REVIEWED BY BOB ADEY:

   

ARTHUR MALING, Editor – When Last Seen. Mystery Writers of America Anthology. Harper & Row, hardcover, 1977.

   Another excellent offering in this thematic series. The theme in this case, as the title suggests, is of people or things that disappear, and the authors’ roster includes such luminaries as.Starrett, Ross Macdonald, Gores, Hoch, Slesar, Ellin, de la Torre and Pronzini.

   Some of the stories  — Hoch’s “Vanishing of Velma”, James Holding’s amusing “The Philippine Key Mystery” (with detective Leroy King) — are old favourites of mine, but many others introduced to me authors and stories I hadn’t met before.

   Of the new authors I was extreme1y impressed by Pauline C. Smith’s “That Monday Night” and Stanley Cohen’s haunting “Nadigo” about a strange little town that isn’t to be found on any map, while amongst the old reliables, only Vincent Starrett’s “The Big Door” seems slow and dated. (And of course it was originally published well before the war.)

   My favourite story in this volume? Well, the palm goes to either to “Natigo” or to Henry Slesar’s “The Girl Who Found Things,” in which a missing man is sought by a clairvoyant, and the twist is almost the last paragraph.

   All in all, a first class compilation.
      

      Contents:

1 · Gone Girl [Lew Archer] · Ross Macdonald · nv Manhunt February 1953, as “The Imaginary Blonde” by John Ross Macdonald
37 · The Crime of Ezechiele Coen · Stanley Ellin · nv Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine November 1963
65 · That Monday Night · Pauline C. Smith · nv Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine August 1971
93 · The Three Halves [Daniel Kearny Associates] · Joseph N. Gores · ss Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine July 1968, as “The Pedretti Case”
111 · Back in Five Years [Insp. (Supt.) Hazlerigg] · Michael Gilbert · ss John Bull December 18 1948
123 · The Vanishing of Velma [Captain Leopold] · Edward D. Hoch · nv Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine August 1969
145 · The Perfectionist · Gerald Tomlinson · ss Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine February 1974
157 · The Girl Who Found Things · Henry Slesar · nv Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine July 1973
185 · Born Killer · Dorothy Salisbury Davis · ss Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine #120, November 1953
203 · Putting the Pieces Back · Bill Pronzini · ss Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine April 1976
211 · The Philippine Key Mystery [Martin Leroy & King Danforth] · James Holding · ss Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine February 1968
229 · The Lost Heir [Dr. Sam: Johnson] · Lillian de la Torre · nv Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine December 1974
249 · Nadigo · Stanley Cohen · ss Mystery Monthly September 1976
269 · The Dog Incident · Patrick O’Keeffe · ss
279 · The Blue Door · Vincent Starrett · na Real Detective Tales and Mystery Stories August 1927, as by Edgar Savage
335 · All the Way Home · Dan J. Marlowe · ss Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine September 1965, as by Jaime Sandaval
      

– Reprinted from The Poisoned Pen, Volume 4, Number 4 (August 1981).