ELLERY QUEEN’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE – January 1968. Overall rating: ***½.

JOE GORES “File #2: Stakeout on Page Street.” (Dan Kearney Associates) Involving a delinquent car,, narcotics, and racial prejudice in Hashbury. (4)

EDGAR WALLACE “The Father Christmas Job.” (Felix Jenks) First published in The Grand Magazine, January 1923, as “The Buoy That Did Not Light.” Ship’s steward sees behind on-board activities. (1)

STUART CLOATE “The Second Nail.” First published in 1966. An African witch doctor’s magic soothes a broken love affair. Quiet sophisticated evil. (5)

STEPHEN DENTINGER “First Offense.” A bank robbery fails to come off. Young bored kids with big ideas. [Dentiger is a pen name for Edward D. Hoch.] (3)

MICHAEL HARRISON “The Murder in the Rue Royale.” [C. Auguste Dupin] “Unpublished” Dupin pastiche, perhaps the first locked room murder. A complicated business.. (3)

EVE CHRISTMAS “The Burning of a Witch.” First story, Poorly told story of the mistress of a Nazi prison camp commander. (1)

MEL D. AMES”The Promise of His Coming.” First story. Infidelity revenged, Somehow too clever, (1)

ELLERY QUEEN “With the Compliments of Comus.” (Ellery Queen.) Novelette. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine , December 1948, as “The Dauphin’s Doll. A doll mysteriously disappears from a department store display at Christmas time. Of course the story’s ending must destroy the illusion. (4)

HUGH PENTECOST “No Witnesses on the Waterfront.” First published in Argosy, March 1960, as “The Ghost of Champagne Charlie.” Longshoremen on the waterfront stick together, this time on the side of the law. (5)

ALICE SCANLAN REACH “Father Crumlish Celebrates Christmas.” Father Crunlish saves a falsely accused man at Christmas time, Entertaining, but short on detection. (2)

JULIAN SYMONS “A Pearl Among Women.” (Francis Quarles.) First published in The Evening Standard, January 26, 1953. Quarles solves an uninteresting puzzle of stolen necklace without moving from his chair. (2)

LAEL J. LITTKE “A Feline Felony,” A mystery-fantasy of Jerome, who looked like a cat. (4)

JAMES YAFFEE “Mom Remembers,” Short novel. Mom Makes a parallel between the unhappy life of a Puerto Rican family in the streets of New York City today and the story of a Jewish family, and Mon’s own mother, in the lower East Side 45 years ago. Length gives added depth to both stories, depth which overcomes a slight weakness in the detection. Mom is a lovely person. (4)