JUDSON P. PHILIPS “Men About to Die.” Novella. Park Avenue Hunt Club #11. First published in Detective Fiction Weekly, February 2, 1935. Never reprinted. See comments #’s 1 and 2 for reprint information.

   Running in the pages of Detective Fiction Weekly, where it vied for readers’ attention with the likes of Erle Stanley Gardner’s Lester Leith, Richard Sale’s Daffy Dill, and Carroll John Daly’s Satan Hall, the popular Park Avenue Hunt Club was an American version of Edgar Wallace’s Just Men, a team of vigilantes battling crime in the age of the Depression, gangsters. John Dillinger, and Bonny and Clyde.

   The Club members were handsome former secret agent Geoffrey Saville; big game hunter and red haired giant John Jericho; and chess master and medical student Arthur Hallam, who, their identities known only to Inspector James Emory Doane NYPD, wage a violent and bloody war on the underworld of New York.

   Pretty standard pulp stuff it sounds and it was, but behind the name Judson P. Philips was Hugh Pentecost, one of the longest lived writers to emerge from the pulps and who, like relatively few others, had a healthy critically successful career as a mid-list author under his own name and as Philips, and whose many series included the popular hotel manager Pierre Chambrun and freelance journalist Peter Styles series as well as one featuring John Jericho, an artist who shares with the Hunt Club Jericho mostly only his size and red hair.

   Like most of the writers who survived the pulps and thrived, Pentecost not only outgrew his origins, he expanded his horizons so that the Peter Styles books had a serious social conscience tackling major issues of the day, while Jericho’s adventures featured a deeply humanitarian sleuth often rescuing victims of society. Save for retaining a gift for plot, suspense, and action they and Chambrun are a far cry from the bloodthirsty Park Avenue Hunt Club.

   The dangerous Dzamba brothers, Leonardo, Salvatore, and Vincente (no, they aren’t mutant ninja turtles) are on trial in a case brought by none other than Inspector Doane and prosecutor John Crowther, and a witness has warned Doane that the Dzambas plan a spectacular escape during the trial, so he calls on Saville, Jericho, and Hallam to be present when the bloodshed begins. The Club has a history with the Dzambas, Jericho himself having killed brother Angelo with his bare hands.

   And sure enough something goes wrong, the judge is murdered in chambers, four policeman are killed in a bloody shootoutmand the Dzambas are on the loose. The Park Avenue Hunt Club is on the prowl, turning to a crooked former cop who helped the Dzamba brothers in the past but Salvatore gets to him before the boys can.

   With the Dzambas out for revenge, and even their own lawyer murdered by them, the one target left is prosecutor Crowther, who lives in the country with his young wife. Local yokels can hardly be expected to protect him, so it looks like a job for the boys.

   No detection here, it’s mostly an action piece closer to the hero pulps and they’re figures of justice than sleuths, but it is satisfyingly fast paced, and despite a plethora of characters in a relatively short piece. it works well enough.

   This is a single contained story, though some of the Park Avenue tales were serials and likely a bit less rushed, if still as plot and action heavy. You can see why this series was popular and featured so often on covers of the magazine. It’s pure pulp, full of movement, setbacks, and a big finale with the three heroes once again emerging triumphant in their secret war against crime, and in a relatively few years Pentecost would be moving on to a long successful career.

GREGORY MCDONALD – Fletch and the Widow Bradley. Fletch #4. Warner, paperback original, 1981.

   Taking a rather unusual marketing approach for a mystery paperback original, Warner has apparent;y tried to promote the book as a potential bestseller. When it first came out, B. Dalton had copies set up in a huge floor display at the front of the store, for example, and the title is embossed on the front cover with big gold lettering.

   There is a price tag to match. For your money [$2.95 rather than the usual going rate of $2.25 or $2.50], you get nearly 300 pages of big print on cheap paper, and yards and yards of crackling good dialogue, in Mcdonald’s customary laid-back style.

   For those of you who have come in late, Fletch is a reporter by profession, and with his usual casual approach to living come the inevitable jams he keeps finding himself getting into. This time around he ends up getting fired — in working on his latest story he somehow manages to quote a man who’s been dead for quite some time. He also finds a wallet with $25,000 in it. For some reason the owner does not want to be found.

   Fletch is also an idealist of sorts, a world-saver with bare feet. He is also a surprisingly bit naive. Even after he has almost worked out the truth behind the dead man’s strange demise, he still has to have it explained to him. Personally, I knew what was going on (although not necessarily why) from about 200 pages earlier on.

   Incidentally, and this probably doesn’t mean anything, but either Mcdonald or Warner Books seem to have a weird way of spelling certain words. Not once, but consistently.

ROBBERY UNDER ARMS. Rank, British/Australian, 1957. Peter Finch, Ronald Lewis, David McCallum, Maureen Swanson, Jill Ireland, and Laurence Naismith. Screenplay by Alexander Baron, W.P. Lipscomb and Richard Mason, from the novel by Rolf Boldrewood. Directed by Jack Lee.

   From the title, I assumed this was a British crime film, which only flaunts my ignorance. Turns out Robbery Under Arms is a well-known tale of Aussie outlaws (called Bushrangers) set in the 1860s, the basis of four films before this (the first in 1907) and one in 1985.

   This one turned out rather well. I’m not sure why Peter Finch got top billing, since Ronald Lewis and David McCallum carry the weight of the story and the bulk of the screen time, but he does, and they do — quite effectively, as two outback lads who decide to help out their dad (Laurence Naismith) with a spot of cattle rustling in the employ of Captain Starlight (Finch), a sort of down-under Jesse James with a penchant for robbery and a sense of loyalty that doesn’t stop at murder.

   â€œMurder” I sez and Murder is what we see here. Robbery has the look and feel of an American Western, replete with cattle rustling, gold-mining, bank robberies and horseback pursuits. But when it comes down to shooting and folks get shot down, it’s usually from ambush, at a distance, and more like the stark, stupid violence of Bonnie & Clyde than the measured mayhem of Red River and Shane.

   The plot line here is enjoyably pointless. Having committed the greatest cattle-rustle in history, our boys find themselves wanted men, and learn that life on the run is harsh and lonely. They change their names, find honest work and stick to it, only to discover that the World’s smallest continent isn’t big enough to hide in.

   David McCallum is particularly good at this, his slender frame and big blue eyes conveying a haggard longing for the decent life. Ronald Lewis is equally fine as his tougher brother, yearning for the elusive Clean Slate, both men matched up with Maureen Swanson and Jill Ireland as the women they dream of sharing a life with.

   As for Peter Finch, well he’s dashing enough as the legendary bushranger, but frankly he doesn’t have much to do except dash across the Outback and look legendary. Fortunately, Robbery Under Arms has enough going on — and the supporting players carry enough conviction — to do quite nicely without him.

ROBERT CAMPBELL – Red Cent. Jake Hatch #2. Pocket paperback original; 1st printing, January 1989.

   Robert Campbell, in this second mystery solved by railroad detective Jake Hatch, has a nice effortless talking-to-the reader style of writing, but in terms of what he has to say, what can you say about a story in which the first chapter is the most interesting?

   A man is killed in a railroad car nu a gang of drunken Indians riding in pickups along the tracks, and Jake thinks there is more than misadventure involved. There is: Indian agencies, lawyers and mistresses, squabbles over jurisdiction, changes of venue, and so on.

   In Red Cent Campbell begins with a decent premise, and while he seems to have a solution in mind, he really doesn’t have a very solid idea of how to write up the detective part of the mystery and make it interesting, Hatch is beginning to have women trouble in this second book — all of the lonely windows he’s been seeing are starting to talk of marriage, and probably high time too — and you know you’ve got a less than stimulating detective story on your hands when matters like this are more gripping than the mystery.

   I think I’ll talk about the cover, too, while I’m at it. Iy’s strikingly done, too, with a view of the victim slumped in his seat with a bullet in his temple. But besides having the color of his shirt wrong, in the book the man’s head was blown pretty nearly clear away. Blood all over. His widow has to identify him from his hands. They didn’t show this on the cover.

Bibliographic Note:   The one earlier book in the series was Plugged Nickel (Pocket, 1988). Red Cent was Jake Hatch’s final appearance.

MENACE. Paramount, 1934. Gladys Michael, Paul Cavanaugh, Berton Churchill, Henrietta Crossman, John Lodge, Raymond Milland, Halliwell Hobbes, Robert Allen, Forester Harvey, Arletta Duncan Screenplay Chandler Sprague, Anthony Veilliers based on the novel R.I.P by Philip MacDonald (Collins, UK, 1933; published in the US as Menace, Doubleday, 1933). Directed by Ralph Murphy.

RYNOX. Ideal, 1932. Stuart Rome, John Londgren, Dorothy Boyd. Screenplay (mostly uncredited) J. Jefferson Farejohn, John Jerome, Philip MacDonald (his novel, Collins, UK, 1930; published in the US as The Rynox Murder Mystery , Doubleday, 1931), and Michael Powell, the latter also director.

   These two adaptations of novels by Philip MacDonald were virtually unknown to me until they showed up on YouTube, and certainly neither of them is in a class with his better known film adaptations such as X Vs Rex, Patrol, The List of Adrian Messenger (which ironically has a screenplay by Anthony Veilliers who co-wrote this one), 23 Paces to Baker Street, or even the earlier version of that book under its British title The Nursemaid Who Disappeared.

    Menace is the somewhat better of the two, working at least as a suspense film to some extent if not as much as a mystery, and moving with some vigor. Gladys Michael, Paul Cavanaugh, and Berton Churchill are wealthy friends in Africa just before the monsoons. Bored, they convince dam supervisor Ray (billed as Raymond) Milland to leave his post to play bridge with them. When the storms break early, Milland tries to fly back through the storm only to arrive in time to see the dam collapse and his mother and sister below killed, as well as hundreds of others.

   In a fit of remorse he flies his plane into the ground taking his own life.

   Back in England his brother Timothy, who is mentally disturbed, swears vengeance on the three he blames for his brother’s death, is put in a mental asylum, escapes, and one year later they are in Malibu in Michael’s beach side villa when he finally catches up with them.

   Soon to be trapped in the villa with them are a new butler (Halliwell Hobbes) hired from an agency, and who proves to be a crack shot when Cavanaugh tests him; Michael’s younger sister, who she raised when their parents died and her fiance (Arletta Duncan and Robert Allen); Cavanaugh’s driver (Forester Harvey); and a nosy eccentric old lady neighbor (Henrietta Crossman) who shows up on their doorstep with her son’s friend in tow (John Lodge).

   Not long after the lights go out, and the phone goes dead and all the autos are sabotaged. Not long after that Churchill is killed by a knife thrown by Timothy. Then Cavanaugh barely survives an attack.

   Now they are waiting for Timothy to strike and unsure who he is, if he is one of them at all. All we know is we have seen the butler attack Michael’s sister and tie her up and gag her.

   Not much real mystery here about who the killer is, even with a bit of misdirection, and there is one decent clue planted early on that does explain one surprise; plus two suspects complain of headaches– which we know Timothy suffers from — as half decent red herrings.

   What is notable here is not the film itself, which is at best a minor success, but just how stiff and unreal everyone else in the film seems after Ray Milland’s few scenes at the start. His perfect ease on screen, even delivering what isn’t much more than ‘tennis anyone’ dialogue, compared to everyone else in the film is striking. The film actually never recovers from his early death because there is no one in the film even remotely as attractive or natural on screen.

   It is about as clear a demonstration of the power of a natural screen presence as you will ever see. It’s as if everyone else is in a different film.

   Rynox, based on the The Rynox Mystery, basically has one thing going for it. It happens to be one of the earliest films directed by Michael Powell, who as one half of the Archers (with Emric Pressberger) would create such films as 49th Parallel, Black Narcissus, A Matter of Life and Death, I Know Where I’m Going, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, and more.

   Tycoon and founder of Rynox, F. X, Benedik (Rome) is threatened by the theatrical and larger than life Boswell Marsh. When Benedik is murdered, son Tony Benedik (Longdren, and the closest thing to Anthony Gethryn in the film — ironically Longdren is also television’s first Sherlock Holmes) takes over the business and the investigation.

   Unfortunately the very nature of film means the big reveal that made the novel a success is so obvious even the most naive film goer must have found it crystal clear. The script tries hard — little surprise with that lineup — and Powell shows a few directorial flourishes, but when the chief surprise in any mystery is telegraphed as this one is by bad acting and worse makeup, there isn’t much anyone can do to save it.

   This might have worked better is they had actually filmed the book as a detective story instead of trying to getting into character and showing the viewer far too much. I’ll only say that something similar worked much better when John Huston tried his hand at a MacDonald novel.

   Both films are mostly of interest to MacDonald fans or film historians, the former for an early star turn by Ray Milland and the latter as a footnote in the career of Michael Powell. I won’t warn anyone off them, because both have their moments, but take them for what they are, primitive variations on more familiar formulas.

   Menace at least has the advantage of moving fast and one or two touches of suspense and actual mystery, Rynox — well, it’s an early film by a great director.

  DONALD WOLLHEIM, Editor, with Arthur W. Saha – The 1989 Annual World’s Best SF. Daw #783, paperback original; 1st printing, June 1989. Cover art by Jim Burns.

#5. IAN WATSON – The Flies of Memory. Novella. First published in Asimov’s SF, September 1988. Expanded into the novel of the same title (Headline, UK, paperback, 1990).

   “The Flies of Memory” begins fine enough, a story told with many layers of meaning, or so it seems. The primary protagonist is Charles Spark, an expert in body language, a skill that places him in high demand by government agencies. And what better time to be called into service than when a mammoth ship from space lands in the Mediterranean, not far off shore from Alexandria.

   The ship is filled with large alien fly-like creatures (therefore immediately dubbed Flies) whose purpose on Earth is not known, but they act like tourists, visiting locales all around the world — the city of Rome most particularly — and committing what they see to memory. Why? No one knows.

   And by the end of the story I don’t think I still really know. It’s a long story, 55 pages in the paperback edition, and there is a quantum jump between the last 18 pages and what has come before, right about the time Spark and the nun who has been acting as the Flies’ guide are invited to enter the aliens’ spaceship.

   What had been an interesting collection of ideas and plot lines involving alien psychology, the mafia, the KGB and the inner workings of the Vatican turns in an instant into another story altogether, one with an ending that tosses away most of what came before, and produces instead … well, all I can say is that I was expecting more — a whole lot more. I’m sorry to say that I missed the boat altogether. You may do better with this one than I did.

       —

Previously from the Wollheim anthology: GEORGE ALEC EFFINGER “Schrödinger’s Kitten.”

  LOU SAHADI, Editor – An Argosy Special: Science Fiction. One-shot reprint magazine. Popular Publications, 1977.

    #1. ROGER DEE – First Life. Short story. First published in Super Science Stories, July 1950. Not reprinted elsewhere.

   This late 70s Argosy Special consists (at first glance) of nine random stories selected from a group of second-rank SF magazines published by Popular Publications in the early 1950s. Assuming you’ll allow me, I’m going to go through the magazine story by story over the next few weeks, and write up my comments on them in a series of individual posts.

   First up is “First Life” by Roger Dee, the working byline of Roger Dee Aycock, born in Georgia in 1914. You may never have heard of him unless you’re a collector-reader of SF magazines from the 50s, even those not in the top three (Astounding, Galaxy, F&SF). He was the author of several dozen short stories in that era, but only one novel, An Earth Gone Mad, half of an Ace Double in 1954.

   In this story a young boy has been in touch with far advanced beings from the stars, and on the fateful night that the story takes place, a small individual spaceship has come to pick him up to meet his future. Unfortunately he also has to say goodbye to his parents and dog, and it isn’t easy.

   The story isn’t told in the most elegant of prose, but it caught my attention anyway. It reminded me of seeing each of my children off to school for the first time, knowing that they wouldn’t ever be the same, once the bus brought them home again. The poignancy is even higher in “First Life,” though, as young Donnie will never be coming home again. You will have to read the story yourself to learn why.

RICHARD HOYT – 30 for a Harry. John Denson #2. M. Evans, hardcover, 1981. Penguin, paperback, 1984.

   Having worked for a newspaper at one time himself, private eye John Denson is a natural to be hired by the Seattle Star to help flush out a Harry, vernacular for a crooked reporter with a habit of shaking down local business establishments.

   Denison has a suspect from the start, but when the man is found murdered, the scope of his investigation is widened dramatically. The local vice industry is strongly interested in the case, and so are certain Japanese gentlemen with a finger in the area’s salmon business.

   Hoyt’s first book and Denson’s case immediately preceding this one was entitled Decoys, and overall, it’s probably the stronger of the two. The approach taken this time around is considerably more direct, for one thing, with fewer layers of misdirection being applied. Hoyt has a winning way in creating well-defined characters, however — in this case those especially of the type usually found hanging around a city room. I’m already looking forward to his next one.

        The John Denson series —

1. Decoys (1980)
2. Thirty for a Harry (1981)
3. The Siskiyou Two-Step (1983) aka Siskiyou (1984)
4. Fish Story (1985)
5. Whoo? (1991)
6. Bigfoot (1993)
7. Snake Eyes (1995)
8. The Weatherman’s Daughters (2003)
9. Pony Girls (2004)

   Two of my recent columns (here and here) have been devoted to a once well-known but now largely forgotten writer named John Roeburt. This month is my third on the subject. And my last.

   Except for EARTHQUAKE (Random House, 1959), the mainstream novel supposedly co-authored by vaudeville/TV comic Milton Berle, all of Roeburt’s books during his last five years of creative life were paperback originals. THEY WHO SIN (Avon pb #T-321, 1959) and RUBY MacLAINE (Hillman pb #151, 1960) seem to have been sex-driven, and the title of THE MOBSTER (Pyramid pb #G566, 1960) speaks for itself.

   During these years Roeburt also turned out three media tie-in novels. THE UNHOLY WIFE (Avon pb #T-169, 1957) was based on the movie of the same name (RKO/Universal, 1957), which was directed by John Farrow and starred Diana Dors, Rod Steiger and Tom Tryon. As chance would have it, Steiger also starred in AL CAPONE (Burrows-Ackerman/United Artists, 1959), which was directed by Richard Wilson and featured Fay Spain and James Gregory. Roeburt’s novelization of the script (Pyramid pb #G405, 1959) followed soon after the movie’s release. His third and last effort of this sort was SING OUT, SWEET HOMICIDE (Dell pb #K105, 1961), which was based on the Warner Bros. TV series THE ROARING TWENTIES.

   That paperback marked the end of Roeburt’s career as a novelist. But before fading away he did crank out three quickie nonfiction books for softcover publication. GET ME GIESLER (Belmont pb #L92-536, 1962) was a biography of celebrity criminal defense lawyer Jerry Giesler, the Johnnie Cockroach of his generation.

   The subject of SEX-LIFE AND THE CRIMINAL LAW (Belmont pb #L92-560, 1963) is clear from the title. THE WICKED AND THE BANNED (Macfadden pb #60-147, 1963) had to do with books like LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER and TROPIC OF CANCER that were the subjects of obscenity prosecutions. I haven’t read this volume and can’t recall ever seeing a copy, but I feel safe in suggesting that anyone interested in the topic should turn instead to Charles Rembar’s THE END OF OBSCENITY (HarperCollins, 1986) or Edward DeGrazia’s GIRLS LEAN BACK EVERYWHERE: THE LAW OF OBSCENITY AND THE ASSAULT ON GENIUS (Random House, 1991).

   Those books were Roeburt’s last. As in CITIZEN KANE, let’s go back and explore our subject’s beginnings.

   After graduating from college—and from law school, if he ever went there—he held a variety of jobs. Apparently he drove a cab for a while, as one might have guessed from his three Jigger Moran novels, and worked in a few antique shops, making use of that setting in the second Moran exploit, THERE ARE DEAD MEN IN MANHATTAN (1946). His career as a radio writer came about as a result of his connection with one of the medium’s top producer-directors.

   Himan Brown (1910-2010) graduated from both Brooklyn College and Brooklyn Law School, although he never practiced law and never took the bar exam. In 1927, while still a student, he began reading poetry over a New York radio station and was soon hired for acting jobs that called for Jewish dialect. His earliest success as a producer-director was MARIE, THE LITTLE FRENCH PRINCESS (CBS, 1933-35), the network’s first daily soap opera.

   After several years doing soaps and action thrillers like DICK TRACY and FLASH GORDON, Brown created his first well-remembered series, INNER SANCTUM, a mystery-horror anthology show that ran on various networks between early 1941 and late 1952. For that series and others—including ADVENTURES OF THE THIN MAN, BULLDOG DRUMMOND, COUNTERSPY and THE FALCON—he needed a stable of writers, and among the literary workhorses who wound up in that stable was Roeburt.

   Exactly which Brown shows he worked on and how many scripts he wrote for each remains unknown, but by the mid-1940s he was so well established in the field of radio crime drama that he got tapped to write an article on the subject for a major magazine (“Bloody Murder on the Airwaves,” Esquire, September 1945).

   The earliest scripts known to be by Roeburt date from late 1947, and he turned out around two dozen for INNER SANCTUM between then and 1951, as well as three adventures of THE SHADOW. For one of Brown’s final radio series—BARRIE CRAIG, CONFIDENTIAL INVESTIGATOR (NBC, 1951-55, starring William Gargan)—he wrote at least 32 episodes.

   Among the less successful Brown shows he worked on were TALES OF FATIMA (CBS, 1949, starring Basil Rathbone), THE AFFAIRS OF PETER SALEM (Mutual, 1949-53), and THE PRIVATE FILES OF REX SAUNDERS (NBC, 1951, starring Rex Harrison).

   All this radio work didn’t keep Roeburt from dipping his toes gingerly in the Hollywood ocean. His earliest movie credit was JIGSAW (Tower/United Artists, 1949), starring Franchot Tone and Jean Wallace. Tone played crusading Assistant D.A. Howard Malloy, who runs afoul of an extremist group while investigating a series of murders. Fletcher Markle directed from a screenplay by himself and Vincent McConnor, based on an original story (perhaps a radio play?) by Roeburt.

   A few years later he became involved with two projects for independent producers Edward J. and Harry Lee Danziger and director Edgar G. Ulmer (1904-1972), a wild talent who’s best known as the master of ultra-low-budget film noir. Roeburt however wasn’t involved with any of the director’s movies in that category. His first and only screenplay for an Ulmer film (from an original story by George Auerbach) was the Runyonesque ST. BENNY THE DIP (Danziger/United Artists, 1951), starring Dick Haymes, Nina Foch, Roland Young and Lionel Stander.

   Roeburt received screen credit for additional dialogue on Ulmer’s Arabian Nights farce BABES IN BAGDAD (Danziger/United Artists, 1952), which starred Paulette Goddard, Gypsy Rose Lee, Richard Ney and John Boles. His work for the Danziger brothers also led, as we’ll see, to his being hired to write scripts for two of their TV series a few years later.

   His final screenplay was for one of the most obscure movies I’ve ever heard of. DEAD TO THE WORLD (National Film Studios/United Artists, 1961) was based on Edward Ronns’ novel STATE DEPARTMENT MURDERS (Gold Medal pb #117, 1951) and was directed by Nicholas Webster. In the leading roles were the immortal Reedy Talton and Jana Pearce. I dare you to find that pair in your reference books!

   As radio faded away and was replaced in the role of America’s home entertainment medium by TV, Roeburt did his best to go with the flow, but with how much success remains (dare I say it?) a mystery. Among the sparse TV writing credits for him documented by the Internet Movie Database, the earliest was the original story for “The Long Count” (FOUR STAR PLAYHOUSE, CBS, March 25, 1954), which starred Frank Lovejoy as McGraw, a PI with no first name.

   A few years later McGraw became protagonist of his own series (NBC, 1957-58), which Roeburt wasn’t involved with. It was also in 1954 that the connection with Himan Brown led to Roeburt’s writing at least four scripts for the short-lived syndicated televersion of the INNER SANCTUM series.

   The connection with the Danziger brothers also paid off for him when they hired him to write for two of their series which originated in England but were also seen in the U.S.: THE VISE (1955-59), which for most of its run starred Donald Gray as one-armed British PI Mark Saber, and THE CHEATERS (1959-61), with John Ireland as London-based insurance investigator John Hunter.

   Between series for the Danzigers, Roeburt worked at the position which first brought him to my attention, as story editor and occasional scriptwriter for NBC’s THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF ELLERY QUEEN (1958-59), a 60-minute live series. George Nader starred as EQ, with Les Tremayne playing Ellery’s father, Inspector Richard Queen.

   Credits for this short-lived series are hard to come by. The Internet Movie Database lists nothing, and I have far fewer than I’d like to have. As story editor for the series Roeburt was almost certainly responsible for the decision to buy TV rights to novels by a number of other authors—including Hillary Waugh, Edgar Box (Gore Vidal), Harold Q. Masur and William P. McGivern—and yank out their continuing characters like Box’s Peter Sargeant and Masur’s Scott Jordan so that EQ in the person of George Nader could be shoehorned into the continuity.

   Roeburt is not known to have done any of these scripts himself but he did write the TV adaptation of the 1950 Queen novel DOUBLE, DOUBLE (November 14, 1958). The basis of one EQ episode (December 26, 1958) was Roeburt’s own 1954 novel THE HOLLOW MAN, adapted by Howard Rodman and with Nader implausibly taking the place of Roeburt’s tough cop Johnny Devereaux. The cast included Frank Silvera, Whitney Blake, Murvyn Vye and Wesley Lau.

   Two other episodes were allegedly based on Roeburt material. In “Four and Twenty—To Live” (December 12, 1958; script by Robert E. Thompson), Ellery is confronted by a young woman with a gun who demands that he phone the governor and request a stay of execution for her condemned father. And “The Jinn City Story” (January 9, 1959; script by Nicholas E. Baehr)starts out with Ellery’s plane forced by heavy fog to make an emergency landing at a small-town airport where he’s approached by a strange old man who asks him to clear someone falsely accused of murder. Featured in the cast were Peggie Castle, Vanessa Brown and Brian Keith.

   Neither of these plots sound like any Roeburt novel I’ve read, although they might of course have come from original stories or radio plays. When the series moved from New York to Hollywood and from live to tape, with Lee Philips replacing Nader as EQ, Roeburt apparently declined to go along for the ride. There’s a character named Amos Roeburt in one of the Philips episodes but that’s hardly sufficient evidence that John was involved with the show’s second incarnation, which survived only a few months.

   As far as I can tell, Roeburt did not appear in print or any other medium after 1963. Aside from a screenplay based on his 1958 novel THE CLIMATE OF HELL, copyrighted in August 1969 but never produced, how he occupied his time between the year of the Kennedy assassination and his own death remains unknown. Perhaps he’d saved enough money not to have to work anymore.

   We do know that he was prosperous enough to maintain a summer home on Fire Island, where in 1972 he died. Anyone interested in pursuing Roeburt more deeply than I’ve done in these columns will find his papers at Boston University’s Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center.

   While working on this column I discovered to my surprise and delight that my copy of Roeburt’s movie novelization AL CAPONE, which I probably had never opened since buying it decades ago, was graced by an inscription in the hand of Roeburt himself—an inscription which I hope you can read below. Whether Roeburt was referring just to this one book as “horrendous” or was writing off his entire literary output remains unknown.

   As I hope this column and my earlier ones have shown, what he contributed to the genre we love is well worth at least a modicum of attention.

AGATHA CHRISTIE – Cat Among the Pigeons. Hercule Poirot #34 (including story collections). Dodd Mead, US, hardcover, 1960. Pocket, US, paperback; March 1961. First published in the UK by Collins, hardcover, 1959. Reprinted many times. TV adaptation: ITV, 2008, with David Suchet as Poirot. (Other versions have also been made.)

   At this mid-to-late stage in her career, Agatha Christie’s skills at concocting outrageously clever detective puzzles were showing signs of decreasing, but even so, as a detective puzzle Cat Among the Pigeons would qualify to be in the top 5% of anything written and marketed as a mystery today.

   The book opens in impressive fashion. It is the first day of the term for the girls arriving at Meadowbank School, some for the first time, including some of the mistresses. It is a day of happiness and confusion. There are any number of matrons, mothers, girls and the new school secretary to be introduced to the reader. While I can’t tell you how Miss Christie does it, what is true is that each and every one of these is described in such a way that you know them almost inside and out within just the few lines set aside for each of them.

   It isn’t going to be a pleasant term, however. Two murders will occur before it has hardly begun, and headmistress Miss Bulstrode, usually calm and collected, has all she can handle as she does her best to keep the scandal from closing the school down. Luckily Hercule Poirot is called in on the case, one that also involves a fortune in diamonds that has somehow been smuggled into the country.

   Unluckily, Poirot doesn’t make his first appearance until page 148 of the Pocket paperback I’ve just read, and yet, on the other hand, Agatha Christie also had the knack of keeping her mysteries from sagging as badly as they do in the ones written by so many other authors.

   Being a novel taking place in academia, it should not be surprising that Miss Christie has something to say about schooling and education in general, and she does. Or at least her main character here, Miss Bulstrode, does. She’s a very progressive woman, especially for the year of 1960.