RANDALL PARRISH – The Case and the Girl

Alfred A. Knopf, hardcover, 1922. A. L. Burt, hc reprint, n.d. Paul (UK), hc, 1923.

   Captain Matthew West has just been honourably discharged after twice being wounded during World War I. Feeling restless and not yet ready to return to civilian work, while browsing the newspaper at his club he decides to answer a personal ad running thus

   “Wanted: Young man of education and daring for service involving some personal peril. Good pay, and unusual reward if successful. May have to leave city. Purpose disclosed only in personal interview.”

   Instructed to bring his evening clothes — and a good job he has them! — he is soon off to a rendezvous with orphaned heiress Natalie Coolidge. She does not explain what task she requires him to undertake but Captain West agrees to help her even so, and is whirled off to the family mansion, where he is astonished to be introduced to the house party as her fiance. One of the guests is Natalie’s uncle and guardian Percival Coolidge. The two men dislike each other on sight – in fact, Uncle Percy accuses West of being a fortune hunter, the cad.

   Next morning the gallant captain has a private chat with Natalie and learns someone is impersonating her. However, nobody believes her because the responsible party looks so like her she fools even Natalie’s friends, not to mention the servants and bank clerks who know her well.

   Is Natalie telling the truth, mistaken, or demented? Despite doubts at times, West agrees to try to solve the mystery. There are a couple of odd happenings, statements made don’t quite check out, and then a death occurs and West is plunged into an adventure with enough twists and turns to make a scriptwriter swoon. The detective work is partly deductive and partly wearing out shoe leather and when it comes to action, West usually wipes the floor with his opponents, yet in a manner showing he is not a super hero.

   My verdict: Apart from the occasionally annoying fact that Captain West is a bit slow on the uptake at times, this was a rollicking read and keeps the interest to the end. I particularly admired a sequence in which West and Natalie are trapped in…but no, I will not ruin the suspense, although I will say it gave me the creeping heeby jeebies.

      Etext: http://www.gutenberg.org

RANDALL PARRISH (1858-1923) – A Partial Bibliography

● Crime Fiction  (Thanks to Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.)

● Titles available online, including non-mystery fiction:

* Beth Norvell: A Romance of the West

* Bob Hampton of Placer
* The Case and the Girl
* The Devil’s Own: A Romance of the Black Hawk War
* Gordon Craig: Soldier of Fortune
* Keith of the Border
* Love under Fire
* Molly McDonald: A Tale of the Old Frontier
* My Lady of Doubt
* My Lady of the North
* Prisoners of Chance: The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, through His Love for a Lady of France
* The Strange Case of Cavendish
* When Wilderness Was King: A Tale of the Illinois Country

* Wolves of the Sea: Being a Tale of the Colonies from the Manuscript of One Geoffry Carlyle, Seaman, Narrating Certain Strange Adventures Which Befell Him Aboard the Pirate Craft “Namur”

● Shorter fiction:   (Thanks to The FictionMags Index.)

● Three of his novels and stories have been adapted into film:   (Thanks to IMBD.)

   As a followup to an earlier discussion about the movie version of The Big Sleep here on the Mystery*File blog:

   At this rate, it won’t be long before the entire movie is up on YouTube. Thanks to Jeff Pierce, head man at The Rap Sheet, for getting me started in looking.

A BUCKET OF BLOOD. American International, 1959. Dick Miller, Barboura Morris, Antony Carbone, Julian Burton, Judy Bamber, Ed Nelson, Bert Convy. Producer/director: Roger Corbin.

   I went to the local library sale twice last weekend. On Friday night it cost $5 to get in, and I spend $70. On Sunday afternoon they charged $5 a bag, and I bought four bags. Do you know how many paperbacks you can get into an ordinary plastic shopping bag? Even more amazing, do you know how many DVDs you can get into one? DVDs that sat there at four dollars apiece for two days and nobody wanted them until I came along on Sunday and took four shelves full in one swell foop? Well, four foops.

   This is one of them, and more than that, this the second half of a double feature DVD, the prime attraction being George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968), which I saw once and probably never again. Though perhaps I shouldn’t be too hasty. The version I saw I am sure was colorized, the worst idea that the ladies and gents in Hollywood ever had. The lighting is always wrong and the computers don’t really get it right anyway, what with swatches of color hovering over everything on the screen trying to match what the ladies and gents think is the right color, but (in my opinion) probably almost never is.

   But I digress. A Bucket of Blood was also filmed in black-and-white, and the DVD version is also in black-and-white, and very sharp black-and-white it was also. It was also filmed, or so I’m told, in five days. A small budget film, and of course it shows. It is also quietly hilarious, and somewhat to my relief, intentionally so, since one of the posters I’ve seen for this film says at the top: “You’ll be sick, sick, sick – from LAUGHING!”

   Unless they took a look at the film when they were done filming and decided to accept the inevitable: a bad movie that they could market only if they made everyone believe that that is the way it was done on purpose. But I don’t think so.

   Dick Miller, in probably the only starring role he ever had, but not the only one he played a fellow named Walter Paisley, is a busboy in a beatnik hangout who has a social problem. He’s laughed at, which of course is even worse than being ignored. He’s not only inept but two or three magazines short of a rack, and Dick Miller nails the role perfectly.

   The Yellow Door, where Paisley works, is one those places, by the way, where poets recite their wares to the sound of a single saxophone (uncredited jazz artist Paul Horn) along the lines of “Life is an obscure hobo, bumming a ride on the omnibus of art,” to quote Maxwell Brock (Julian Burton), or “Where are John, Joe, Jake, Jim, jerk? Dead, dead, dead! They were not born, before they were born, they were not born. Where are Leonardo, Rembrandt, Ludwig? Alive! Alive! Alive! They were born!”

Maxwell Brock is perfect in the part. So is Barboura Morris as Carla, the girl that Walter loves but doesn’t have a chance with until he becomes an acclaimed artist. By mistake. After accidentally killing his landlady’s cat, hiding in a wall, Walter covers the dead animal with clay. A masterpiece, it is praised. One must only smile.

   And of course Walter is not content to be a one-shot wonder. Perhaps you can picture what comes next. If you remember The House of Wax with Vincent Price (1953), I am sure you will. There is, of course, a gag like this (literally) can last much more than an hour, and no, it doesn’t, clocking in at a mere 66 minutes. Just about perfect.

   Not to mention the other starring attraction, besides Alice the model’s nude back (Judy Bamber), that being, of course, an (uncredited) stage appearance of guitarist-folksinger Alex Hassilev at just about the same time he was becoming one of the founding members of The Limeliters. A good career move, that.

   In Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, there is presently no biographical information of any kind for Leonard Lupton, an author known perhaps only to collectors of Graphic paperbacks in the 1950s. I’m referring here to books produced by the Graphic Publishing Company of 240 W. 40th Street, New York, NY, but admittedly the covers could often be graphic, too.

   But more about the books (and their covers) in a minute. A couple of recent emails between Al Hubin and Victor Berch have done much to remove some of the anonymity in which Mr. Lupton has been residing all these years.

   Al wrote to Victor first, saying,

   Victor’s reply, in part:

   There being a complete consensus at this time that the Leonard Lupton found in Social Security records being Leonard Lupton, the author, it’s about time for a list of the books he authored. Adapted from, and updating his entry in CFIV are the following:

LUPTON, (WILLIAM) LEONARD (1907-2000); see pseudonyms Mary Lupton & Chester Warwick

   * Murder Without Tears (Graphic 149, 1957, pb) [New York] Hard-boiled mystery. “Lovely Anne Cramer made a cozy alibi for Jason Broome — and Craddock made his favorite corpse. But when Anne swore to the police she had spent that whole kiss-and-kill night with him, was she really saving Jason from the hot seat — or luring him into murder without tears!”

   * -The Night of the Owl (Lenox Hill, 1971, hc) Gothic Romance. Mrs. Moreland’s lively daughter could not keep from wishing to go to the pseudo-Swiss chalet known as Alpenstock, reputed to be haunted…

LUPTON, MARY; pseudonym of Leonard Lupton; other pseudonym Chester Warwick

* –Dangerous Kisses (Avalon, 1983, hc)

* –The Doomsday Ghost (Avalon, 1984, hc) [Alabama] [A tutor comes to an Alabama estate nicknamed Doomsday Plantation and faces both anger and love.]

* –Fantasy at Midnight (Avalon, 1982, hc)

* –Fear to Love (Avalon, 1983, hc) [A woman takes time off from her journalism job to visit her ill grandfather and finds herself falling for a potentially dangerous man.]

* Ghost of the Rock (Avalon, 1986, hc)

* House of Vengeance (Avalon, 1984, hc) [A woman inherits a reportedly haunted house and, when she arrives, she can’t understand why someone would want to harm her.]

* –Night Glow (Avalon, 1982, hc)

* Perilous Kisses [Avalon, 1986] [Included in the online Addenda #9 to the Revised CFIV.]

      [NON-MYSTERY]

* Summer Camp Nurse [Avalon, 1985] Nurse romance novel.

WARWICK, CHESTER; pseudonym of Leonard Lupton; other pseudonym Mary Lupton

Other fiction as LEONARD LUPTON:

   The latter two books, while not seen, are almost assuredly westerns.

   One last search on the Internet led to the following discovery. From The FictionMags Index is the following (partial) list of pulp magazine stories written by Leonard Lupton, almost all of them tales of valor on the sports fields and arenas.

   Mr. Lupton, if the author were the same man, and we are 99% sure that he is, would have been 20 when he started writing, and 35 when the last story appeared. That was in 1942, just in time to serve (as a guess) in World War II.

LUPTON, LEONARD

SARAH ANDREWS – Dead Dry

St. Martin’s, paperback reprint; 1st printing, September 2006. Hardcover: St. Martin’s Press, November 2005.

   Em Hansen, the detective of record in Dead Dry, is the new forensic geologist for the state of Utah, and while she’s had nine previous adventures on record, this is the first case of murder that’s come her way since taking the new position. I’d tell you more about some of her earlier cases, but as it happens, as I so often have to admit, this is the first one of the ten that I’ve happened to read.

    For the record, expanded from her entry in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, here are the previous nine (plus this one, her tenth, along with the one that’s in the works) in chronological order, beginning with her earliest:

   Tensleep. Otto Penzler Books, hc, June 1994 [Wyoming]
      Signet, pb, December 1995
   A Fall in Denver. Scribner, hc, December 1995. [Colorado]
      Signet, pb, December 1996
   Mother Nature. St. Martin’s, hc, June 1997 [California]
      St. Martin’s; pb, July 1998
   Only Flesh and Bones. St. Martin’s, hc, May 1998 [Wyoming]
      St. Martin’s; ; pb, August 1999
   Bone Hunter. St. Martin’s, hc, September 1999 [Utah]
      St. Martin’s; pb, September 2000
   An Eye for Gold. St. Martin’s, hc, September 2000 [Nevada]
      St. Martin’s; pb, Decmber 2001
   Fault Line. St. Martin’s, hc, January 2002 [Utah]
      St. Martin’s; pb, January 2003
   Killer Dust. St. Martin’s, hc, February 2003 [Florida]
      St. Martin’s; pb, March 2004
   Earth Colors. St. Martin’s, hc, March 2004 [Pennsylvania]
      St. Martin’s; pb, December 2004
   Dead Dry. St. Martin’s, hc, November 2005 [Utah]
      St. Martin’s; pb, September 2006
   In Cold Pursuit. St. Martin’s, hc, Spring 2007 [Antarctica]

   For a photo of the author is the controls of her plane while researching her latest book, go to her website. You’ll also find a biography of the author there. Short version: “A geologist who writes mystery novels about a geologist.” For the long version, I’ll suggest you simply check out her website. It’s definitely worth a visit.

   While researching the publication dates of the books above, mostly on Amazon, I happened to glimpse some of the reviews, and unfortunately, some of them matched my opinion almost completely. Long discourses on matters geological, many of them, too little plot.

    In Dead Dry, for example, we (the reader) are given mini-lectures (some not so mini-) on the lack of water in Colorado, along with water resources (and ecology) in general. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, because it’s important, but when it becomes noticeable, as it does here, then maybe (just maybe) it’s overdone, at least in a (mere?) mystery novel.

   Which, in the case at hand, involves the death of an old colleague of Em’s, an eccentric geological consultant named Afton McWain, buried in a suspicious quarry wall collapse. Was he the victim of a horrific accident, or is this a case of murder? It is the latter, and the connection with the above-mentioned water resources in Colorado (or lack thereof) has a great deal to do with it.

   Besides working all over the western part of the US (see the settings as listed above), Em also seems to have a romantic interest in every book. Whether new ones or not, I do not know, but Fritz (in this one) seems to be rather new, while Ray seems to have been part of her past for some time longer, and it appears that he will stay there.

   Now you may have noticed that I have left the detective work involved until after discussing the romantic aspects of the book, mostly because, well, I found the detective work of a rather, um, perfunctory nature. Something invariably seemed lacking. On more than one occasion, I found myself commenting to myself – I almost always write notes to myself while I’m reading – that Em simply wasn’t asking the right questions, if she was asking questions at all.

    But she’s a character whose lively, animated outlook on life is definitely worth following – a series wouldn’t last as long as this has if that weren’t true – and it all turns out well in the end. In fact, there is no doubt in my mind that the book is considerably better than the one that I see (looking back) that I have described so far. But (still looking back) I don’t see anything I’ve said that I would change, so I won’t.

JOHN DICKSON CARR – Death Turns the Tables

International Polygonics 330-22; paperback reprint, April 1985. Hardcover editions: Harper & Brothers, 1941. Grosset & Dunlap; n.d; Collier, n.d. British title: The Seat of the Scornful, Hamish Hamilton, 1942. Other US reprint appearances: Two Complete Detective Books, pulp magazine, Fall 1942. Philadelphia Inquirer Sunday supplement, December 5, 1943. Hardcover reprint: Books, Inc., 1946. Paperback reprints: Pocket 350, 1945; Berkley G281, Nov 1959; Berkley F929, 1964; Berkley 1573, 1968.

   When it was originally published, the book was sealed after page 193. If the reader were to have read the book to this point and still wished to do so, he could return the book to the bookseller with the seal unbroken and receive a full refund. Since I read the IPL reprint, which has only 156 pages (of small print) in total, I can’t tell you what point in the book that might have been.

   [Small pause.] I’ve just checked, and the Harper edition had 256 pages, so the “Challenge to the Reader” seems to have come awfully early. In terms of the relative difficulty in solving the crime before Dr. Gideon Fell does, well, good luck on that. I don’t think that anyone is going figure out all of the details on how, when, where and why the crime is committed, no one, not anyone.

   Carr was an absolute master of making his detective fiction so complicated that of course it could never happen in the real world, but once you are in place in his world, it all makes sense, in a fashion and only after the fact. In the early 1940s he was still in peak form, there’s no doubt about it. And here’s a word of advice, if you think that you’re going to give it a shot – figure it out ahead of time, that is – everything that you see (through the detective’s eyes) is going to be important, no matter how trivial it may be. Everything that anyone does is at least 99% going to come back and be important later, I kid you not.

   And even so – even so, I say – there were aspects of this work of Mr. Carr, the genius craftsman that he was, that I did figure out ahead of time, but only (I think) because he got there first and they’re clichés of the field now, worn out by overuse by lesser hands.

   What’s the story about, you may well ask. I think what I will do this time is to quote the blurb on the back cover. I think it sums things up exceedingly well:

   And here’s a rather lengthy quote, but relevant, I think. Fell and Ireton are playing chess early on in the book (page 17 of the IPL edition):

   The answer that Judge Ireton gives is, unfortunately, on the next page, but I submit that it will not necessarily be the answer that you may be suspecting.

   The chess game at the beginning is important. It is quite obvious – I believe that it is safe to mention this – that once the dead man is found, Judge Ireton is hiding something. But is he the killer? That is where the real chess match begins.

   As always, when you pick up a John Dickson Carr to read, be prepared to be confounded, and it will, I guarantee you, happen once again in Death Turns the Tables. I’m not quite so pleased with the ending, though, as I believe that Dr. Fell concedes on one crucial point far too quickly. That, along with the fact that – and I apologize for not mentioning this before – there is no “locked room,” one of Carr’s best-known specialties, makes this book rate not so highly as it might otherwise have done.

   Uploaded this afternoon was Part 14 of Allen J. Hubin’s Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV. Most of the data in this installment continues to consist of identifying authors who have entries in the online Contemporary Authors, not previously so noted.

   But longer expanded entries are included for a few authors, such as Charles E. Blaney, who specialized in novelizing popular plays at the beginning of last century; and Carola Dunn, who’s currently doing well with her series of Daisy Dalrymple mysteries, but she began her career by writing Regency romances. Many of these early novels had enough criminous elements that they should be included, and given given Carola’s guidance, all of them are.

   Recent posts on the M*F blog have resulted in smaller but still significant changes or additions for many other authors, such as Desmond Cory and Charles Runyon. Birth and death dates are continually being discovered, as well as many other facts about mystery writers, both active and not. They’re all included.

   A short autobiography of Mr. Craig can be found at www.philiprcraig.com. It will be for his books that he will be remembered by his readers, however. And from his books it was easy to understand what kind of person the author was. In their own way, in some imprecise fashion, of course, they are also the core of his biography.

   Like clockwork, every year from 1989 to the present except one, another excursion to Martha’s Vineyard and another case for former Boston cop J. W. “Jeff” Jackson and his wife Zee (nee Madieras), whom he married early in the series.

   After falling in love with the island, Jackson settled down to a life of fishing and occasional private investigation, often bringing him and Zee into considerable personal danger.

   Here’s an excerpt taken from A Case of Vineyard Poison:

   Another excerpt, this one taken from Death on a Vineyard Beach:

   In this excerpt from A Deadly Vineyard Holiday, J. W. has just met a young girl on the beach:

   The Books. Adapted from Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, and from Mr. Craig’s own website:

* Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn (n.) Doubleday 1969 [Sweden]
* A Beautiful Place to Die (n.) Scribner 1989 [J. W. Jackson; Martha’s Vineyard]
* The Woman Who Walked Into the Sea (n.) Scribner 1991 [J. W. Jackson; Martha’s Vineyard]
* The Double-Minded Men (n.) Scribner 1992 [J. W. Jackson; Martha’s Vineyard]
* Cliff Hanger (n.) Scribner 1993 [J. W. Jackson; Martha’s Vineyard]
* Off Season (n.) Scribner 1994 [J. W. Jackson; Martha’s Vineyard]
* A Case of Vineyard Poison (n.) Simon 1995 [J. W. Jackson; Martha’s Vineyard]
* Death on a Vineyard Beach (n.) Scribner 1996 [J. W. Jackson; Martha’s Vineyard]
* A Deadly Vineyard Holiday (n.) Scribner 1997 [J. W. Jackson; Martha’s Vineyard]
* A Shoot on Martha’s Vineyard (n.) Scribner 1998 [J. W. Jackson; Martha’s Vineyard]
* A Fatal Vineyard Season (n.) Scribner 1999 [J. W. Jackson; Martha’s Vineyard]
* Vineyard Blues (n.) Scribner 2000 [J. W. Jackson; Martha’s Vineyard]
* Vineyard Shadows (n.) Scriber 2001 [J. W. Jackson; Martha’s Vineyard]
* Vineyard Enigma (n.) Scribner 2002 [J. W. Jackson; Martha’s Vineyard]
* A Vineyard Killing (n.) Scribner 2003 [J. W. Jackson; Martha’s Vineyard]
* Murder at a Vineyard Mansion (n.) Scribner 2004 [J. W. Jackson; Martha’s Vineyard]
* Vineyard Prey (n.) Scribner 2005 [J. W. Jackson; Martha’s Vineyard]
* Death in Vineyard Sand (n.) Scribner 2006 [J. W. Jackson; Martha’s Vineyard]

* Death in Vineyard Waters (n.) Avon 2003; originally published as The Woman Who Walked Into the Sea (Scribner, 1991).
* Vineyard Deceit (n.) Avon, 2004; originally published as The Double-Minded Men (Scribner, 1992)
* Vineyard Fear (n.) Avon, 2004; originally published as Cliff Hanger (Scribner, 1993)

… with WILLIAM G. TAPPLY

* First Light (n.) Scribner, 2001 [J. W. Jackson & Brady Coyne; Martha’s Vineyard]
* Second Sight (n.) Scribner 2005 [J. W. Jackson & Brady Coyne; Martha’s Vineyard]
* Third Strike (n.) Scribner 2007 [J. W. Jackson & Brady Coyne]

   Brady Coyne is a Boston attorney who has had numerous cases to solve on his own. Both the authors and their characters, as it turns out, are old fishing buddies, and it came as no surprise when readers found them respectively writing and solving murders together.

   Plus:

Delish: The J.W. Jackson Recipes, co-written with Shirley Prada Craig (Vineyard Stories, 2006)

[UPDATE] Later the same day. A lengthy personal tribute by Bill Tapply to his friend and collaborator, Philip R. Craig, is online here.

   When Steve Lewis posted an article by Peter Enfantino on Robert Edmond Alter’s contributions to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine with a bibliography of Alter’s writings by Peter Enfantino, Steve and myself, I was hardly concerned with the man. I just took it for granted that the biographical dictionaries had covered his vital statistics.

   Then, a few weeks ago, Steve received an e-mail from Tom Grueter saying that he was going to forward a list of Alter’s publications which Alter’s agent, Larry Sternig, had put together for him some years ago. It was soon after the bibliography arrived that I decided to look into Alter’s background. I looked at his entry in Contemporary Authors and took note that his parents were listed as Retla Alter and Irene (Kerr) Alter.

   The entry went on to say that Robert Edmond Alter was born in San Francisco on December 10, 1925. Therefore he should show up in the 1930 US Census record.

   Much to my chagrin, no record of Robert Edmond Alter nor any variation thereof (such as Robert E. Alter, R.E. Alter, Robert Alter, R. Alter) with that birth date materialized. This was quite puzzling. Perhaps, I thought, it would be easier to track down his parents in 1930. And I proceeded to do so.

   Well, one can imagine my surprise when the census entry showed Retla Alter as head of the household, Irene Alter as his wife, and Robert Pedroni as his stepson.

   One of the features of the 1930 US Census to be recorded by the census taker was information on how old each married person had been at the time of their first marriage. Upon examination of the record, it showed that Retla Alter had been 34 years old, which meant that he had been born sometime in 1896, and that he had been first married at age 34, and that meant that he had just been married.

   Irene Alter’s record showed that she was 27 years old, which meant that she was born in 1903 or thereabouts and that she had been 24 years old at the time of her first marriage. Robert Pedroni’s age was given as 4 years and 4 months old. The date that the census was taken was April 13, 1930 , which would place Robert Pedroni’s birth date in December of 1925, exactly the time that Robert Alter’s birth date is recorded.

   It was then that I decided to see whether there were any death records for the Alter family. Had any of them passed away before the Social Security Death Index could reveal any information?

   Well, two records were found in the SSDI: that of Robert Alter’s mother and that of Robert himself (although not yet 65 at the time of his death, someone had claimed his death benefit.). But my subscription to Ancestry.com provided me with access to the California Death Index, 1940-1997, where all three records for the Alter family were found. Moreover, my subscription included access to the California Birth Index, 1905-1995.

   For Retla Alter, his death record revealed that he had been born Jan. 7, 1896 in Pennsylvania, had died in Los Angeles, CA July 29, 1945 and that his mother’s maiden name had been Darn (a little research on my part found this to be a mistranscription of some sort, as the actual name was Dorn).

   For Irene Alter, it stated that Irene Mary Alter had been born June 5, 1895 in California and died March 10, 1984 in Los Angeles, CA and that her mother’s maiden name had been Flanneley and her father’s surname had been Kerr (surprise! she was actually older than Retla by a half year. Oh! Did I mention that the census was taken by one, Effie Kerr? Could there have been a wink-wink when it came to giving the census taker her age? Possibly).

   As for Robert Edmond Alter, the California Death Index showed that he was born December 10, 1925 in California. Died May 26, 1966 in Los Angeles, CA and his mother’s maiden name was Kerr. All of which conformed to the entry in Contemporary Authors.

   My final search would be for the birth record of a Robert Pedroni which would match the record of Robert Edmond Alter. No matter what I tried, nothing materialized. Yet, there was a birth record for Robert Edmond Alter. He was born December 10, 1925 in San Francisco county, and his mother’s maiden name was Kerr. How could that be? What happened to Robert Pedroni?

   I decided to get the answer regarding step-children from my local City Clerk and the explanation was quite simple. Should a step-child be legally adopted, the birth record is amended to reflect the family name of the adopting parent. So, at some point after 1930, it can safely be assumed that Robert Pedroni was legally adopted by Retla Alter and took on his stepfather’s family name.

   Yet, I have that nagging feeling that I would like to know who had been Robert Edmond Alter’s birth-father. Maybe Robert had that feeling at some point in his life. Perhaps, one day Ancestry.com will have a database of California Marriage Records.

MICHAEL KURLAND – The Empress of India

St. Martin’s Minotaur; hardcover. First Edition: February 2006.

   On and off over the period of nearly 30 years, Kurland has been chronicling the adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ most notorious nemesis, James Moriarty. In the process his primary intents seems to have been to clean some of the tarnish off the good (or not so good) professor’s reputation.

   Not that Holmes was entirely mistaken about him, but could it just possibly be that Moriarty was NOT responsible for all of the crimes Holmes suspected him of committing?

   Take this latest case, for example. When a fortune in gold is known to be on its way to the Bank of England from India, and Moriarty is known to be on the way to Calcutta, what other reason could he have other than the most obvious one? Wrong. Admittedly he has nefarious intent, but the gold is not why he is there.

   While Holmes himself has mysteriously disappeared, swept away in a London sewer, Thuggees seem to have re-emerged as an evil force in India, and Dr. Pin Dok Low and his gang of unsavory associates really do have gold on their minds.

   While Kurland is not terribly convincing when writing in the mode of Doyle, when he is left to tell his own rollicking story, what a glorious romp of a tale it is! His quick breezy style, interspersed with small jabs of wry humor, makes this particular caper move along in fine smile-provoking fashion.

   That there is also a locked room mystery to be solved is only the frosting on the cake.

FOLLOWUP: Rather than expand upon my (of necessity) shorter than usual review, which first appeared in the Historical Novels Review, I’ve decided to take a look instead at the complete list of Michael Kurland’s mystery and detective fiction, as much (as always) for my own benefit as yours, as many of these books I’d never been fully aware of until now.

   I’ll be working in somewhat chronological order, but also grouping the novels by theme and series character, with some comments or two scattered between. Not included are Kurland’s science fiction and fantasy novels with no criminous connection, but perhaps The Unicorn Girl (Pyramid, pbo, 1974) deserves a mention, as it partially takes place in the same alternative universe as Lord Darcy, about whom, keep reading.

         +++++

Mission: Third Force. Pyramid R-1578, pbo, 1967.
Mission: Tank War. Pyramid X-1876, pbo, 1968.
Mission: Police Action. Pyramid, pbo, 1969. [Scarce. No copies on ABE. It is quite possible that the book was never published.]     [UPDATE: This is correct. According to Mr. Kurland, the book became A Plague of Spies instead.]

   I have a copy of the second of these, but as usual, I don’t have it at hand and available for inspection. Here is a description taken from an online listing, however, one that will give you the essence of what kind of spy thrillers all three books are likely to be:

   It is not known if Peter Carthage, the “Man from WAR” is in either of the other two books or not. If he is, he is a series character not (yet) known to Al Hubin.     [UPDATE: Peter Carthage is indeed in all three books, the third being the one below.]

A Plague of Spies. Pyramid X2098, pbo, 1969. [Finalist for Edgar award.]

   Described by one bookseller as a “sexy spy thriller.”

         +++++

The Professor Moriarty / Sherlock Holmes novels:

The Infernal Device. Signet J8492, pbo, January 1979. [Finalist for an Edgar and nominated for an American Book Award.]

Death by Gaslight. Signet AE1915, pbo, December 1982.

The Great Game. St. Martin’s, hc, August 2001.
      St. Martin’s, trade pb, February 2003.

The Infernal Device and Others. St. Martin’s, trade pb, August 2001.

The Empress of India. St. Martin’s, hc, February 2006.

          +++++

The Last President, with S. W. Barton. William Morrow, hc, 1980.
      Critics Choice Paperbacks/Lorevan Publishing, pb, June 1988.

          +++++

Psi Hunt. Berkley 04664, pbo, September 1980.
Star Griffin. Doubleday, hc, March 1987.

   Science-fiction crime novels both, taking place in the future as constituted at the time of their writing.

          +++++

Ten Little Wizards. Ace 80057, pbo, March 1988.

A Study in Sorcery. Ace 79092, pbo, May 1989.

   The detective of record in both of these novels is Lord Darcy, a character created by SF author Randall Garrett. Darcy is a private security expert and chief investigator for Richard, Duke of Normandy, in an alternate world from ours in which magic takes the role of science. Garrett wrote one novel and several short stories about Lord Darcy, and after Garrett’s death, Kurland wrote the final two adventures.

         +++++

Too Soon Dead. St. Martin’s Press, hc, March 1997.
The Girls in the High-Heeled Shoes. St. Martin’s Press, hc, August 1998
       St. Martin’s Press, trade pb, August 2001.

   A traditional mystery series set in New York City in 1935, featuring New York World columnist Alexander Brass.

         +++++

   And I’d certainly be remiss if I failed to include the Holmes-related anthologies edited by Kurland:

My Sherlock Holmes: Untold Stories of the Great Detective. St. Martin’s Press, hc, February 2003. Stories about Holmes but told by characters from the canon other than Dr. Watson.
      St. Martin’s Minotaur, trade pb, November 2004.

Sherlock Holmes: The Hidden Years. St. Martin’s Minotaur, hc, November 2004. An anthology of original stories taking place while Holmes was believed dead after Reichenbach Falls.
      St. Martin’s Griffin, trade pb, January 2006.