(Give Me That) OLD-TIME DETECTION. Autumn 2019/Winter 2020. Issue #52. Editor: Arthur Vidro. Old-Time Detection Special Interest Group of American Mensa, Ltd. 36 pages (including covers). Cover image: The 12.30 from Croydon.

   With many Golden Age (GAD) writers nowadays seeing reprints for the first time after years of neglect, Arthur Vidro’s Old-Time Detection (OTD) is more timely than ever, an invaluable resource for neophyte and experienced readers alike. The insights and information contained in any given issue of OTD make it a worthwhile reservoir from which Golden Age enthusiasts may drink with pleasure.

         

~ “From the Editor” by Arthur Vidro:

   Vidro echoes the sentiments of many devotees of classic detective fiction: “. . . every time a publisher [such as Penzler Publishers] reprints a novel of an old-time author, or (as Crippen & Landru does) collects into a book for the first time the short stories of an old-time author, it is cause to rejoice.”

~ “Looking Backward” by Charles Shibuk and “A Sidebar by Arthur Vidro” (2 pages):

   Shibuk discusses the comments supplied by Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor for A Book of Prefaces to Fifty Classics of Crime Fiction, 1900-1950: “The collaborators have endowed these highly literate prefaces with all the wisdom of their many years of reading experience. Their pithy remarks are always interesting, enlightening, and a good example of their critical expertise and mandarin tastes.” Arthur Vidro helpfully appends a complete list of those “Fifty Classics.”

~ “Christie Corner” by Dr. John Curran (2 pages):

   The world’s foremost expert on Dame Agatha summarizes recent developments in Old Blighty, with comments of the newest collection of Christie stories, The Last Séance: Tales of the Supernatural, many of them coming from The Hound of Death (1933); TV adaptations of Christie’s works, some more successful (i.e., being true to the originals) than others; and two festivals honoring She Who Had a Talent to Deceive.

~ “Give Me That Old-Time Detection Film Music” by Marvin Lachman (3 pages):

   Lachman highlights the musical scores of classic detective/mystery/crime movies from the 1930s, ’40s, ’50s, and a little beyond, many of which are very memorable, even haunting, such as the ones in The Letter and Double Indemnity (both by Max Steiner); Laura (David Raksin); The Big Sleep (Steiner again); Spellbound, The Naked City, and The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (Miklos Rozsa in all three cases); Sunset Boulevard (Franz Waxman); and Murder on the Orient Express from 1974 (Richard Rodney Bennett).

~ Mega-Review: Mycroft and Sherlock (2018) by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar & Anna Waterhouse; reviewed by Michael Dirda (2 pages):

   A former basketball superstar (with an acknowledged writing partner) has another go at modifying the Sherlockian mythos in this sequel to Mycroft Holmes (2015). The story introduces a character many readers may have heard of, an “intense young man” who is “arrogant, stubborn, argumentative, and almost bloodthirsty in his taste for newspaper accounts of the latest crimes and atrocities.” Dirda concedes that “it moves along briskly, and the reader’s interest never flags,” but it does have its flaws.

~ “Spotlight on Freeman Wills Crofts” by Charles Shibuk (4 pages):

   For mystery fans Crofts needs no introduction, being a pioneer of the police procedural subgenre starting with The Cask (1920, published the same year as Agatha Christie’s first book), a novel which received high praise from Anthony Boucher: “Possibly the most completely competent first novel in the history of crime, it is the definitive novel of alibis, timetables — and all the absorbing hairsplitting of detection . . .” With some exceptions, Crofts’s later works adhered pretty much to the same pattern, especially after he introduced his most famous detective, Inspector French.

~ “35 Years Ago: Mystery Reviews” by Jon L. Breen (3 pages):

Deadly Reunion (1975; 1982 in the U.S.) by Jan Ekström:

   Unlike other Scandinavian writers who have achieved fame in the Anglophonic world, Ekström takes a less common approach to crime fiction, being “solidly in the tradition of the Golden Age of the 1920s and 1930s, with an enthusiasm for locked room and impossible crime situations that has marked him as the Swedish John Dickson Carr”—high praise indeed.

Ice by Ed McBain:

   Starting in the mid-fifties, Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novels chronicled the ups and downs of a “family” of police officers, focusing on the group’s various adventures and misadventures in crime solving, and Ice is no different: “Police procedurals come in two types: the single-case type and the modular type. In the latter, truer to life but harder for a writer to bring off successfully, several unconnected cases are involved. McBain has experimented with both types but usually concentrates on one investigation, as he does in Ice.”

~ Fiction: “Murder in the Hills” by T. S. Stribling (The Saint Detective Magazine, February 1956), a Henry Poggioli short story (12 pages):

   Poggioli and his “Watson” walk straight into an old-fashioned Southern feud when they’re persuaded to investigate a possible murder; mercurial Mercutio could bitterly wish Romeo “A plague a’ both your houses,” but Poggioli takes a different approach.

~ Book Reviews:

That Day the Rabbi Left Town (1996) by Harry Kemelman; reviewed by Ruth Ordivar:

   Kemelman’s last book about Rabbi Small seems more noteworthy for its depiction of the inner world of education than its central mystery.

Murder Fantastical (1967) by Patricia Moyes; reviewed by Kathleen Riley:

   It’s hard to go wrong with a writer who “gives you warm and fuzzy British in a skillfully written package — and an engaging series character to boot,” namely Chief Inspector Henry Tibbett.

Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective (1934) by Agatha Christie; reviewed by Rita Hurvord:

   Unlike Christie’s better-known professional heavesdropper Hercule Poirot, Parker Pyne, whose specialty is being a professional helper-outer, “does not proclaim himself a sleuth, because he isn’t one. But he does some sleuthing nonetheless.”

~ The Non-Fiction World of Ed Hoch — Biography: John D. MacDonald by Edward D. Hoch:

   Hoch didn’t just write detective fiction, he wrote about it and the authors who produce it, in this case John D. MacDonald, most remembered for his Travis McGee series.

~ Royal Archives: “Dannay-Stribling, Part Five” by Arthur Vidro:

   Examining the correspondence between Fred Dannay, editor of EQMM, and other authors, in this case, T. S. Stribling, best known as the creator of the Poggioli series.

~ “Random Thoughts on Writing the Paperback Revolution” by Charles Shibuk:

   “In conclusion I think that about one-fourth of the review copies I receive are absolute junk, half of them are—shall we say—uninteresting, and the remainder are of some interest even if they don’t qualify for review.”

~ The Readers Write:

   “Issue #51 was top-notch, with illuminating contributions by the veteran mavens of detective literature . . .”

~ Puzzle Page:

   If you know your Poirot backwards and forwards, then this issue’s puzzle will be a snap.

       Subscription information:

– Published three times a year: spring, summer, and autumn.

– Sample copy: $6.00 in U.S.; $10.00 anywhere else.

– One-year U.S.: $18.00 ($15.00 for Mensans).

– One-year overseas: $40.00 (or 25 pounds sterling or 30 euros).

– Payment: Checks payable to Arthur Vidro, or cash from any nation, or U.S. postage stamps or PayPal.

       Mailing address:

Arthur Vidro, editor
Old-Time Detection
2 Ellery Street
Claremont, New Hampshire 03743

       Web address:

vidro@myfairpoint.net.

ROBERT TWOHY “McKevitt–100 Proof.” Short story. Albin McKevitt 1. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, October 1968. Probably never reprinted.

   Thus begins this tale, an absolute gem of a throwback to the pulp magazines of the 30s and 40s, in which detective heroes could be as drunk as a hoot owl and still be able to solve the cases they somehow stumble into.

   Albin McKevitt is not a PI, but he might as well be. Instead, however, he’s a reporter with a nose for news, and in the room, besides the members of the local police force, are one man and two women. And a dead man, a bullet hole squarely in the middle of his forehead.

   They claim it was a matter of self-defense, one of the women having shot and killed her husband, with the other woman there as a bona fide witness. McKeviit asks a few questions, wanders around, then called his editor, telling him, to the astonishment of the good lieutenant, it’s murder all right. Premeditated murder.

   Besides its obvious comic overtones, this is also a bona fide detective story. One could only wish that there had been many more adventures of Albin McKevitt that Robert Twohy could have told us about, but alas, this is a one and done.

   As an author of detective mysteries and short stories, Robert Twohy wrote almost 80 of them between 1957 and 1994, all for either Ellery Queen’s or Alfred Hitchcock’s magazines. Someone named Jim Quark was in four of the; otherwise all of his other work were standalones like this one.

MARY (THERESA ELEANOR) HIGGINS CLARK, author of some 50 plus crime and suspense novels died yesterday, January 31, 2020, at the age of 92. Her sales, in the millions of copies, must rank her as being among the greatest of any recent or current writer in the field.

   Theatrical films have been made of the following novels: A Stranger Is Watching (1982), Where Are the Children? (1986), Lucky Day (2002) , and All Around the Town (2002), and dozens more have been adapted into made-for-TV films.

   The following bibliography has been taken from the Fantastic Fiction website:

      The Alvirah and Willy series —

   [A lottery winner and her husband use their winnings to solve crimes.]

1. Weep No More, My Lady (1987)

2. The Lottery Winner (1994)
3. All Through The Night (1998)
4. Deck the Halls (2000) (with Carol Higgins Clark)
5. The Christmas Thief (2004) (with Carol Higgins Clark)
6. Santa Cruise (2006) (with Carol Higgins Clark)
7. Dashing Through the Snow (2008) (with Carol Higgins Clark)
8. I’ll Walk Alone (2011)
9. The Lost Years (2012)
10. As Time Goes By (2016)
11. All By Myself Alone (2017)

      The Regan Reilly series (with Carol Higgins Clark)

   [Regan Reilly is a private investigator based in Los Angeles.]

Deck the Halls (2000)

The Christmas Collection (2006)
Santa Cruise (2006)
Dashing Through the Snow (2008)

      The “Under Suspicion” series —

   [Laurie Moran is a producer on the television series ‘Under Suspicion’, a documentary program which investigates unsolved cold cases.]

1. I’ve Got You Under My Skin (2014)

2. The Cinderella Murder (2013) (with Alafair Burke)
3. All Dressed in White (2015) (with Alafair Burke)
4. The Sleeping Beauty Killer (2016) (with Alafair Burke)
5. Every Breath you Take (2017) (with Alafair Burke)
6. You Don’t Own Me (2018) (with Alafair Burke)

       Other Novels —

Aspire to the Heavens (1960) aka Mount Vernon Love Story (non-criminous)
Where Are the Children? (1975)

A Stranger Is Watching (1978)
The Cradle Will Fall (1980)
A Cry in the Night (1982)
Stillwatch (1984)
While My Pretty One Sleeps (1989)
Loves Music, Loves to Dance (1991)
All Around the Town (1992)
I’ll Be Seeing You (1993)
Remember Me (1994)
Pretend You Don’t See Her (1995)
Let Me Call You Sweetheart (1995)
Silent Night (1995)
Moonlight Becomes You (1996)
You Belong to Me (1998)
We’ll Meet Again (1998)
Before I Say Good-Bye (2000)
On the Street Where You Live (2000)
He Sees You When You’re Sleeping (2001) (with Carol Higgins Clark)
Daddy’s Little Girl (2002)
The Second Time Around (2003)
Nighttime Is My Time (2004)
No Place Like Home (2005)
Two Little Girls in Blue (2006)
I Heard That Song Before (2007)
Where Are You Now? (2008)
Just Take My Heart (2009)
The Shadow of Your Smile (2010)
Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting (2013)
Inherit the Dead (2013) (with C J Box, Lee Child, John Connolly, Charlaine Harris, Jonathan Santlofer and Lisa Unger)
The Melody Lingers on (2015)
I’ve Got My Eyes on You (2018)
Kiss the Girls and Make Them Cry (2019)

   Seven issues of Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine were published sporadically between 1996 and 2000.

ANNE PERRY – A Christmas Gathering. Novella. Lady Vespasia & Victor Narraway. Christmas series #17. Ballantine, hardcover, November 2019. Setting: England-early 1900s

First Sentence: It was not the Christmas Vespasia had planned.

   Vespasia and Narraway had hoped for a quiet Christmas at home. Instead, they are obligated to attend the country estate gathering of Max and Lady Amelia Cavendish. More than a holiday celebration for Narraway, former head of Special Branch, he is there to uncover a traitor.

   Perry does an excellent job of introducing one to the characters, as well as providing background on Vespasia’s history and relationship with Narraway.

   Perry’s observations often cause one to pause— “But this visit was duty, and he learned long ago that no happiness was untarnished for long if you had shirked duty in order to take it.” A nicely done recounting of Narraway’s history reveals the significance of this visit. Most authors would be inclined to depict Narraway as a classic strong male. Perry skillfully avoids that trope and gives us a man with faults and insecurities, and we like him all the more for it.

   The relationship between the two principal characters is an interesting one, and Perry captures the nuances of it perfectly. The sharpness repartee between Vespasia and Amelia is perfect and reflects Perry’s skill with dialogue. She also captures the audacity of status; how those who are “higher” believe it gives them privileges simply because of their rank.

   One can’t help but love Vespasia as she begins to conduct her own investigation and demands that Victor let her help, and for snapping at him when he dismisses her idea— “But with a woman, it is not the words, it is the message that matters.” For those readers who have followed Perry’s series for years, this Vespasia seems much sharper in tone. It is rather gratifying.

    A Christmas Gathering is a good addition to the series of novellas. It’s always nice to see her normally secondary characters move into the limelight. The story has a subtle building of tension and while the suspense is well done, it is truly the characters who bring make this book work

Rating:   Good.