In my comment following Marv Lachman’s review of Nicholas Blake’s Malice in Wonderland, I pointed out that the book had, over the years, been published under four different titles:

      1) Malice in Wonderland (Collins)
      2) The Summer Camp Mystery (Harper-US)
      3) Malice with Murder (Pyramid-US)
      4) Murder with Malice (Carroll & Graf-US)

   I also wondered whether or not this was a record for the most titles one mystery novel has been published under.

   A few days ago I received the email below from British bookseller Jamie Sturgeon. This is not a contest, since while he didn’t quite give the answers, he revealed enough so that anyone with access to Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV will be able to discover what he came up with right away. But for the sake of anyone who doesn’t have a handy copy of CFIV or who’d like to give it a try on their own, I’ll wait to reveal all until the first comment to this post.

Hi Steve,

   I’ve not managed to come up with a book with five titles but there are two John Creasey Inspector West books that both have four different titles.

            Regards,

               Jamie

    Mixing genres is a risky enterprise, and the works I’ll be reviewing in this series blend mystery and science fiction/fantasy with mixed results.

1.)   RANDALL GARRETT – Lord Darcy Investigates.

Ace, paperback original; 1st printing, September 1981.

   Randall Garrett has been writing about Lord Darcy, Chief Investigator for the Duke of Normandy, since 1964. Lord Darcy investigates impossible crimes but the twist is the setting of the stories: an alternate world where magic works while science is looked upon with suspicion.

   The “magic” is actually psi powers developed by the Laws of Magic. The semi-medieval, twentieth-century civilization Garrett develops is convincing both for the primitive science the aristocratic society scorns and for the sophisticated magic most characters possess.

   The interesting point here is that Lord Darcy possesses no psi powers — for that he relies on his sorcerous assistant, Sean O’Lochlainn. Instead, Lord Darcy uses induction and deduction to pull off amazing Sherlockian solutions to the incredible puzzles Garrett presents him with.

   Lord Darcy Investigates is a collection of four novelettes: “A Matter of Gravity,” “The Ipswich Phial,” “The Sixteen Keys,” and “The Napoli Express.”

   In “A Matter of Gravity,” Lord Darcy solves a locked-room murder with a double twist ending. In “The Ipswich Phial,” Lord Darcy becomes involved in an espionage mission featuring a beautiful Polish spy, a murdered British agent, and a missing secret weapon. This is the best story in the volume.

    “The Sixteen Keys” presents the puzzle of a dead man in a house with sixteen locked doors. And “The Napoli Express” has more deception than Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express.

   I highly recommend Lord Darcy Investigates and the other Lord Darcy volumes, Too Many Magicians (Doubleday, 1967; Ace 1981), a novel, and Murder and Magic (Ace, 1979, 1981), a collection of four more novelettes.

      The Lord Darcy series —

* Randall Garrett:

     Too Many Magicians (n.) Doubleday, hc, 1967.
     Murder and Magic (co) Ace, pbo, 1979.

     Lord Darcy Investigates (co) Ace, pbo, 1981.
     Lord Darcy (co) SFBC, 1983. [A omnibus edition containing all of the above plus additional short stories.]

* Michael J. Kurland:

     Ten Little Wizards (n.) Ace, pbo, 1988.

     A Study in Sorcery (n.) Ace, pbo, 1989.

JIM THOMPSON – The Killer Inside Me. Lion #99, paperback original, 1952. Reprinted many times since. Film: Warner Bros., 1976; with Stacy Keach, Susan Tyrrell, Tisha Sterling, Keenan Wynn; director: Burt Kennedy.

   The back cover of this paperback original has the following statement from the publishers: “We believe that this work of American fiction is the most authentically original novel of the year. The Killer Inside Me is Lion Books’ nomination for the National Book Award of 1952.”

   Lion was not a major publisher, even in the paperback field, and their novel had little chance to win. But there are those who believe it should have, because Thompson’s book is one of the most powerful and frightening looks into a madman’s mind that has ever been written.

   Lou Ford, the narrator, is a deputy sheriff in a small west Texas town. He is a “good old boy,” well liked by everyone. He is also a psychopathic killer. Two men in one body, trapped by “the sickness,” he is set off on his trail of murder by a prostitute. Before he is done, he has killed or caused the death of everyone he cares for.

   It takes a tough mind and a strong stomach to read this book, but the amazing thing about it is that Thompson manages to make his monster sympathetic, and that the sympathy comes from understanding. The reader is made to feel what it must be like to be Lou Ford, and the tortured violence of the book clearly reflects the tortured nature of Ford’s soul.

   One thing that can be said about few books can be said with certainty about The Killer Inside Me: No one who reads it will ever forget it.

         ———
   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.

JIM THOMPSON – The Killer Inside Me. Quill Mysterious Classic (Morrow), 1984. First
publication: Lion #99, paperback original, 1952. Reprinted many times since.

Films: Warner Bros., 1976; with Stacy Keach, Susan Tyrrell, Tisha Sterling, Keenan Wynn; director: Burt Kennedy. In production for 2010: with Kate Hudson, Jessica Alba, Simon Baker, Casey Affleck; director: Michael Winterbottom.

   If you like first person psychopathic killer stories (which this reviewer does), then this is a marvelous little mystery to pick up. What makes the story even more chilling is the fact that Lou Ford (narrator/perpetrator) is a deputy sheriff in a small Texas town. He refers to his problem (killing) as “the sickness.”

   His first killing was covered up by his father, and Lou’s foster brother, Mike, took the blame, and the prison sentence, for him. Since it was a very heinous crime (the sexual assault and murder of a young girl), an influential townsman arranged for Mike to be murdered upon his release from prison.

   After several years have passed, Lou decides to avenge Mike’s murder. And therein lies the plot of this book. That is, who, how, where and when he takes his revenge.

   An unusual, fascinating mystery, off the beaten path of more traditional ones.

Editorial Comment: For whatever reason, and it was obviously not a good one, I’d not known of the 1976 film version until now. I’ve just ordered it on DVD. And for Jessica Alba fans, here’s what you’re waiting until some time next year for:

● Tormented. Cheviot, 1960. Richard Carlson, Susan Gordon, Lugene Sanders, Juli Reding, Joe Turkel, Lillian Adams. Screenplay: George Worthing Yates. Original story & director: Bert I. Gordon.

● The Lift. Arcade Pictures-Netherlands, 1983, as De lift. Huub Stapel, Willeke van Ammelrooy, Josine van Dalsum, Liz Snoyink, Wiske Sterringa. Screenwriter-director: Dick Maas.

   I’m feeling generous, so I will throw in a good word for Bert I. Gordon’s Tormented. Bert was never the most subtle of auteurs, but his blunt handling of supernatural cupidity somehow makes this tawdry re-hash of An American Tragedy (with ghosts) more credible even when Richard Carlson finds himself haunted by what is obviously a department store dummy.

   Somehow the milieu of cheapness and 60s chic surrounding the characters makes the whole thing believable even when the effects are not.

   Speaking of Cheap, The Lift offers an interesting variation on the movie monster thing, with a tale of a killer-elevator that manages not to be as silly as it sounds.

   The director keeps things tight and suspenseful, and the two leads — playing a repairman and an intrepid girl reporter — put across the concept of working-class folk caught up in a gory mystery pretty ably.

   It’s fun enough, and there’s a dan-dan-dandy climax with the repairman in an elevator shaft, but the concept is a bit confining: it’s hard for an elevator to run amok, after all, so the Lift — like the Mummy back in the ’40s — has to mostly victimize the elderly, unfit and infirm.

   This didn’t bother a young Adonis like me much, but I got to wondering how some of the older, more decrepit members of my reading audience (no names) might react to seeing their ilk objectified as victims.

JOHN GREEN – Paper Towns. Dutton Juvenile, hardcover, October 2008. Reprint paperback: Speak, September 2009.

    The winner of the 2008 Edgar for Best Young Adult Mystery is less a mystery novel than it is a beautifully drawn coming-of-age story.

    Quentin Jacobsen is a nerd. As long has he can remember, he has had a crush on his next-door neighbor Margo Roth Spiegelman. Then one night toward the end of senior year, Margo appears at his bedroom window enlisting his help on a night of pranks, adventures, and mostly innocent revenge.

    But the following morning Margo has gone missing, and Quentin is determined to track her down and uncover the mystery of her disappearance.

    With ongoing themes and motifs that range from strings to paper to Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, Quentin discovers the deep bond that connects people, one to another, and the fragility of their perceptions of each other.

    There are hints of crime and mystery throughout the book, beginning in the prologue when as nine-year-olds, Quentin and Margo discover the body of a man, the victim of apparent suicide, propped up against a tree in a neighborhood park. The real mysteries are: Why did Margo disappear and where did she go?

    While set in Orlando, Florida and on an interstate road trip, the real world of Paper Towns is that of high school students. Green’s portrayal of Quentin and his friends is honest and free of cliches. He gives readers a frank look at Quentin’s affection for, and objectification of Margo.

    With its portrayal of teen life, its poetic probing into the soul, and its rich humor make Paper Towns a place worth visiting.

PATRICIA MOYES – Death on the Agenda. Collins Crime Club, UK, hardcover, 1962. Holt Rinehart & Winston, US, hc, 1962. Paperback reprint: Owl Books, 1984.

   Moyes is a dependable writer; her protagonists, Henry and Emmy Tibbett, are solid and capable, though happily not past a little flightiness now and then.

   This time they’re in Geneva for a meeting of the Permanent Central Opium Board. The cast is international; the scene is Switzerland, both its wealth and its natural beauties playing a part in the story.

   One of the interpreters, John Trapp, is found murdered in one of the offices of the subcommittee Henry is chairing, under circumstances which make Henry the obvious choice as murderer.

   Intrigue about the drug traffic and intrigue about love make the motive hard to determine. Opportunity is even worse, for scarcely anyone but Henry could have done it, so it seems.

   The Tibbetts get to know one of the wealthiest couples in Geneva, and Henry has a belated fling with a lovely young staff member of the subcommittee. Once again Henry and Emmy emerge as real and likable people, enmeshed in a plot that’s not their own, and doing their best to get out of it by finding the real murderer.

   Which they do.

THE HOUSTON STORY. Columbia, 1956. Gene Barry, Barbara Hale, Edward Arnold, Paul Richards, Jeanne Cooper, Frank Jenks, John Zaremba, Chris Alcaide, Jack Littlefield, Paul Levitt. William Castle, director; Sam Katzman, producer. Shown at Cinecon 40, Hollywood CA, September 2004.

    I didn’t know that Castle, before he made something of a name with gimmicky horror films, directed some crime films, and if this film is any indication, quite competently.

    Gene Barry is an oil worker who goes to a local crime-boss (Edward Arnold, considerably thinner than in his years as a major supporting player) with a scheme for skimming off oil from the major companies, installing his unwitting brother-in-law Frank Jenks as the token company president.

    Barbara Hale, almost unrecognizable if you mainly know her (as I did) as Perry Mason’s faithful secretary Della Street, is a nightclub singer and gangster’s moll who hooks up with Barry in his meteoric (and brief) rise to the top of the local mob scene.

    Jeanne Cooper is the pre-crime spree girl friend of Barry who finally catches on to his double-dealing ways, and there’s a tense final shoot-out at the roadside cafe where she works and wears her heart on a sleeve for the errant Barry.

    A fast-paced 80 minutes or so that caught Barry in mid-career between his role as the hero in Pal’s War of the Worlds and his successful career as Bat Masterson (a program I never watched).

   Barry showed something of an edge in the brief interview that followed the screening, shortened I would imagine by his almost total lack of recall of much of his career, with the most uncomfortable moment his confused question, “Have we talked about War of the Worlds?,” a subject that had indeed been covered earlier in the interview.

ELMORE LEONARD – Unknown Man No. 89. Delacorte, hardcover, 1977. Reprinted many times, in both hardcover and soft, including Dell, 1978 (shown).

   I’ve read a couple of Elmore Leonard’s in the distant past and enjoyed them more than enough to want to read a few more.

   However I’ve only just got around to this other one, which is about process server Jack Ryan who is hired to trace a violent criminal by a man who specialises in finding unclaimed stock issues and the unknowing rights holders.

   Offered a goodly sum, Ryan pursues the criminal but his life changes when at an AA meeting he bumps into the criminal’s wife.

   Knowing that he is being pursued on all sides by violent criminals, he must arrange things so that they are clear of all that, preferable with outstanding money to their credit.

   I raced through the first 50 pages but somehow it all slowed down — probably my own fault — for another 50 pages before grabbing my attention and racing through to the end. I shall have to get to some of the other Leonard’s in my TBR pile.

   The late Edward D. Hoch (1930-2008) holds — and probably always will hold — the record for publishing the most mystery short stories. At the time of his death, he’d written — and had published — over 900 of them.

   A writer that prolific would be expected to have a lot of his stories reprinted, and that is the case. Moreover, as a professional short story writer Hoch would be expected to contribute to original themed anthologies, and that is also the case.

   Below are the first three of many examples of his voluminous output that I have unsystematically stumbled across in my reading. Another grouping of three will appear here on this blog soon.

   These stories will date from the ’60s through the early 21st century, with at least one from each decade of his publishing career except the first, the ’50s, a deficiency I hope to correct soon.

1. “I’d Know You Anywhere.” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, October 1963. Reprinted in: Alfred Hitchcock Presents Stories to Be Read with the Lights On, Random House, hc, 1973; Dell [Volume One], pb, 1976.

COMMENTS: Contrell (no first name) and Willy Grove survive a desperate situation fighting the Germans in the Tunisian desert, but Willy betrays a ruthlessness in liking to kill. Eight years later, Contrell encounters Grove again during the Korean War and sees that Willy is just the same.

   In Berlin in the early ’60s their paths cross once more; Contrell can’t help noticing how dangerous it is to have a volatile individual like Grove involved in such a tense international situation. Finally, Contrell and Willy meet for the last time in Washington — the very last time.

NOTES: Not really a mystery, but the buildup to the final explosion is well-laid. And while the ten-page story takes us across three decades, Hoch doesn’t make the mistake of trying to round out his characters too much.

2. “The Leopold Locked Room.” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, October 1971. Reprinted in: Tricks and Treats, edited by Joe Gores & Bill Pronzini, Doubleday Crime Club, hc, 1976.

COMMENTS: Captain Leopold has a past, as Lieutenant Fletcher discovers to his surprise: an ex-wife who is unwilling to forgive and forget.

   Leopold’s past violently catches up to him at a wedding when he apparently shoots his ex dead in a completely empty room with absolutely no possibility of anyone else pulling the trigger.

   She dies of a bullet through the heart fired from no more than two inches away, while Leopold is standing almost seven yards from her. Even Leopold’s confidence in himself is shaken, but thanks to Fletcher’s perseverance the “impossible crime” is shown to be altogether possible.

NOTES: This story was adapted for an episode of the TV series McMillan and Wife, starring Rock Hudson and Susan St. James (“Cop of the Year,” November 1972), but Commissioner McMillan’s capable assistant Sergeant Enright is the one blamed for the murder.

3. “The Golden Nugget Poker Game.” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, March 1987. Reprinted in: The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits, edited by Mike Ashley. Carroll & Graf, softcover, 1993.

COMMENTS: Free-lance gun-for-hire Ben Snow finds himself in the wild and woolly Yukon during the Gold Rush, where men were men and women made the most of it.

   In a frontier town like Dawson, occasional violence is fairly normal; but you wouldn’t expect to come across a criminal conspiracy like the one Ben runs afoul of, a variation of the old badger game — but with bullets.

   When a man dies once too often, Ben’s detective instincts are fully engaged; his client, furthermore, is innocent of murder even when several eyewitnesses — including Ben — see him fire two bullets into the man. Ben’s job is to prove his client didn’t commit murder while not getting himself murdered.

NOTES: As a professional gunslinger, Ben Snow is remarkably ineffectual in this one; but he makes up for it with his detective skills.