Tue 24 May 2016
ELLERY QUEEN – Beware the Young Stranger. Pocket, paperback original; 1st printing, May 1965.
Back in 1961, when the first of the bogus Ellery Queen paperbacks like this one came out, in my total lack of sophisticated way, as I recall it, I said something to myself along the lines of, Gee those guys must really need the money. I bought them all, though, or most of them, but I don’t think I got around to reading many of them, no more than two or three. I don’t think I missed much, but as you and I both know full well, some must have been better than others.
This one was written by Talmage Powell, a long-time pulp writer and the creator of the better than average PI Ed Rivers paperback series. And so he was an author I was therefore familiar with at the time, but how was I or anyone else to know?
This one’s not bad — as a sample I decided to give myself earlier this past weekend — and in fact, it’s better written than most of the paperback original mysteries that were coming out around the same time. But it’s also straight as a string, with no particular surprise in the telling; even worse, it has an awfully low page count of only 156 pages, with a slightly larger than usual font size.
There’s a large back story to go along with the cast of characters in the upper middle class, or country club setting of this novel, but what it boils down to is this: distinguished diplomat John Vallancourt’s daughter is 21 and in love with a boy whose background is somewhat shady. He was questioned but released in the investigation of a young girl’s death while on spring break, for example, so Vallancourt takes it upon himself to discover a lot more about him.
But when the boy’s aunt is murdered, and he is seen leaving the scene and soon after disappearing, on the run with the daughter in tow, Vallancourt’s task takes on much more serious tones. Is the boy guilty? Or is he innocent? And will Vallancourt find the two of them in time?
May 24th, 2016 at 10:58 pm
Steve,
It’s Ed Rivers, but feel free to correct it and edit this out.
I agree about the paperback original Queens. They weren’t bad, but nothing special. Writers included the likes of Powell, Jack Vance, and Henry Slesar. Later there were two series as by EQ that also were farmed out to cash in on the name.
It was a natural really since Ellery was supposed to be a mystery writer it only made sense there were mysteries by Ellery Queen.
This one was more or less a long novella that might have appeared in MANHUNT or one of the other digests. Not a bad read, but hardly what anyone expected from the EQ byline.
This series was from Pocket Books, then a couple I think from Dell, then a couple of other publishers for the two series. There is also at least one nonfiction (supposedly) book under the EQ byline that I don’t think was by the boys from Dell, collecting true crime stories supposedly collected and written by EQ in his travels around the world.
May 24th, 2016 at 11:39 pm
You’re right about Ed Rivers. Sam Rivers was a pretty good saxophonist, but no how no way a PI. I might have more to say about the various non-EQ series, but it’s late here in CT and it’s been a long day.
Mañana.
May 25th, 2016 at 9:52 am
David
I do not see any EQ novels written by Henry Slesar, although he may have been involved with shorter fiction or the non-fiction books. Perhaps you are thinking of Edward D. Hoch, who wrote one EQ novel, the connection being that he’s another writer much better known for his short stories than his novels.
Here’s a rough breakdown of the ghost-written EQ novels:
15 non-series novels from Pocket, 1961-1966.
3 non-series novels from Dell, 1966-1969.
6 novels from Popular Library, all with Tim Corrigan, 1966-1968.
4 novels from Lancer, 3 with Mike McCall, 1968-1972.
Tim Corrigan was a tough NYC cop with only one good eye.
Mike McCall was known as the “Troubleshooter,” a guy who works as a governor’s special assistant.
May 25th, 2016 at 1:49 pm
I had a complete set at one time and they are all in a special collection at the University of Minnesota library where someone may use them for scholarly purposes. Mike Nevins wrote an article about the series for Dime Novel Round-Up.
May 25th, 2016 at 2:15 pm
Steve,
You’re right, not Slesar, I think the one I was thinking of may have been by Richard Deming (I think it was one of the ones from Dell, a decent little pi novel but I can’t recall the title), but I could well have confused Slesar with Hoch too.
The Corrigan series always bothered me because they never dealt with the hero wearing an eye patch and not having normal depth perception which I always thought would have generated a lot of suspense in the right hands.
I remember the McCall books, but don’t think I ever read one. I was under the impression one writer did them all.
And of course Paul Fairman did the movie tie in A STUDY IN TERROR, and a damn good job of it since it is a decent EQ mystery actually featuring EQ. I always suspected Fred Dannay had more input on the EQ sections of that than was suggested.
Does anyone know who wrote those two Big Little Books EQ mysteries (PENTHOUSE is the one I remember) or the EQ Jr. books?
I know longer have my copy of Hubin or would have looked this up myself.
May 25th, 2016 at 8:14 pm
A list of authors for the EQ Jr. books can be found here:
http://www.elleryqueen.us/writings.html
Information about the “Faux Ellery Queen Novels” can be found on the same page. There is a separate page that covers the paperback originals. I see I omitted A Study in Terror when I made that rough count in the comment I left earlier. Says Al Hubin in CFIV: “Ellery Queen is added to the print version [this is a novelization of a film] in the ‘framing story’; Ellery Queen sequences written by Dannay & Lee; Sherlock Holmes sequences primarily by Paul W. Fairman, 1916-1977, q.v., with Dannay-Lee input.”
May 25th, 2016 at 5:48 pm
David, I don’t have my resources handy anymore. Mike Nevins dealt with the authorship in his book Ellery Queen: The Art of Detection. As I recall the EQ, Jr. books were by someone who had written a number of juveniles.