The death of Denny Martin Flinn, a rather unique contributor to the realm of detective fiction, does not seem to have been widely noted in the world of mystery fandom. The fact appears in Part 19 of the Addenda of the Revised Crime Fiction IV, which I’m working on now. Otherwise only Jiro Kimura’s Gumshoe Site seems to have mentioned it.

   Obituaries have appeared in several entertainment-oriented news sources, however, including Variety and Broadway World. A man of talent in many fields, Mr. Flynn died of complications of cancer on August 24th of this year. He was 59.

   Here are his credits in CFIV, by Allen J. Hubin, slightly updated and amended. I’ll get back to the books in a minute.

      FLINN, DENNY MARTIN (1947- 2007)
           San Francisco Kills (Bantam, 1991, pb)  [Spencer Holmes; San Francisco, CA]
           Killer Finish (Bantam, 1991, pb)  [Spencer Holmes; San Francisco, CA]

   But first, here are some of Mr. Flinn’s non-mystery writing accomplishments. For more information on any of these, you may follow the links above.

      THE MYSTERY NOVELS:

San Francisco Kills. Bantam, pb, January 1991.

      From the front cover:    “He bears the family name and has a talent for detection. Just call him Holmes … Spencer Holmes.”

      From the back cover:   … If there be any here present who knows just cause why they may not be lawfully be joined in marriage, I require him now make it known …

   Following the priest’s request, a shot rang out and the groom fell dead.

   What kind of killer was clever enough to get away with murder in front of hundreds of witnesses? That is just the sort of question that appeals to Spencer Holmes, a San Francisco detective who has inherited a fascination for foul play, a talent for deduction, good looks, and hoards of money from his illustrious grandfather, the immortal super sleuth Sherlock Holmes.

   In a case as complicated as they come, Spencer Holmes, assisted by his inscrutable companion, Sowhat Dihje, must use his formidable intelligence to follow a faint trail that leads from the mansions of the well-to-do into the not-so-distant past – to ferret out a remakable affair of friendship, love … and murder.

Killer Finish. Bantam, pb, August 1991.

   From the front cover:   “When it comes to solving crimes, he was born to it. … He’s Spencer Holmes, San Francisco sleuth.”

   From the back cover:    “It does appear that the Great Gandolfo has suffered an irreversible mistake in an otherwise well-conducted act!”

   And in this case, appearances were not deceiving. The Great Gandolfo was run through with his own sword, and it didn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to see that the erstwhile magician had died on stage – literally.

   What it did take was Spencer Holmes, Sherlock’s equally talented grandson, who happened to be attending Gandolfo’s final performance. And what the master sleuth, along with his sidekick, Sowhat Dihje, finds upon investigation, is a twisted trail of colorful suspects, grand illusions, missing persons, and voices from the dead. And that is only the beginning. For in the city by the bay, the mixture of magic and murder is potent – so potent that even the most pedigreed of detectives will be astounded by a … KILLER FINISH.

   In a short author’s biography on the final page of Killer Finish, it was announced that Mr. Flinn was working on a third novel, one called Lady Killer. For whatever reason, it was never published.

   Searching the Internet, it appears that Irene Adler is the lady in question, if you are asking the one I think you are, and on another site it is stated that “Spencer’s mansion in Frisco has a Nero Wolfe Room, which perhaps hints at his parentage, since it has already been well-established that Wolfe is Sherlock Holmes’ son.”

   On page 14 of San Francisco Kills, the plaque attached to the door of Holmes’ mansion door reads:

which I believe entitles him to be called a Private Detective. One who does not do divorce or “keyhole” work, but one who takes only the cases that intrigue him the most.

   One other site briefly describes the books are humorous pastiches. Here, for example, from page 194 of the same book cited above, is the following passage. Spencer Holmes is speaking to a fellow who has just finished a game of tennis:

  Steve:

   Goodness, it’s been a long time since we’ve encountered each other. I’ll be at Gary Lovisi’s doings next Sunday but you don’t seem to attend them any more. A very handsome new edition of Cheap Thrills came out earlier this year, with color illustrations and reprints of many of the actual letters I gathered when first doing the book many long years ago. My next book is due out in October, entitled Good Girl Art and covering that comic book genre from Sheena to the present.

   As to your blog about the Phantom. Here’s a correction on pennames. I am not now nor never have been Marshall Macao. This attribution is, I think, due to the fact that some chap wrote some sleazy kung fu books and a listmaker mixed them up with the two novelizations of the old Kung Fu TV show I did. Macao was once a Portuguese possession and I am half Portuguese, but that’s the only connection.

   The source of the Frank S. Shawn penname, which I have oft explained to crowds of uninterested fans of mine, is this — I took the name of my wife, Frances and the initial of my younger son, Steffan, and the first name of my older son Sean, and fashioned an alias.

   I actually worked with Falk on these, dropped into his Park Ave. South apartment once, talked to him on the phone quite a bit. The novels were all based on old strip continuities and King Features would send me proofs of whatever strips were being adapted. Of course, with the novels I had to add quite a bit in the way of characters and subplots. And the books were much better written.

   Bruce Cassiday also did three of Avon’s Flash Gordon novels back then. I wrote the first three but got tired of dealing with the fellow at King Features, who was a lintpicker (as we used to say in the old days). He complained several times that I was ending chapters in the middle of the page and thus robbing them of several half pages of copy that they were paying for.

   I got the Phantom job originally because Falk, who didn’t keep up with things, had offered it to Alfred Bester, a friend of mine. Bester had ghosted Falk’s strip for a while during WWII and gone on to write The Demolished Man, etc. Knowing nothing of this, Falk assumed he’d be available for the assignment.

   Working with Falk was no problem. One of the few things he told me not to do was mention the color of the Phantom’s costume. At the time it was purple in America, but red and brown in other countries.

   Keep in touch.

>> Alas, I won’t be at Gary’s paperback show once again this year. It’s next Sunday, but I go to Michigan every Columbus Day weekend to visit my sister, and my brother comes over from London Ontario for a short family get-together. Something had to give, and Gary’s show will go on, but without me, I’m sorry to say.

   Thanks for your comments on working with Lee Falk, though, and I’ll pass the word along to Al Hubin to delete your Marshall Macao reference. Question: You did two of the four novelizations of the Kung Fu TV series. None of the books (as by Howard Lee) are in Crime Fiction IV. I remember the series, and in fact have the first season on DVD. Would you say that the books as written have enough crime content that they should be included? My general impression is that they do.

   To everyone who’s planning their Christmas and holiday present list, from spouses, kids, parents, or simply to give yourself, there are a couple of big hints subtly hidden on this page.

   I was “processing” a box of hero paperbacks the other day, and along with the Batman and Dick Tracy books (recently covered here) was a nearly complete set of the Avon adventures of comic strip hero, The Phantom. Nominally by Lee Falk, also the creator of Mandrake the Magician, identifying who the true authors really were is a complicated matter, and it has not been well-stated in Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV.

   Using the books themselves as a guide, plus information found here and there on the Internet, here’s my attempt to untangle the true ownership of each of the books. Al’s been out of town this week, so my facts, as I’ve put them forth, are still subject to his approval. If you have any information to the contrary for any of the statements below, let me know. I’ve no qualms about correcting errors!

FALK, LEE (HARRISON). 1911-1999. Correction of year of birth. Born Leon Harrison Gross, he took his surname as a young man from the middle name of his stepfather, Albert Falk Epstein. American playwright and theatrical director/producer; best known as the creator of two comic strip heroes, The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician. The following is a complete rewriting of his entry in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. Several of the books in the series of Avon paperback originals were written by Falk. The rest were written by other authors; often these authors are named, but with the statement that the books were based on Falk’s original stories. SC in all titles: The Phantom.

      _The Assassins. Written by Carson Bingham, a pseudonym of Bruce Cassiday, qq.v. Avon, pb, 1975.
      The Curse of the Two-Headed Bull. Credited to Carson Bingham, q.v., on the title page, but in an Author’s Note, Falk states that the book was written by him. The attribution to Bingham was a publisher’s error. Avon, pb, 1975.
      _The Goggle-Eyed Pirates. Ghost-written by Ron Goulart, q.v. Avon, pb, 1974. [The name Frank S. Shawn does not appear on the title page.]
      _The Golden Circle. Written by Frank S. Shaw [sic], a pseudonym of Ron Goulart, qq.v. Avon, pb, 1973. Due to a publisher’s error, Goulart’s pen name for the series, Frank S. Shawn, was misspelled.
      _The Hydra Monster. Written by Frank S. Shawn, a pseudonym of Ron Goulart, qq.v. Avon, pb, 1973.
_      The Island of Dogs. Written by Warren Shanahan, q.v. Avon, pb, 1975.
      Killer’s Town. Avon, pb, 1973.

      The Mysterious Ambassador. Avon, pb, 1973.
      _The Mystery of the Sea Horse. Written by Frank S. Shawn, a pseudonym of Ron Goulart, qq.v. Avon, pb, 1973.
      _The Scorpia Menace. (Corrected spelling.) Written by Basil Copper, q.v. Avon, pb, 1972.
      _The Slave Market of Mucar. Written by Basil Copper, q.v. Avon, pb, 1972.
      The Story of the Phantom. Avon, pb, 1972.
      _The Swamp Rats. Written by Frank S. Shawn, a pseudonym of Ron Goulart, qq.v. Avon, pb, 1974.
      The Vampires and the Witch. Avon, pb, 1974.
      _The Veiled Lady. Written by Frank S. Shawn, a pseudonym of Ron Goulart, qq.v. Avon, pb, 1973.

CASSIDAY, BRUCE. 1920-2005. Add year of death. Pulp writer and editor, radio scriptwriter, and author of many works of crime fiction under his own name and several pseudonyms: Carson Bingham, q.v., Mary Anne Drew, C. K. Fong, Annie Laurie McAllister, Annie Laurie McMurdie & Michael Stratford.

BINGHAM, CARSON. Pseudonym of Bruce Cassiday, 1920-2005, q.v. To three crime novels written by the author under this pen name in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV, add the following:

      The Assassins. Avon, pb, 1975. Note: This is a book in “The Phantom” series, created by Lee Falk, q.v.
      _The Curse of the Two-Headed Bull. Avon, pb, 1975. A book in “The Phantom” series. Credited to Carson Bingham on the title page, but in an Author’s Note, Lee Falk states that the book was written by him. The attribution to Bingham was a publisher’s error.

COPPER, BASIL. 1924- . Among other works of crime fiction included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV are six collections of Solar Pons stories, a character created by August Derleth, and 52 book-length adventures of private eye Mike Faraday. The two entries below are newly added here to the author’s own entry.

      The Scorpia Menace. (Corrected spelling.) Avon, pb, 1972. Note: This is a book in “The Phantom” series, created by Lee Falk, q.v.

      The Slave Market of Mucar. Avon, pb, 1972. Note: This is a book in “The Phantom” series, created by Lee Falk, q.v.

GOULART, RON(ALD JOSEPH). 1933- . Mystery & science fiction writer as well as a historian of pulps, comic books & comic strips. Add pseudonym: Frank S. Shawn, q.v. Other pseudonyms & house names: Josephine Kains, Chad Calhoun, Marshall Macao, Ian R. Jamieson, Kenneth Robeson & William Shatner. As Shawn, the author of several books in “The Phantom” series created by Lee Falk, q.v.

SHAWN, FRANK S. Add as a pseudonym of Ron(ald Joseph) Goulart, 1933- , q.v. Other pseudonyms & house names: Josephine Kains, Chad Calhoun, Marshall Macao, Ian R. Jamieson, Kenneth Robeson & William Shatner. As Shawn, the author of several books in “The Phantom” series created by Lee Falk, q.v. These are listed below.

      The Goggle-Eyed Pirates. Avon, pb, 1974. [Note: The name Frank S. Shawn does not appear on the title page.]
      The Golden Circle. Avon, pb, 1973. Due to a publisher’s error, the name of the author was misspelled as Frank S. Shaw.
      The Hydra Monster. Avon, pb, 1973.
      The Mystery of the Sea Horse. Avon, pb, 1973.

      The Swamp Rats. Avon, pb, 1974.
      The Veiled Lady. Avon, pb, 1973.

SHANAHAN, WARREN. Author of one book in “The Phantom” series created by Lee Falk, q.v. The title below, the only one in the author’s entry in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV, is now directly attributed to him.

      The Island of Dogs. Avon, pb, 1975.

OPEN QUESTION: It is unknown who Warren Shanahan was. He contributed to at least two combat-oriented collections of true stories published by Pyramid (One Against the Enemy, 1963; and Medal of Honor, 1967), but I’ve found no other writing credits for him.

[UPDATE] Later this same evening. On a hunch, I checked out Michael Cook’s Index to the Digest Mystery Magazines, and there was Warren J. Shanahan, author of five stories that appeared in Guilty (2), Trapped (2), and Manhunt (1), all in the 1950s.

   I was looking over the previous post here on the M*F blog this morning, the one on Gardner paperbacks, wondering if I need tweak anything here or there, and it occurred to me that that last cover was the only one that I could remember having a portrayal of Perry Mason on it.

   Perhaps I could have you just go back and take a look, but since it’s handy, why don’t I simply show it to you again:

   The covers on the earliest Pocket paperbacks, going back to the early 1940s, always seemed to me to be attempts to imitate the art on hardcover jackets, rather subdued and far from lurid:

   Later on toward the end of 1940s, the covers at Pocket seemed more and more designed to do their job properly, to catch the eye of the guy (usually) at the newsstand:

   That cover at the top of this page must have come from the end of the Pocket era. If that’s Perry Mason who’s pictured on it, it certainly doesn’t look like Raymond Burr, who was perfect in the part, but very much an establishment figure. He was a whole lot younger when he started, though. Here’s the cover of the recent box set, which I’ve bought but (all together now) I haven’t started to watch yet:

   To me, the guy on the Pocket cover looks more like Monte Markham, who had the role for about half a season, 1973-74, before they pulled the plug on him. To TV viewers, it was Raymond Burr who was Perry Mason, and no one else. Even though he may not have been playing Mason at the time, this is what Markham looked like then:

   But getting back to covers with Mason himself on them, I think I may have found an earlier one after all. It’s from the late 1940s era, and as a character, I don’t think all of his rough edges had rubbed off yet. Mason was a tougher guy at the beginning, his roots (as well as Gardner’s) being solidly in the pulp era, and more specifically Black Mask and Dime Detective.

   I think those roots are still showing here:

    It’s almost 90 degrees in Connecticut today, and for September, while it’s not unheard of, it’s certainly unusual. It meant that I didn’t work in the garage today, though. What I did instead is bring in a box of paperback books that I bought while I was in Michigan visiting with my sister and brother last year.

    Of course what this did was to bring back a few memories, of books purchased and being out of sight, the box never unpacked until now, long forgotten. There was a large assortment of westerns, but of the mysteries, most of them were Erle Stanley Gardner books that I’d purchased pretty much because of their covers, Perry Mason adventures all, and not because I didn’t already have them in other, earlier editions, because I do. That doesn’t stop me from collecting them. You do understand, don’t you?

    By chance I also have a small lot of Gardner’s books up for auction on eBay. These aren’t the earliest in the Pocket editions – I think these are all from the 1950s – but the covers are nice. The two on the top are by Robert McGinnis. The one on the lower right is by Mitchell Hooks.

    As the years went on, some of the Perry Mason books were reprinted umpteen times, and over the years the covers changed. In the late 60s, the books all had photos of beautiful women on the covers:

    In the later 60s, the covers were trimmed in gold with another crew of beautiful models posing (perhaps) as one of the characters of their respective books.

    I’m not 100% sure that I have the order correct in which these more recent Ballantine reprints came out, but I think I do. They began, I believe, in the early 1980s and were still going as recently as the year 2000. There seems to have been (at least) three different styles and formats for their covers. First this one:

then this one:

and finally this one, which of course I like the best – with quite a retro approach. The box from Michigan had about 15 of these in it:

    Getting back to Pocket, though, one of the books from Michigan was this one, a style that I’ve never seen before. It’s numbered #3, but it’s not chronologically correct, since the book was first published in 1955 and hardly was the third Perry Mason adventure. There’s no date on it. All that it says is that it was the 11th printing. How many more there were in this series I have no idea.

   Forget the heading of this post for a minute. I have some personal comments to make first.

   Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been tied up with matters not involving the blog and blog-related activities, and so (as you may have noticed) I’ve not been posting here nearly as often as I did, for example, over the summer. Nor are things are very likely to improve, I’m sorry to say. As far ahead as I can see, I’m not going to have nearly as much free time as I’ve had up to now to sit here at the computer and provide with you anything better for reading material than this, what you’re reading right now.

   Neither have I been able to keep up with comments that have been left, nor have I been replying in any kind of quick fashion to email questions that have been asked, and I apologize. I’m deeply sorry about that. If I’ve left you hanging in such a fashion, I probably haven’t forgotten about you, if that’s any satisfaction.

   Time is, as one fine philosopher has said, what keeps everything from happening at once. On the other hand, there’s a mathematical principle that says that there’s only a finite amount of it. You can slice it as thin as you want, but the wafers will still add up to only 24 hours a day.

   Besides helping John Pugmire recently with his Locked Rooms Library project, now finished, I’m still working on Al Hubin’s Addenda to Crime Fiction IV and as often as I can get to it. To me, it’s increasingly fascinating stuff. I also have another installment of “Maps in Mysteries” to post, and Victor Berch and I are working on a couple of illustrated checklists that should prove interesting.

   Besides reviews from Mary Reed, which have nearly unforgivably been piling up, I have tons of my own to post, all old, as I’ve not written but one since March. I’d also like to get back to more “Compleat” profiles of authors, but unless something drastic changes, don’t look for another one for a couple of weeks more. Unless it’s a short one.

   And you’ll see them here, eventually. But I guess that’s going to be the key word for a while. Eventually!

   In the meantime, let me plug one of the best sources around for in-depth mystery-related news on the Internet, J. Kingston Pierce’s The Rap Sheet. Let me take that back. In my opinion, it’s the best, and I say that not only because Jeff’s recently given a big publicity boost to John Pugmire’s “Locked Rooms” article. Read the rest of the items on his blog, actually a collective effort, and you’ll see exactly what I mean. It is to enjoy, every post he makes.

   While naming some but not others, I mean no slight to those not named, but Bill Crider’s Pop Culture blog is another that’s worth visiting every day, and I mean every day and usually several times a day. A post entitled “Memory Lane” proved to be a stroll down exactly that, a short history of mystery fandom through one fan’s eyes, Bill’s. While he and I have met in person only once, I think I was with him over the past 30 years, in parallel and sometimes coinciding paths, most of the way. Don’t miss it.

   I’ve also just left some comments on Vince Keenan’s blog, this time perhaps stirring up a figurative hornet’s nest of controversy, unless everyone’s tired of arguing over the Question Without an Answer: “What is Noir?” Everybody knows, but nobody can convince anyone else.

   Over the past six weeks or so I’ve been working with John Pugmire, a long-time “locked room” aficionado, and the English translator of Paul Halter, the French writer who specializes in the genre, on an article about guess what? Locked room mysteries, of course.

   To tell you the truth, John’s article has been done for most, if not all, of these same past six weeks. What’s been holding up the works has been me. The major part of the piece is a list of well over 100 locked room mysteries. What I’ve been doing in my spare time in the evening is adding cover images to something like 90% of them.

   For more on what this is all about and where the list of books and authors came from, here’s John:

   One small but perhaps not so incidental nugget of information that came from the research into the books is that Repos de Bacchus, by French author Pierre Boileau, was used as the basis for a book in English, The Sleeping Bacchus, as by Hilary St.George Saunders. (This was only book under Saunders’ own name. He may be more familiar to mystery fans as Francis Beeding, one of several pen names that he used.)

   Not all of the entries have covers to go with them, but John and I are proud to have come up with as many as we did. Here’s the link to the page:

          https://mysteryfile.com/Locked_Rooms/Library.html

   If you’re a fan of classical mystery fiction, harking back to the Golden Age of Detection, I think you’ll like what you see. In fact, I guarantee it.

BRIAN AUGUSTYN – Gotham by Gaslight: An Alternative History of the Batman.

DC Comics; graphic novel; 1st printing, 1989. Script: Brian Augustyn; pencils: Michael Mignola; inks: P. Craig Russell. Introduction by Robert Bloch.

   What it is that makes (and establishes) a cultural icon is difficult if completely impossible to predict, but with plenty of hindsight at our command, it is absolutely certain that both the Batman and Jack the Ripper each and individually most definitely are.

   Did they ever meet? Of course not, but on the other hand, why not? This particular graphic novel (or sophisticated comic book, if you prefer, with sturdy cardstock covers, glossy pages and no ads) was not designated with the “Elseworlds” label, but according the various comic sites on the Internet, it was the first, and it was so successful that an entire series of such novels followed.

   So what is (or are) Elseworlds? Allow me to quote from the equivalent of the DC handbook: “In Elseworlds, heroes are taken from their usual settings and put into strange times and places – some that have existed, and others that can’t, couldn’t or shouldn’t exist. The result is stories that make characters who are as familiar as yesterday seem as fresh as tomorrow.”

   After Robert Bloch’s introduction, supplied just in case an unwary comic book reader does happen to be unfamiliar with Jack the Ripper – and a nice touch, at that – comes a retelling of the origin of the Batman: the holdup man who guns down Bruce Wayne’s parents before his very eyes; the young lad then devoting his life to take up the cause of justice against criminals and the underworld behind a mask, a costume and a long, free-flowing cape. Except this time it is the late 1880s, and this is not the current Batman at all.

   At the same time as Bruce Wayne is taking up his new career, a horrible slayer of prostitutes in London seems to have made his way to Gotham, a city well-known to comic book readers as the home stomping grounds of the Batman, Inspector Gordon and all of the other characters of current legend (and so it appears) no matter what universe they may happen to be in.

   The coincidence in timing is far too obvious for some, and Bruce Wayne, unable to account for his whereabouts and not being home at night, is first confronted, then arrested and convicted of being the Ripper. In his jail cell, going over the piles of documents, photos and other evidence against him, provided by Gordon, not convinced of his guilt, it is Bruce Wayne the detective that spots the clue that will nail the killer, if only he were not scheduled to be executed for the crimes himself in the morning.

   Truthfully, however, while this certainly qualifies Gotham by Gaslight as an entry in Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV – it is not there now, but other Batman graphic novels are – the detection, if not minor, is hardly of the fair play variety. In terms of the reader playing detective him- or herself, this is also mere child’s play, as it were, there being only one other suspect and that being one who only appears in one previous panel.

   The attraction here is the small delights provided by viewing the Batman legend from another perspective in an unexpected context – as if with new eyes – and the delightful art from Mignola and Russell. Grays and blues and browns dominate, as well as exquisite details in Victorian-era architecture, wearing apparel and facial foliage.

   You have to be a Batman fan, perhaps – and if you’re not, it’s sure as shouting that I’m not going to make you one – but if you are, this is a sure-fire classic must-read.

[UPDATE] 09-22-07. I’ve reprinted this review, of course, because of the coverage of the original Batman in the previous post. Other than that, there’s been no attempt to rewrite it to make it more of a followup than this. It’s as I wrote it when it first appeared. But as I suggested, though, this particular book now does appear in the Addenda to the Revised CFIV.

   In his search for completeness in compiling his bibliography of the field, Crime Fiction IV, Al Hubin has cast a wider net than you might have imagined. In this particular blog entry, I offer two cases in point to illustrate this.

   Most observers, for example might not consider Batman as a character whose exploits would be included in CFIV, but indeed they are, and quite extensively too, as long as they appeared in book form, including (more recently) graphic novels. Batman has gone several phases in his nearly 70-year-long career in fighting crime, and you could do no worse than to check out his Wikipedia entry for more information.

   The current incarnation is an crime-obsessed, near-crazed madman with few friends, even among his fellow superheroes. More likeable was the Batman of the early 1950s, which is when he was one of my favorites, my old Golden Age. He never had superpowers, but besides being agile and athletic, neither of which I was, he also solved crimes by the use of his brains, an ability which I could much more easily identify with.

   And of course his never-leave-home-without-it utility belt, one of which I always wished I had. For some reason, though, it never showed up in the yearly Sears Christmas catalog, no matter how hard I looked.

   The entries for Batman in Part 19 of the Addenda are for a series of paperback originals from the 1960s, reprinting some of his adventures from my “Golden Age” of the 1950s.

KANE, BOB. 1916-1998. Noted comic book artist and writer. Add: Born Robert Kahn, he is said to have legally changed his name to Bob Kane at age 18. Note: In at least the three books indicated with a (*) below, Bob Kane is credited only as the creator of Batman as a character. Different writers and artists were in fact largely responsible for the original comic book stories.

   * Batman. Signet, pb, 1966. Add: Collects the following Batman comic book stories, plus introduction:

   * Batman vs. The Joker. Signet, pb, 1966. SC: Batman. Collects the following Batman comic book stories. Correction: There are only five, not six stories in this collection.

   * Batman vs. the Penguin. Signet, pb, 1966. Add: Collects the following Batman comic book stories:

   This next character with a mention in Part 19 of the Addenda is more immediately recognizable as a detective, of course, that being Dick Tracy, star of comic strip, radio, TV, and more recently, the big screen. I grew up in a town where Tracy was the front page attraction on the Sunday comics section, but strangely enough, I never followed his adventures. I’m not sure why, but I think I always thought the artwork was a little too crude, the villains too outrageously unbelievable, or a combination of both.

   No matter. Dick Tracy was, and probably still is, the epitome of a good guy, big city cop.

GOULD, CHESTER. 1900-1985. Cartoonist and creator of the long-running Dick Tracy newspaper comic strip. While his entry in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV includes several other books based on the character, the three paperback originals listed below constitute three books in the “Dick Tracy: His Greatest Cases” series, one requiring a correction and one newly added.

   Add: Mrs. Pruneface plus Crime, Inc. Gold Medal, pb, 1976. SC: Dick Tracy. Two stories in comic strip form.

   Pruneface. Gold Medal, pb, 1975. SC: Dick Tracy. Comic strip reprints.

   Snowflake and Shaky plus The Black Pearl. Gold Medal, pb, 1975. SC: Dick Tracy. Correction of title; two stories in comic strip form.

   As he does at regular intervals, Al Hubin sent me this morning Part 19 to his ongoing online Addenda to the Revised Edition of Crime Fiction IV, and within minutes (or so) I had it uploaded and ready to read.

   There are no major discoveries in this installment, perhaps none that haven’t already been mentioned in these pages already, but for additions and corrections to the entries for authors ranging from Salar Abdah to A. T. Worden, you might want to take a look.

   This new page is all in plain text, without the annotations I’ve been adding to previous chunks of the Addenda. I’ve recently finished Part 3, for example, on the main page, and I’m about to start merging it into the combined alphabetical sections of Parts 1 and 2.

   Of possible interest are the following entries from Part 12, which indicate a family connection that hadn’t been pointed out before in CFIV:

BYATT, A(NTONIA) S(USAN) (née DRABBLE). 1936- . Daughter of J. F. Drabble, 1906-1982, and sister of Margaret Drabble, 1939- , qq.v. Broadcaster, reviewer, editor, prize-winning author. Of several novels, one is included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV as having marginal crime content. See below.

    –Possession. Chatto & Windus, UK, hc, 1990; Random House, US, hc, 1990.

DRABBLE, J(OHN) F(REDERICK). 1906-1982. Add year of death. Barrister and county court judge; father of A. S. Byatt, 1936- , and Margaret Drabble, 1939- , qq.v. Author of one book included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.

    Death’s Second Self. Sidgwick & Jackson, UK, hc, 1971. [Described by one online bookseller as “a diabolical crime piece.”]

DRABBLE, MARGARET. 1939- . Daughter of J. F. Drabble, 1906-1982, and sister of A. S. Byatt, 1936- , qq.v. Biographer, critic, and prize-winnning author of many works of fiction, including one novel cited in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.

    The Gates of Ivory. Viking, UK, hc, 1991; Viking, US, hc, 1992. [A London psychiatrist receives a cryptic package in the mail. Deciphering the message leads her to the chaos and corruption of Southeast Asia.]

   From the sublime, in terms of status in the literary world, to the less so — and I say this even though the late Mike Avallone was a friend of mine — we have the following entry from Part 18. [Note that this does not constitute the entire body of work for the previously mentioned Mr. Avallone. All that are listed here are the titles requiring additions or changes.]

AVALLONE, MICHAEL (ANGELO, JR.)

   The Coffin Things. Lancer, pb, 1968. Add setting: NY State (the Adirondacks). Note: According to the front cover, the book was “soon to be a major François Truffaut motion picture.” The movie does not appear to ever have been made.

   The Werewolf Walks Tonight. Warner, pb, 1974. #2 in the “Satan Sleuth” series, which relate the occult adventures of Philip St. George, a masked avenger who fights the forces of darkness. Add setting: Tennessee-Kentucky border.

   Note: There were three books that appeared in the Satan Sleuth series. According to one website no longer accessible, Avallone wrote two others that have never been published:

* VAMPIRES WILD (unpublished 1975) Philip St. George combats sorcery and Satanism in cynical Hollywood and comes face to face with the oldest living movie star. Is timeless Lola Vane actually who and what she seems to be? Do vampires really walk again in the modern age?

* ZOMBIE DEPOT (unpublished 1976) Philip St. George travels to Haiti to fight the legendary Baron Samedi, the Man Who Will Not Die. Not even Voodoo can explain the existence of The Python, incredible ringleader of a cult beyond sanity.