I don’t suppose many of the authors in this blog entry are going to be familiar to many of you. They certainly weren’t to me, and there wasn’t much I was able to add by searching the Internet. These came from the top end of Part 24 of the online Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, speaking alphabetically again, all in the A’s, except where pen names came into play.

   A number of the entries in Part 24 are for authors whose works were published by Major Books, a rather minor paperback company that started up in the late 1970s. They published a wide array of books, though, including fiction in all genres. Of interest to us is their crime fiction, of course, including a number of gothics. Most of their books are rather hard to find today. Getting their wares into sales venues was more than likely their greatest problem.

   The added settings for the Major Books were sent to Al Hubin by Ken Johnson. Dan Roberts provided me with the cover images. Thanks to both!

ADDLEMAN, D. R.
      A Contract on Stone. Major, pb, 1977. Add setting: Los Angeles. “He’d been set up, trained, and programmed; John didn’t know he was also the target!”

ALEXANDER, MARSHA. Pseudonym of Marsha Bourns, 1940- , q.v. Under this pen name, the author of romantic fiction, including four gothic or occult paperbacks cited in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      Birthmark of Fear. Major, pb, 1976. “There was something evil about the house on Scorpion Crest, but Thea tried to ignore it … until the ‘accidents’ began!”

      The Curtis Wives. Major, pb, 1979.
      House of Shadows. Major, pb, 1977.
      Whispers in the Wind. Major, pb, 1977. Add setting: California. “What was the strange horror that gripped the house when the baby was born…?”

AMES, EDNA. Pseudonym of Andrew J. Collins, q. v. Under this pen name, the author of one gothic romantic suspense novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      The House of Secrets. Major, pb, 1976. Add setting: California. “Her brother’s mysterious death brought her back to the lonely beach house … back to the edge of terror!”

ANONYMOUS.
      The Orphan Seamstress: A Narrative of Innocence, Guilt, Mystery, and Crime. New York: Burgess, hc, 72pp, 1850. Setting: New York, New Jersey, 1840s. Add: also contains ss: The Step-Mother [also no author stated]. The book is referred to several times in a doctoral thesis by Paul Joseph Erickson entitled Welcome to Sodom: The Cultural Work of City-Mystery Fiction in Antebellum America. Note: Shown below is a later edition published by Dick & Fitzgerald, no date given, but circa 1860s.

ANTHONY, JED. Pseudonym of Theodore D. Irwin, 1907-1999, q.v.
      _Divorce Racket Girls. Design Publishing, pb, 1951. (Intimate Novels #6.) Previously published as Collusion (Godwin, 1932) as by Theodore D. Irwin. “A bombshell of a true story which blows the lid off a whole foul world and explosively discloses the debauches and treacheries of the divorce racket.”

BOURNS, MARSHA. 1940- . Pseudonym: Marsha Alexander, q.v.

COLLINS, ANDREW J. Pseudonym: Edna Ames, q.v.

IRWIN, THEODORE D. 1907-1999. Add pseudonym: Jed Anthony, q.v. Author of one work of fiction included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV, possibly true crime in novelized form. See below. This now constitutes the author’s complete entry.
      Collusion. Godwin, hc, 1932. Add: also published (abridged) as: Divorce Racket Girls (Designs, 1951), as by Jed Anthony. Setting: New York City. Film: Majestic, 1934, as Unknown Blonde (scw: Leonard Field, David Silverstein; dir: Hobart Henley). Delete reference to film previously cited: Age of Indiscretion (MGM, 1935). The lurid cover below is of the Hillman paperback reprint, #18, 1949.

DANGEROUS LADY. PRC, 1941. Neil Hamilton, June Storey, Douglas Fowley, Evelyn Brent, Jimmy Aubrey. Directed by Bernard B. Ray. Based on a story by Leslie T. White.

   With bargain basement movies like this one, you get what you pay for, which is – unless you’re not particularly careful with your wallet – almost nothing. Most of the online reviews for this movie, out on DVD, include the line “Neil Hamilton and June Storey play the married sleuths with a bemused and breezy ease in this clever Thin Man-style mystery thriller.”

   Bemused, maybe, wondering why on earth they’re in this film. Breezy, yes, with a plot having holes in it wider than the cheesiest Swiss you’ve ever seen. Thriller, not at all. In the first ten minutes what passes for witty repartee between husband (private eye Duke Martindel, played by Neil Hamilton) and wife Phyllis (a hot shot lawyer lady played by June Storey) as they prepare for bed (and quite noticeably, separate beds) will get you to sleep even more quickly than they do.

   It is difficult to say who should bear the brunt of the blame. All of the players have long careers in the movies, but they’re as a group awfully wooden in this one. Neil Hamilton lasted long enough to become Commissioner Gordon in the Batman TV series; by that time his gray hair made him look distinguished.

   June Storey was in maybe ten of Gene Autry’s western movies – but this photo of her below with William Henry was probably taken from a 1941 musical drama starring Carole Landis entitled Dance Hall – and Jimmy Aubrey’s comedic efforts were on display in over 400 films.

   Leslie T. White wrote a long list of tales for the pulp magazines, but they must have run out of both film and shooting time to fill the gaps in what passes for a story line in this one. Nor was this director Bernard B. Ray’s only chance at directing a film. Also known as Raymond K. Johnson, he did over 60 of them.

   The music in the background was stolen from an early 1930s comedy, though of course in Dangerous Lady, some of the action was intended for laughs, as most mystery and detective movies were obliged to do before noir came along, not that they called it noir back then. Looking back at the first paragraph of this review, I suppose this was what was meant as “breezy.”

   You will have noticed that I have said nothing about the story itself. You’re right. I haven’t.

   I’ve been too long away from working on the online Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, and it felt good to get back. This afternoon I tackled the further end of Part 24, alphabetically speaking. Nothing seems to be known about James Yardley, the second of these two authors. I’ll report back later if more digging turns anything up.

WOLFERT, IRA. 1908-1997. Noted journalist and war correspondent during World War II; received the Pulitizer Prize for The Battle of the Solomons, published in 1943. Author of one novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. The following is now the author’s complete entry.
      Tucker’s People. L. B. Fischer, hc, 1943. Add: Victor Gollancz, UK, hc, 1944. Also published as The Underworld (Bantam, 1950). Add setting: New York City. Film: MGM, 1948, as Force of Evil (scw: Abraham Polonsky, Ira Wolfert; dir: Polonsky). “Based loosely on the rise and fall of Dutch Schultz, the book presented a vivid picture of life among the poor and restless in New York City.” [The movie, starring John Garfield as a crooked lawyer, is considered by many a classic film noir.]

      _The Underworld. Bantam, pb, 1950. See Tucker’s People.

YARDLEY, JAMES. Author of two spy novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below. The leading character in each is Kiss Darling, the “chick with the computer brain and the venus body.”
      A Kiss a Day Keeps the Corpses Away. Michael Joseph, UK, hc, 1971. Signet, US, pb, 1971. Add setting: England. “A madman millionaire […] holds the fate of mankind in a handful of pills.”

      Kiss the Boys and Make Them Die. Michael Joseph, UK, hc, 1970. Signet, US, pb, 1970. “As the rising waters of the Nile build up behind the Aswan Dam, the entrance to a 3000 year old temple of Rameses II is dramatically exposed.”

   Additional installments of the online Addenda to Allen J. Hubin’s Revised Crime Fiction IV don’t usually occur as quickly as this, but I uploaded Part 24 to the website this afternoon.

   A primary source of much of the new data this time came from Kenneth R. Johnson’s new online index of digest paperbacks of the 1940s.

   As Ken says in the first two lines of his introduction, “The digest-sized paperbacks are very much the forgotten step-children of the American paperback revolution. The earliest series predate the advent of Pocket Books by two years. They were published in parallel with the smaller mass-market paperbacks, flourishing even amid the paper rationing of World War II.”

   Later on he states: “The largest genre published was detective fiction (almost 1100 books); western fiction was much less prolific (circa 325 books), and science fiction was marginally on the radar. Almost as prolific as the mysteries was a long-defunct genre called ‘love novels,’ with circa 925 books.”

   If Ken’s bibliography is not complete, it certainly comes close. At present it includes, he says, 2688 books, but he’s very anxious to add any that he’s missed, if you have information about them.

   But as I said up toward the top, from Ken’s index so far, Al Hubin has already discovered pages of information now incorporated into Part 24 of the Revised CFIV Addenda. This consists largely of dates and settings, but many alternate titles as well and a stray pen name or two, previously unknown to Al.

   I first met Ed Hoch in 1971 when Al Hubin brought him and Pat along to one of our Mystery Reader parties in the Bronx. After that, we met almost every year at Bouchercon and once at Left Coast Crime. We also got together whenever I was in New York for an Edgar banquet.

   Ed was not only one of my favorite writers but also one of my favorite people. He was one of those people about whom it was impossible to say anything negative. He was modest and generous. He played a huge role in my receiving an MWA Raven in 1997, and he generously wrote the introduction to my last book. As fellow “obituarians” we were in constant touch, sharing the sad but necessary news about the death of writers. Now, he will be in one of my future columns for CADS.

   Twice I had the opportunity of interviewing him at a Bouchercon. I was happy to see him recognized, and, of course, he was his usual cooperative self during the interviews.

   I shall miss him more than I can say.

             — Marv Lachman

   Since last July she had been in medical facilities near her home on the Jersey shore. Even after a tracheotomy she could never get back to breathing normally. She couldn’t speak and had to be tube-fed for months. Then she improved and was moved from the ICU to a rehab center but at best she could say only a few words.

   I spoke with her on Thanksgiving and her birthday and Christmas. I went to the east coast at the beginning of January and was to have seen her on the 6th but she had a major relapse on the night of New Year’s Day and almost died. Then she improved again and I arranged to visit her three days later, on the 9th. She had another relapse on the evening of the 8th and from then on she was out of it.

   She died three days later. What hideous timing: I never got to say goodbye to her.

   She was the first love of my life. I met her when JFK was in the White House and was separated from her for almost thirty years — my fault, I fear — and during that endless hiatus before we got together again (a story too complex to be told here) she became the model for the doomed Lucy in my first novel.

   Paging through Publish and Perish the other day, I was shaken by how many passages written more than 35 years ago capture how I thought and felt about her. Perhaps the last line says it best. “He knew that she would come to life as a sudden stab of loss within him, whenever he saw the gleam of starlight on dark water.”

   Death never rains but it pours. She died on Saturday, January 12. A few days later, on the morning of Thursday the 17th, I lost one of her favorite authors and one of my closest friends in the mystery-writing community.

   Ed Hoch’s death was the sort we wish for ourselves and those we care about, instant, without pain. He got up and went to take a shower and his wife heard a thump from the bathroom and he was already gone, apparently a massive heart attack.

   He would have been 78 next month. His ambition was to write 1000 short stories but he died something like 50 short of that goal.

   I first met him in the late Sixties, a year or two after he had left his advertising job to write full time. Over the decades we corresponded endlessly, appeared on panels together, did things for each other. I edited two collections of his short stories, recommended him for Guest of Honor at the Pulpcon the year after I had that slot (he should of course have been asked long before I was), gave him my extra copy of Fred Dannay’s all but impossible to find autobiographical novel The Golden Summer (1953, as by Daniel Nathan).

   The morning after each year’s MWA dinner, I’d have breakfast with Ed and Pat at the Essex House on Central Park South, where they habitually stayed on their frequent visits to town, and we would talk the morning away. All the things he did for me would fill a book even if one didn’t mention the countless hours of reading pleasure his stories gave me.

   He was such a kind man, so generously giving of himself to so many others, so modest and tolerant and thoughtful. It was typical of him that when an interviewer wanted to describe him as a devout Catholic, Ed said it would be presumptuous to apply that adjective to himself and that he preferred “observant,” a word generally associated with the Jewish tradition.

   If there was anyone remotely like him in the genre, it was Anthony Boucher. Both men loved and were immensely knowledgeable about mystery fiction, both wrote far more short stories than they did novels, both edited superb anthologies of short fiction in their genre, both combined deep religious feeling with total openness of mind and heart and deep respect and appreciation for those of another faith or none.

   Ed was the polar opposite of a stereotypical Type A personality. He never seemed harried or rushed, never lost his temper, always had time for others’ concerns and yet never fell behind schedule with his own work.

   His ability to devise mystery plots was astonishing. Where did they come from? Wide and constant reading — almost anything he came across in a novel or story or nonfiction book might become a springboard for him—coupled with a mind like no other.

   About twenty years ago we attended a cocktail party at a New York publisher’s office whose roof garden offered a fine view of the then new Marriott Marquis hotel with its glass-walled elevator traveling nonstop up and down the side of the building from top floor to street and back again. “What if someone was seen entering that elevator,” I asked Ed idly, “and wasn’t there when it stopped at the other end?”

   Almost anyone could come up with a wild premise like that. Ed made it work, made one of his neatest impossible crime stories out of it, and thanked me by naming one of its minor characters Nevins.

   He’s gone now. The genre he loved and to which he contributed so much will never again see anyone like him. But maybe in a sense he’s still with us. There’s a Jewish saying that you haven’t really died until the death of the last person with fond living memories of you.

   In that sense Ed Hoch will live for generations as his finest stories will.

CRACK-UP. RKO Radio, 1946. Pat O’Brien, Claire Trevor, Herbert Marshall, Ray Collins, Wallace Ford, Mary Ware. Director: Irving Reis. Based on “Madman’s Holiday,” a long novelette by Fredric Brown.

   I’ve not read “Madman’s Holiday,” but I do have the July 1943 issue of Detective Story Magazine, where it first appeared. Later on it was paired with “The Song of the Dead” in the Dennis McMillan hardcover collection of the same title, Madman’s Holiday (1985).

   As a director, Irving Reis is best known in some circles (such as this one) for several of the early Falcon movies, but in terms of a well-paced and well-told black-and-white thriller, he seems to have lost his touch with this film, his first after the war, following Hitler’s Children in 1943.

   Pat O’Brien plays George Steele, a museum spokesman about to be fired for daring to bring fine art down to the level of ordinary people, much to the dismay of museum’s board of directors. That doesn’t seem to be offense enough for him to fall into the malicious plot that follows, in which a train wreck that he was in apparently (he is told) never happened.

   Only his girl friend Terry Cordell (Claire Trevor, and even more beautiful and blonde than ever) believes his story after Steele, suffering from either the aftereffects of the accident or a wartime psychosis, smashes his way into the museum at night, assaulting a policeman in the process.

   A very noirish, nightmarish opening that promises a fine tale in the offing, but alas! the fine tale never materializes. Steele is also an expert in art forgery, and what the tale boils down to is simply that, a gang of deadly art forgers whose dastardly doings are neither (double alas!) very interesting nor wholly explained. Everybody speaks in a calm, soft-spoken and unexcited manner, including the mysterious Traybin, played by the never flappable Herbert Marshall, and his non-exertion is contagious.

   Rather than a noir film, and regarded highly as such in some quarters, as I’ve discovered, I was reminded more often of those old spooky house pictures made in the 1930s, with much standing around (when it comes down to it) and little of consequence on the screen.

   A hodge-podge of this and that, in other words, and in two words, very disappointing. [You may follow the link in the paragraph above, however, for a diametrically opposed opinion.]

CHARLES TODD – A False Mirror. Harper; paperback reprint, January 2008. Harper hardcover edition, January 2007.

   Some facts first, some of which you probably know already, but if so, please bear with me. Or not, if you prefer, if your interest in mystery fiction consists more often of espionage thrillers, comic heists and/or high grade private eye dramas, none of which applies here.

   According to Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, “Charles Todd” is the joint pen name of the (I believe) unique mother-and-son writing team of David Charles Todd Watjen & Carolyn L. T. Watjen. A Test of Wills, their first mystery novel, was also the first case solved by Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard. The book appeared in 1996, and they’ve averaged close to a novel a year ever since. A False Mirror is their 10th, and Rutledge has appeared in all but one of them, a standalone entitled The Murder Stone.

   From here it gets complicated. As a survivor of World War I (as yet unnumbered in 1919 and the 1920s, when the stories take place), Rutledge carries bitter memories of the conflict wherever he goes. In particular, in his head he hears the voice of Hamish MacLeod, a young Scottish soldier he had executed for refusing to obey orders during the worst of the war. The irony is that Rutledge now knows that given one more day of battle and the bloody onslaught, he would have refused orders to keep fighting on as well.

   Such is the background if not the underlying theme, and for folks like me, who pick up the ninth one as the first one, it takes some time for the explanation to be worked into the opening pages without disrupting the flow of the new tale being told. Hamish acts not only as a nagging conscience, but also as a Watson upon whom Rutledge tests his thoughts and observations, except that this particular (and antagonistic) Watson is not at all interested in telling the tale himself.

   It’s an interesting concept, and the Todds’ books have attracted a lot of attention, including mine, although until now only in terms of curiosity, having not picked one up to read until now. My first reaction: This is a dark and gloomy tale filled with sharply drawn characterizations.

   In the small coastal town of Hampton Regis, a man Rutledge knew not well (and not favorably) in France has taken a woman as a hostage in her home, and he refuses to budge until Rutledge arrives. The man is believed to have attacked the woman’s husband, once of the Foreign Service, and left him near death on the shore.

   Rutledge arrives, and my second reaction is this: Very few detective stories can withstand the weight of nearly 400 pages of small print. Rutledge seems to do a lot, but very little gets done; and what seems as though should have been done as standard procedure seems to get little thought. Such as (primarily) the failure to keep a guard over the badly wounded victim, who disappears into the night soon after he begins to gain consciousness, leaving the doctor’s wife bludgeoned to death.

   The ending – the revelation of the killer’s identity – is equally mismanaged – not badly, but without the sureness (and brilliance) that one expects (and hopes for!) after several nights of intense reading just before bed. (It took me around eight installments averaging fifty pages each.)

   To be more precise, the tale is not strong on fair play detection, although the opportunity’s there. It could have been done. Toward the end an accusing finger is pointed at each of the possible killers in turn, but to do this well, an expert is needed. When the strings trailing from the authors’ hands begin to show, that’s when you’ll know the authors aren’t that kind of expert yet. (Or at least, not this time.)

   On the other hand, I wouldn’t have kept reading if the authors who write as Charles Todd didn’t know people, and knew how to make them come alive, as often in anguish (mental) as they are. Noir? You bet. All the way.

THE WRONG BOX. Salamander Film Corp., UK, 1966. Michael Caine, Nanette Newman, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Ralph Richardson, John Mills, Peter Sellers, Wilfred Lawson, Tony Hancock. Director-producer: Brian Forbes. Based on the book by Robert Louis Stevenson & Lloyd Osbourne. [Osbourne was Stevenson’s stepson.]

   When I was a kid and growing up, I read a lot of Robert Louis Stevenson’s work, as did a lot of kids my age, but I never read The Wrong Box, nor have I rectified that omission any time since. It was published in 1889, which would have made it a contemporary novel instead the period piece it obviously was in 1966.

   So I don’t know, and I’d obviously be guessing, but I imagine that a number of liberties were made to the story — or on the other hand, perhaps not, as the book is described in many places as a “black comedy.” You may or may not recognize the names of some of the players, but on the other hand, you may very well know them better than I do. These are some of the finest British comedians of their era, and there are some who believe that The Wrong Box is the funniest British comedy ever made.

   Personally, I don’t know about that, but sitting here at the computer and typing this off the top of my head, there are some parts here that remember laughing at out loud when I was watching and (this is strange) are even funnier as I think about them now.

   And I’ll get to some of those in a moment. First, though, something about the story. I guess they’re not very common now, but the main item of business that makes the story and keeps it going is a tontine, a legal agreement between a group of individuals that provides for a common total contribution to be bestowed into the hands of the single survivor.

   There’s obviously a lot of material involved in one of these things to power any number of crime stories, which is what allows this movie to be called a mystery movie, but truth be told, looking back in retrospect, there really wasn’t a lot of mystery, nor crime involved.

   Two brothers are the last two survivors in this case, and they have not spoken to each other in over 40 years. Michael Caine is the shy grandson of one; gloriously beautiful Nanette Newman is the niece of the other; and they have admired each other from afar (and through windows) for many years. (The two families live next to each other in attached homes.) One glimpse of Caine’s bare upper arm is enough for the lady to fall solidly in fluttering love.

   There is a mixup between boxes, naturally enough, one containing a body, the other a statuary being returned. There are attempts at murder, funeral carriages galore, fudged death certificates…

… decrepit old butlers, cheerfully loquacious elderly gentlemen who can speak hours on end on almost anything:

   From the book itself, which is online at http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=1585, and repeated very closely in the film:

   I thought the movie was wonderfully rendered for the first hour and 15 minutes, plus or minus five, but by the end the pace had quickened significantly, and I confess that I had become lost with what body was there, who was dead and who was not. I shall have to watch it again; there’s no way around it.

   I do recommend the film to present-day writers and directors who believe that a film cannot be funny without flatulence, bowel movements, lousy language, nor more than a look at a lady’s ankle. None of those here, and all to the better. (I confess that there is one significant scene of nose-picking.)

   And any movie with Nanette Newman in it is worth seeing more than once, no matter the genre nor who else is in it.

   The paperbacks in my collection are usually in better shape than this one, but for some reason, this is the best I have of this early Bantam edition. The artist is not identified, nor does Graham Holroyd’s price guide offer any assistance. If the cover’s a little dark to make out the details, opposite the title page there’s a small blurb that describes the scene that the cover’s a snapshot view of.

   But I think that one glance at the cover and the would-be buyer is going to know exactly what kind of book he’s going to be getting, early 1950s style. If not, then the blurb on the back cover is intended to be the clincher.

BANTAM #800. Paperback reprint; 1st printing, July 1950. Hardcover edition: Bobbs-Merrill, August 1948. Series character: private eye Paul Pine. Object of interest: a manuscript written by Jesus Christ.

            About the cover:

    I got a shoulder under my eyelids and shoved hard… Pain gnawed at the back of my head like rats in a granary.

    She helped me into a sitting position and I sat there and stared… It was a face to bring hermits down out of the hills, to fill divorce courts, to make old men read up on hormones.

    “How do you feel, Mr. Pine?”

    “Adequate,” I said. “…Were you the one that sapped me?”

             From the back cover:

    “Find Wirtz,” the Bishop said. “Find him, Mr. Pine.”

    “With a build-up like that,” I said, “any amount under a million is going to sound mighty puny.”

    He turned his head…. “But a million dollars was not the price, Mr. Pine… The amount he asks is twenty-five million dollars!”

   So the hunt begins, a tough, brutal game with a trigger-happy blonde, a sexy redhead and a dying half-crazed murder czar with a fabulous story and an even more fabulous scheme.