, Steve Warren helps keep an important new weapon out of enemy hands. (2)

JAMES McCREIGH “No End to Murder.” A train station robbery is thwarted while a cop stops in the restroom. (2)

KENNETH BULMER – The Star Venturers. Ace Double 22600; 1st printing, 1969. Published back-to-back with The Fall of the Dream Machine, by Dean R. Koontz [reviewed here]. Cover art by John Schoenherr.

   Thrown together by fate, Jarrett, Todd and Sue hunt for the abductor of a missing prince. Jarrett is forced on the venture by a two-bit princess. Todd becomes his friend and follows along, and Sue is the daughter of another adventurer who has not been heard from since being sent out on the same task as Jarrett.

   Probably the dullest story of galactic adventure I have read in some time. Kiddie stuff for adults. And since the girl’s father has not yet been found by story’s end, there’s gonna be more, unhappy day.

Rating: *

   
PostScript: Assuming I was correct in my assessment of this book, the good news is that there was not a sequel to it. At least, I don’t think so.