First — this is Steve — some background information and a bit of an introduction. If you were to look Thorne Lee up in either print or CD version of Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, his entry would look like this:

LEE, THORNE; pseudonym of Thornton Shiveley; Born in Nebraska; in 1950s living in California and instructing in English and speech at a junior college; actor; writer under another name.
       The Monster of Lazy Hook (Duell, 1949, hc) [California]
       Summer Shock (Abelard-Schuman, 1956, hc) [Oregon]

or at least that’s how it appeared until Al sent me an update for him in Part 9 of the Revised CFIV. Not much, but at least an approximate year of birth for him:

LEE, THORNE. Thornton P. Shiveley, ca.1874- .

   Following this, several months later, Al sent me an update correcting the spelling of the author’s last name, saying “There’s a Thornton P. Shively in the Mormon site with the right birth date, so I assume it’s he.”

   If he was born in 1874 would have made him a little old to be teaching in the 1950s, but that’s hardly impossible.

   But while doing a search for Lee on the Internet, I found an eBay seller who was offering a signed copy of The Monster of Lazy Hook. As part of the description she said, “Inscribed and signed on copyright page by author both as ‘Thorne Lee’ and Thornton T Shiveley.”

   So we’re back to Shiveley, but where did the middle initial “T” come from?

   We asked Victor Berch, who replied with the definitive answer. Al, this time, had the wrong fellow. Said Victor, “From what I can determine, Thornton T. Shively was the son of Thornton P. Shively. In the 1930 Census, he was listed as 17 years old, born in Nebraska.. His father Thornton Pickenpaugh Shively was an accountant, born in Virginia. Thornton T. was born Feb. 26 1913 in Nebraska and died June 21, 1980 in Santa Cruz, CA.

   And as an immediate consequence, the basic online entry for Lee/Shively now looks like this:

LEE, THORNE. Pseudonym of Thornton T. Shively, 1913-1980.

   In the meantime I’d discovered that Lee had written extensively for the pulp magazines, so I sent this information on to Bill Pronzini. At the same time I asked if had copies of both of Lee’s books, and whether he’d read either of them. Indeed he had, and I’ll let him take over from here:

   
   He began writing during WW II. His first novel, The Fox and the Hound, about an amnesiac trying to find out who he is and whether or not he committed murder, was published complete and unabridged in the August 1944 issue of Mammoth Detective (from whence came the author’s bio below). Unlike some of other full-length novels which first appeared in the Mammoth mags, it was never published in book form. From 1944 to 1949 he contributed more than 30 tales to Black Mask, Dime Detective, New Detective, Doc Savage, The Shadow, S&S Detective Story, Ten Detective Aces, and other pulps. He also wrote a few stories for the sf mags of the period.

      In Thorne Lee’s own words:

   Peering into the remote and shady past of a mystery writer, you might expect to find a witches’ brew of dangerous living and dark adventure, but my own life story reads more like an afternoon recital at a ladies’ garden party. Any resemblance to excitement in my tales is purely accidental — or I should say, purely imaginary. I have yet to look down the wrong end of a gun barrel — which is probably true of a lot of fire-breathing yarn-spinners. Well, we can’t all be Jack Londons.

    “Born in Nebraska, married in Montana, and a daddy in Southern California” covers the high spots for me. I think my first interest in words began with a story called the The Enchanted Isle of Yew. That was all I read — just the one book, over and over. So far I haven’t been accused of writing the same story over and over, but I suppose that will come in time.

   I first looked on writing with professional intent while editing a college weekly. About that time I wrote a musical comedy (book and lyrics) and was ruined for life. The show was one of those “local boy” affairs with a fat part for myself. On the road it ran four solid nights. I think the lyrics are funny, but for a different reason.

   That brief fling as a Main Street Noel Coward plus an after-dinner speaking contest gave me the quaint idea that I should be a magazine humorist. Ha! ha!

   … I topped off college graduation with a year in university theatre, where I almost flunked in playwriting. For a brief time I wavered between acting and free-lance writing. The choice was easy; chances were that either career I chose would be the wrong one.

   Since then I’ve worked as everything from chauffeur to night clerk, to florist, to meter reader. So far I’ve managed to leave all jobs under my own power. A brief career as a school teacher was soon abandoned. The last straw was the day a tenth grader mistook me for a fellow pupil.

   I write mystery stories for three reasons: (1) I like to read them; (2) a good share of the better writing being done (setting my own stuff tenderly aside) can be credited to mystery writers; (3) my first stories sold were mysteries.

   My own reading tastes vary widely from Hilton to Hammett. I like my share of realism, but I don’t favor the theory that the supernatural and abnormal are out-of-date in mystery writing, or ever have been since Poe.

   The Fox and the Hound is my first novel. I use a pseudonym for the reason that my own name is invariably misspelled or mispronounced, or both. Thorne Lee is an abbreviation based on the first and last syllables of my name.

   I like to work in old, ragged clothes. As a writer I have found that desire easy to satisfy. My wife, Betty, says I am probably the only scarecrow to write a novel.

   I’ve been falsely accused of favoring red-headed heroines because my four-year-old daughter, Susan Leigh, has golden red hair.

   Our home is that place they write songs about, the San Fernando valley. I am working in an essential industry until the end of the war gives me “time to retire,” or until Uncle Sam looks with favor upon my bony physique. Even now I think I hear the old gentleman mumbling my name. Perhaps I’ll have that real-life adventure after all. If so, I know there will be a lot of good fellows with good intentions sharing that adventure.

   The series of stories featuring the detective duo of crippled Julian Renard and his Watson, Roger Bannister, appeared solely in Doc Savage, 1945-47. Here’s the complete list, with issue dates

       “The Shock Punch” — June 1945
       “The Britannica Sock” — January 1946
       “Who Rides a Tiger…” — April 1946
       “The Man Who Got Away With It” — August 1946
       “The Monster of Lazy Hook” — December 1946
       “There Was an Old Shoe” — May-June 1947
       “The Woman in the Attic” — July-August 1947
       “The Ghost Hangs High” — September-October 1947

    Thorne Lee also wrote a couple of pretty good hardcover mysteries:

THE MONSTER OF LAZY HOOK (Duell, Sloan & Pearce, Inc.: A Bloodhound Mystery; 1949) is a much altered expansion of the short story of the same title and features Renard and Bannister.

      From the blurb on the inside jacket flap:

   In swift succession, three men — all leading citizens of the little California coastal town of Lazy Hook — vanished without a trace. All three had been connected with the late Spencer Van Dyke, eccentric millionaire, who though he died of natural causes had managed to surround his death with many-sided mystery. What had Spencer Van Dyke done with the huge sum of cash withdrawn from his bank shortly before his death? What was the meaning of the fantastic poem he caused to be engraved on his marble gravestone? Why had he bequeathed the vast and dilapidated Van Dyke mansion to his hermit butler? Had he come from beyond the grave to spirit away Lyman Hobbs, his undertaker, Henri Picard, his lawyer, and Peter Ramsey, the local editor?

   These were the questions that were thrust at the strange pair of detectives who set out to solve the apparently insoluble. The two, crippled Julian Renard, mostly brains, and Robert Bannister, mostly brawn, found themselves in a peculiar and dangerous setup, and only their assorted but well-balanced gifts, together with a certain bit of luck, brought them through alive and entitled to the rewards they had been promised.

   Thorne Lee’s is a fast-paced puzzler, with enough easy humor and unexpected romance to balance the grim and inevitable drama that envelops Lazy Hook and its citizens.

      SUMMER SHOCK (Abelard-Schuman Ltd., 1956) is a good, unusual suspense novel that takes place at the Ashland, Oregon Shakespeare Festival (which is still being held annually and draws huge crowds). According to the author’s bio on the jacket, Shively acted in numerous plays put on at the festival, among them Richard II and King Lear. At the time the book was published he was living in Visalia, CA. and teaching at College of the Sequoias.

      Once again, from the blurb from the inside jacket flap:

   The very first reader of this book, when it was in manuscript form, started his report with this sentence: “This is a book that I don’t think you should get away from you.” We feel that the readers of the finished book will feel the same way about it.

   The Pacific Northwest is the setting, and the author’s description of the natural scenery and his use of it in the story, add much to the special flavor of the novel. The characters are all member of a semi-professional group of actors engaged in putting on a Summer Shakespearean festival. The theatrical background is completely authentic and the details of casting for the various plays are cleverly woven into the plot. (The theatrical material is completely fascinating in itself, but never gets in the way of the swiftly moving story which is full of suspense.)

   It is impossible to summarize the plot without detracting considerably from the reader’s enjoyment — except to say that it is a psychological-suspense story. There are several murders, but this is not a murder-mystery. The reader can be fairly sure, from the very beginning, as to the identity of the murderer. It is the development of the murderer’s mental processes, and the effect this has on all the people around him, that holds our interest.

      ADDITIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY: PULP FICTION —

   From the Cook-Miller index to Detective Pulps, along with Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Weird Fiction Magazine Index (1890-2006) by Stephen T. Miller and William G. Contento for the SF, plus a big assist from Victor Berch:

Bereave It or Not, Ten Detective Aces, Nov 1945

The Blood Runs Cold, Doc Savage, Sep 1948
The Britannica Sock [Bannister & Renard], Doc Savage, Jan 1946
A Corpse Slept Here, Dime Detective, Dec 1947
The Crooked House, Weird Tales, Nov 1942    [not by Thorne Lee; see the comments]
Dance Macabre, Ten Detective Aces, Mar 1948
Dead to the World, Ten Detective Aces, Nov 1947
Deadbeat, Doc Savage, Nov 1946
Death in the Groove, Dime Detective, Mar 1946
Dragnet for a Spy, FBI Detective Stories, Oct 1950
Dying to Kill, New Detective Magazine, Sept 1946
The Face of Fear, New Detective Magazine, July 1947

The Flesh Is Willing, Doc Savage, July 1946
The Fox and the Hound, Mammoth Detective, Aug 1944
The Ghost Hangs High [Bannister & Renard], Doc Savage, Sep-Oct 1947
Ghost Planet, Startling Stories, June 1943     [probably not by Thorne Lee; see the comments]
The Hanging Sisters, Chief Detective, Winter 1946
Headless Horseman, The Shadow, Aug 1945
I Thought I’d Die, New Detective Magazine, Mar 1946
If Anything Happens to Julia, Shadow Magazine, Feb-Mar 1948
It’s Been a Long, Long Crime, New Detective Magazine, July 1946
It’s in the Bag!, Dime Mystery, Mar 1947
Laughing on the Outside, Detective Story Magazine, Aug 1947
The Mad Dog of Lame Creek, Black Mask, Mar 1946
The Man Who Got Away with It [Bannister & Renard], Doc Savage, Aug 1946
The Man Who Lost His Shadow, Fantastic Adventures, June 1944
Married to Murder, Dime Detective, May 1947
The Merry Men of Mayhem, Detective Tales, Dec 1946
The Merry Widow Murder, Detective Book Magazine, Fall 1949
The Monster of Lazy Hook [Bannister & Renard], Doc Savage, Dec 1946
Murder on My Shoulders, New Detective Magazine, Mar 1947
The Mutilator, Detective Book Magazine, Sum 1949
No Body But Me!, New Detective Magazine, Jan 1947
Possession, Shadow Mystery, Fall 1948
The Reluctant Leopard, Doc Savage, May 1945
The Shock Punch [Bannister & Renard], Doc Savage, June 1945
Some Call It Murder, Detective Story Magazine, Aug 1946
Stairway Going Down, Dime Detective, Sept 1945
There Was an Old Shoe [Bannister & Renard], Doc Savage, May-June 1947
The Whisperer, Dime Detective, Mar 1945
The Whispering Wine, Weird Tales, Mar 1943     [not by Thorne Lee; see the comments]
The Will to Die!, Dime Detective, Apr 1951

Who Rides a Tiger… [Bannister & Renard], Doc Savage, Apr 1946
The Woman in the Attic [Bannister & Renard], Doc Savage, July-Aug 1947

   When this book was included in the Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV — see the book immediately preceding this one — neither Al Hubin nor I knew very much about it. But I did find one copy offered for sale on the Internet, and an inquiry to the seller produced the following update. I certainly don’t mind giving them a small plug in return: Books Found Fast specializes in rare books, out-of-print and used books, second-hand children’s books of the 1950’s onwards and other hard-to-find books.

STEVENSON, MARY. Add as a new author entry.
       The Third Time. J. R. Mott, UK, hc, 1961. “In this, her second book portraying the current position of contemporary social problems, Mary Stevenson discusses the very important question of criminal mental stability.” The author’s first book was entitled Red Beret. [Note: Thanks to the folks at Books Found Fast in the UK for providing both the cover image below and the short synopsis of the story line.]

   This afternoon I was working in Part 21, primarily in the S’s, but with the usual diversion or two:

ARCOUET, SERGE. 1916-1983. Add as a new author’s entry. Pseudonym: Serge Laforest, q.v.

LAFOREST, SERGE. Pseudonym of Serge Arcouet, 1916-1983, q.v. Correction of real name. Under this pen name, the author of many crime & espionage novels published only in French, one of which is shown below. As “Terry Stewart,” q.v., Arcouet was the first French author to be published in Gallimard’s ‘Série noir.’ One title in an English translation appears in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV, included here below the image.

      The Intruder. International Publishers, UK, pb, 1969. Translation from the French. Setting: Alaska. [The book is a two-in-one edition, the other novel being The Man of the Avenue, by F. Dard, aka San Antonio.]

STEVENSON, MARY. Add as a new author entry.
      The Third Time. Mott, UK, hc, 1961.

STEWART, TERRY. Delete this entry. This is not the real name of Serge Laforest, q.v., as previously attributed, but another pseudonym of Serge Arcouet, q.v. No works by the author have been published in English under this byline.

STRANGE, J. D. Author of one work of espionage fiction included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      The Master Spy. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hc, 1932. Add setting: England, Germany, Switzerland.

STRANGE, NORA K. Full married name: Nora Kathleen Begbie Strange Stanley, 1884-1974. Born in India; married Edward Stanley, 1922. Correct birth date & add year of death. Secretary in Nairobi and Kenya, 1913-19; one of first women to work in business offices in East Africa. Prolific romance novelist with many books published between 1924 and 1970; Kenya is the setting for many of them. One novel having criminous content is included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      According to Jill. Stanley Paul, UK, hc, 1926.

TAFFRAIL. Pseudonym of Henry Taprell Dorling, 1883-1968. A captain in the British Royal Navy & author of many sea stories, many with criminous content. Some thirty titles are included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV; one of these is shown below. [Note: A taffrail is the railing around the stern of a ship often ornately carved.]

      -Euridice. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hc, 1953. Add setting: Java.

   The following paperback was published in the dark Middle Ages when cover artists were seldom identified. There’s not even a hint of a signature to use as a clue. As far as the cover is concerned, look closely. This is one that tells a complete story, in and of itself.

CHARTER. Reprint paperback, May 1990. Hardcover edition: St. Martin’s, 1982. Prior UK hardcover edition, Collins Crime Club, 1979.

      From the back cover:

   Suzanne Peery Schutt and I have made an addition to the previous posting on her father, James Robert Peery. Here’s her email to describe it.

   My reply? Of course I can, and I have. Follow the link above.

   I’m not exactly sure why I’m attracted to this cover. Sometimes perhaps simpler is best. The cover design is attributed to Michael Accordino. Google suggests that he was the art director at Simon & Schuster at the time.

POCKET. Paperback reprint, November 1999. Hardcover first edition: Simon & Schuster, May 1998. The same cover design was used for each.

      From the back cover:

   Attorney Willa Jansson has finally managed to unload some of her sixties baggage, but her rebellious mother can’t seem to mellow out. When Mom heads for Cuba with a band of graying “brigadistas” Willa figures it’s just a pilgrimage to lefty Graceland. But then the rest of the group returns without her mother, and Willa fears the worst. Risking disbarment for “trading with the enemy” she rushes to the rescue — and discovers that her mother may have finally gotten into more trouble than she can get herself out of.

   In a deadly game of cat and mouse, Willa follows her mother’s path from Havana to Mexico City, from California back to Havana, getting manipulated, misled, and nearly arrested along the way. Soon she finds two angry governments, at least one ruthless killer, and her old flame, Lieutenant Surgelato, are hot on her trail. Racing against time, Willa realizes that, much more than politics and police work, it is intuition that will help her find her mother — and those things that only a daughter knows.

   I was working on Part 21 this afternoon, the books falling into a wide range of categories. Note the cover by Robert McGinnis on one of Hard Case Crime’s most recent offerings.

KUHN, GEORGE ROBERT. Born and educated in Columbus, Ohio. Indicate that his full name is used on his collection of short stories already included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. Add SC: Joe John Jameson = JJ. [A private detective based in Newark NJ, but whose cases take him all over the world.]
      Comic Tragedy. Vantage, hc, 1967. Add: Story collection, all with JJ (contents below).

         The Cat Burglar’s Friend and The Joneses
         The Gangster and the Girl
         The Haunted House
         The Invisible Man of Ohio
         Mr. Cartridge’s Deal
         One Man’s Town
         The Reform School Boy
         The Town Drunk Rebuilt

KURTZ, SYLVIE (LANGLOIS). 1960- . Add full middle name and year of birth. Author of many romance novels, many having criminous components. Add the one indicated with a (*) below. This is now the complete entry for her in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV.
      Blackmailed Bride. Harlequin, pb, 2000. Setting: New Hampshire. “Dr. Jonas Shades needed someone to play his wife … with time running short, he had no choice but to blackmail his bride…”

      -Broken Wings. Leisure, pb, 1996. Setting: Texas. [Time-travel romance: pilot from the present returns to the past to help a woman fulfill her murdered fiancé’s dream. ]
      One Texas Night. Harlequin, US, pb, 1998; Silhouette, UK, pb, 2000. Add setting: “In the midst of a Texas thunder storm, Melinda Amery witnesses her neighbor’s murder and … wakes up in a jail cell, her memory fractured…”
      * -Silver Shadows. Leisure, pb, 1997. “… all the elements that readers of romantic suspense desire: suspense, romance, a brooding hero, a forceful heroine, and a figure of unbearable evil to be destroyed.”

KYLE, ROBERT. Pseudonym of Robert Terrall, 1914- , q.v. Under this pen name, the author of nine mystery & detective novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV, all published as Dell paperback originals between 1954 and 1964. Private eye Ben Gates appeared in five of them, including the one below.
      Kill Now, Pay Later. Dell, pb, 1960. Mayflower, UK, pb, 1965. SC: PI Ben Gates. Add: Also published as by Robert Terrall, q.v: Hard Case, pb, 2007.

TERRALL, ROBERT. 1914- . Pseudonyms: Robert Kyle, q.v., John Gonzales. Under his own name, the author of four novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. As Kyle, nine additional; and as Gonzales, five more. When Davis Dresser stopped writing Mike Shayne novels under his “Brett Halliday” byline, Terrall took over in part and wrote another 25 of them, mostly as Dell paperback originals.
      Kill Now, Pay Later. Hard Case Crime, pb, 2007. Previously published as by Robert Kyle. SC: PI Ben Gates. “Gates takes a job guarding the presents at a ritzy upper-class wedding.”

   Carl Buchanan has come up before on this blog, in particular in this post made last January. At the time it had just been discovered that “Carl Buchanan” was the pen name of James Robert Peery, a fact which produced a flurry of activity, including a list of the stories he’d done for the detective pulp magazines.

   I won’t reproduce the list of his short fiction here — you can follow the link above for that — but here now is the revised entry for Buchanan as it presently exists in Part 9 of the online Addenda for the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin:

BUCHANAN, CARL. Pseudonym of James Robert Peery, 1900-1954, q.v. Born in Mississippi; served in U.S. Army’s Signal and Intelligence Divisions in WWI; worked in banking and cotton before settling into journalism; published two mainstream novels under his real name. Under this pen name, the author of a number of short stories for the US detective pulp magazines and three crime novels published in the UK, included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      The Black Cloak Murders. Pearson, UK, hc, 1936. Setting: North Carolina.

      Night of Horror. Mellifont, UK, pb, 1939.
      The Red Scorpion. Mellifont, UK, pb, 1939.

[UPDATE] A week or so ago, I received an email from Suzanne Peery Schutt, who has agreed to allow me to share it with you. She says:

    “My sister-in-law sent me your web site, and I just wanted you to know that I am the daughter of James (Jim) Peery. He was a brilliant man who died at age 54. His two novels are Stark Summer, 1939, and God Rides A Gale, 1940. These were the war years and it was difficult making a living as a writer, so he moved to Jackson from Eupora, working as news editor of radio station WJDX and was Mississippi correspondent for United Press.

    “He died of a thrombosis way too soon, at age 54. I was a junior in college. I cherish my memories: I never had to look up a word in the dictionary as he knew them all. I have no copies of the pulp magazine stories; I was just a child but remember him at the typewriter in the parlor of the family home in Eupora. It was built in 1908 and is still standing despite damage from Katrina. The family who owns it now has renovated it and I go back at least 3 times a year to see it and remember my wonderful heritage.

    “Daddy was married to his childhood sweetheart, Sudie Leigh, and my mother. Mother was a school teacher and superintendent of education for Webster County. For a time, she supported the family so that Daddy could write his two novels.

    “I live in Clinton, am married to Wallis Schutt, an engineer, and we have three grown children. I am an avid reader and quilt maker.”

            Best regards,

              Suzanne Peery Schutt

[UPDATE #2] 12-11-07. In the interest in keeping this entry on Mr. Peery complete, here are the combined listings of his pulp stories written as Carl Buchanan, as far as Victor Berch and I have been able to determine them, taken in part from The FictionMags Index:

BUCHANAN, CARL

   Victor adds “There is one other [detective] tale under the name Robert Peery, who, I assume, is our man.”

   To which I agree, and although it is has not yet been confirmed that Robert Peery is indeed James Robert Peery, here again from The FictionMags index are the following:

PEERY, ROBERT

   In addition, James Robert Peery had a letter published in the July 1939 issue of Clues, which neither Victor nor I have seen. If anyone has a copy of the magazine, we’d love to know what he had to say.

   Working in Part 5 this afternoon, I annotated the tail end of this portion of the Addenda. I imagine it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. If you have know anything about any of these authors that’s not said here and should be, please let me know.

   We probably haven’t found all of Dick Wordley’s early crime fiction, for example. The one just added came from a purchase on eBay I recently made. Nor do I know anything about Maurice Worth and the sleuth in all three of his books, Derek Haring. Tell me more, if you can.

WORDLEY, DICK. 1923-1995. Add both dates. Australian writer with five known crime novels; he also wrote non-fiction: history, sport, travel and psychology. A crusading journalist for abducted children, his account of a child taken from Australia to Greece by its father, Cathy’s Child was made into a film in the 1970s. Below is the author’s current entry in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV, adding the one indicated with a (*).
      Death is a Trotter. Australia: Invincible, pb, ca.1949. Add setting: Australia.
      Jig for the Hangman. Australia: Invincible, pb, ca.1962. Add setting: Tasmania.

      Murder Doesn’t Miss Much. Australia: Invincible, pb, n.d.
      Murder Got Married. Australia: Invincible, pb, ca.1950.
      * Murder Is a Handicap. Australia: Invincible, pb, n.d. Setting: Australia.

WORTH, MAURICE. Joint pseudonym of Maurice Henry B. Mash, 1882- , q.v. & Willan George Bosworth. Add year of birth to the former. Under this pen name, the author of thee mystery novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below. Series character: DH = Derek Haring. Setting in all three books: England.
      The Golden Pheasant Mystery. Hutchinson, UK, hc, 1927. DH
      The Pagoda Mystery. Hutchinson, UK, hc, 1928. DH
      The Plaza Mystery. Hutchinson, UK, hc, 1928. DH

YELDHAM, PETER. 1927- . Radio, TV, stage and film writer in Australia; TV producer. Author of one published play and three mystery paperbacks included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. One of the latter is cited below.
      Without Warning. Sydney, Australia: Pan, pb, 1995. Add setting: Sydney.

YORK, ANDREW. Pseudonym of Christopher Nicole, 1930- . Under this pen name, the author of 18 mystery thrillers included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV, some of them reprinted in the US under Nicole’s own byline. Jonas Wilde, who appears in the book cited below, is a British agent whose “business is death.” He appeared in nine titles, all between 1966 and 1975.
      The Dominator. Hutchinson, UK, hc, 1969. Add setting: Copenhagen, Stockholm.

YOSHIMURA, AKIRA. 1927-2006. Add year of death. Prize-winning Japanese author of twenty novels and collections of short stories, one of which is included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      On Parole. Harcourt Brace, US, hc, 2000. Setting: Tokyo. Translation from the Japanese. [A man convicted of killing his wife is paroled from prison after 15 years.]

   The artist signed his name to this cover, but only the top half of the lettering shows. It’s along the bottom edge, over to the right. If someone has a copy of the hardcover edition, the artwork is the same, and the signature is intact. I like the fine line work, and the coloring.

FAWCETT CREST Paperback reprint, October 1990. Hardcover edition: Fawcett/Columbine, September 1989. Both publishing imprints were part of Ballantine at the time. First edition: Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hardcover, 1989.

      From the back cover:

   France’s most prestigious restaurant directory, Le Guide, has pressed culinary expert Monsieur Pamplemousse into delectable service. His mission: create a dining extravaganza for the maiden voyage of a luxury dirigible carrying the French and British heads of state.

   But Monsieur Pamplemousse senses disaster even before leaving the ground. First his car is run off the road by a van full of nuns, then a local circus performer and new-found friend, Yasmin, suffers a terrible “accident” on the trapeze.

   All is certainly not well, but Monsieur Pamplemousse suspects the mystery and misfortune will soon lift — abound the celebrity blimp!

    “The funny, exciting mystery will delight readers who may weep with envy of the feasts that are ordinary fare for M. Pamplemousse and Pommes Frites.”
      PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.