HAUNTED “Pilot.” UPN, 60m. 24 September 2002. Matthew Fox as PI Frank Taylor, Russell Hornsby, John Mann, Lynn Collins, Michael Irby, Bree Michael Warner. Director: Michael Rymer. The complete series is available on DVD.

   It’s been a couple of nights since I watched this, and to tell you the truth, it made such a little impression on me that other than Matthew Fox, the rest of the cast are only names to me. I’m going to take a very sad way out and use the Wikipedia description of the show: “Private detective Frank Taylor, whose marriage to Jessica Manning ended after their son was abducted, kills a pedophile, Simon Dunn, and almost dies himself. When he discovers he can now see the dead, he uses this ability to find a missing boy kidnapped by Simon, who now haunts him.”

   Part of the problem is that this is all claptrap to me. I watched this only because of the fact that Fox plays a private detective in this, not that that’s made very clear. The whole thing’s a muddle. Maybe it got better as time went on. Eleven episodes were aired before it disappeared for good. (A fact which is actually not so. Repeats have been shown on the Sci-Fi channel, Chiller, and Universal HD.)

PostScript: Kevin Burton Smith on his Thrilling Detective website liked the first episode better than did I, but he also goes on to say that the show would have been better if they’d played up the PI end of things, and that “the pop-up ghost gimmick was already annoying by the end of the show.”

   He also says, contrary to Wikipedia, that in the series’ first run on UPN, only seven of the eleven episodes were actually aired.

ANNE PERRY – Brunswick Gardens. Inspector Thomas Pitt & Charlotte (Ellison) Pitt #18. Columbine, hardcover, 1998. Fawcett Crest, paperback, 1999.

   When Unity Bellwood, a young woman working as a translator for prominent clergyman Ramsay Parmenter, is found dead at the foot of the staircase in the entrance hall of his house, Superintendent Thomas Pitt is assigned to investigate the delicate matter by Commissioner Cornwallis. Unity was a believer in feminism, free love and the theories of Charles Darwin and had frequent arguments with Reverend Parmenter. In fact, she had one shortly before her fatal fall and, though there were no witnesses, several people. including his wife, heard the shout “No, no … Reverend” before the body was discovered. Later it is disclosed that she was also three months pregnant.

   Living in the house, besides the servants, were Parmenter’s two grown daughters, his son Mallory, a recent convert to Catholicism who planned to leave shortly to study for the priesthood and his curate. To his great surprise Thomas discovers that the curate is his erstwhile brother-in-law Dominic Corde. Corde was married to Thomas’ wife’s sister Sara, who was one of the Cater Street Hangman’s victims, whose murders Thomas was investigating when he met Charlotte. At that time Corde was a womanizer, and Charlotte had a secret crush an him. Has his character changed so completely in the intervening years? Thomas soon concludes that the murderer must be one of the three men in the house. But it isn’t until another death takes place and Charlotte helps that he is able to come up with the solution.

   Though well written and with credible characters the book suffers from being t-o-o l-o-n-g at over four hundred pages. And, since it’s rather easy to spot the killer there isn’t enough suspense to sustain its length. The tacked on romance at the end doesn’t help much either.

EDWARD D. HOCH “The Problem of the Snowbound Cabin.” Short story. Dr. Sam Hawthorne. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, December 1987. Collected in Nothing Is Impossible (Crippen & Landru, hardcover/paperback, 2014). Reprinted in Never Shake a Family Tree, edited by Billie Sue Mosiman & Martin H. Greenberg (Rutledge Hill, paperback, 1998), and perhaps elsewhere.

   This is the quintessential story in the small but potent subcategory of locked room mysteries called “murder in a cabin surrounded by snow with no footprints leading in or out.” Although neither of them is interested in skiing, Dr. Sam Hawthorne and his nurse April are taking a platonic vacation together up in Maine in January. And as ever, wherever the good doctor goes, murder seems to follow right along with him.

   What makes this one special is that there is not only one solution to the mystery, nor two, but three. The first one doesn’t count, however, is that it’s the old canard that someone can be stabbed by an icicle, killing him, and having the weapon melt, leaving no clue to be found. Dr. Hawthorne makes quick riddance of this suggestion. The second solution is quite adequate, and I’m sure that several other mystery writers have used variations of it at one time or another.

   It does have the quality of being realistic, though, while the real solution is, shall we say, rather far-fetched – but certainly doable. What you have do when reading any one of Hoch’s miracle mysteries, and they’re short enough that you shouldn’t forget this: almost every element of the story is important. Keep an eye on everyone and everything. Every fact is not to be ignored. More than likely the one you pass over quickly is the one you had to keep your eye on.

   I know. From experience!

ANNE McCAFFREY “A Proper Santa Claus.” Short story. First published in Demon Kind, edited by Roger Elwood (Avon, paperback, 1973). Collected in Get Off the Unicorn (Del Rey, paperback, 1977). Reprinted in Christmas Stars, edited by David G. Hartwell (Tor, paperback, 1992) and Treasures of Fantasy, edited by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman (Harper, softcover, 1997), among others.

   Anne McCaffrey is best known for her many books of SF and fantasy in several long-running series, especially her Pern novels. But she was no slow hand at writing short fiction as well, as this small tale demonstrates full well. Please note that in what follows, I will need to tell you more than you may like to know!

   It begins when a young boy named Jeremy is about three years old. It seems that he has a special talent. Whenever he draws something or creates something out of clay, and if he does in a proper way, it becomes real. If he draws a cookie on a piece of paper and cuts it out, it is dry but very tasty, but when he paints a glass of Coke, it’s flat, because he forgot to draw in the bubbles.

   This remarkable ability stays with him until kindergarten, when at Christmas time he draws Santa Claus bringing him lots of presents. A conflict arises when he can’t do it in a proper way, after his teacher tries to tell him what a proper Christmas is all about, and his special talent is gone forever.

   An obvious fantasy, but I’d like to think that it’s also a sort of a “growing up” tale that applies to everyone. Short but extremely well done.

“C”-MAN. Laurel Films / Film Classics, 1949. Dean Jagger, John Carradine, Harry Landers, Lottie Elwen, Rene Paul. Director:  Joseph Lerner.

   â€œC”-Man is what we film-lovers call “an enjoyable little B.” Dean Jagger, in a Wig that would embarrass Howard Cosell, plays a rugged Customs Inspector looking for the smugglers who killed his buddy. Second-billed John Carradine gets about five minutes’ screen time as an alcoholic Doctor, and someone named Harry Landers, who was never heard of since, puts in a high-key, tightly wound performance as a barely-controlled psycho. Director Joseph Lerner covers the bare-bones budget with some interesting camera angles and rapid-fire location shooting, but that raised an interesting question for me:

   Irving Lerner was an energetic fast-paced maker of really impressive, really cheap films like Murder by Contract. Katz’s Film Encyclopedia credits Irving Lerner’s oevre to Joseph, apparently assuming they are one and the same, and it’s easy to watch “C”-Man and pick out the odd bits of style that turned up later in Murder by Contract. But Style is a fickle mistress. Does anyone know for sure if Irving and Joseph are one and the same?

   Directorial flourishes aside, the best part of “C”-Man for me was seeing mild-mannered Dean Jagger cast so violently against type. Kind of interesting, actually. Jagger somehow adds a layer of depth to the film, suggesting that maybe Tough Guys can be soft-spoken, gentle sorts without losing too much credibility. Works for me.

I know a guy who’s addicted to brake fluid. He says he can stop any time.

JONNY ZERO. Fox. 60m. 14 January 2005. Franky G as Jonny Calvo, GQ as Random, Brennan Hesser as Danielle Stiles. Created and written by R. Scott Gemmill. Director: Mimi Leder.

   Well, I tell you this. I never expected to see any episodes of this TV series ever again. Fox aired eight of the thirteen episodes, but they showed them in the wrong order (someone killed in one episode was first introduced a couple of episodes later). The ratings were poor as a direct result, and it’s wonder it lasted for as long as it did. My feeling is that I was the only one who ended up watching it.

   And it was a great show, or so I thought. It starred Franky G, one of the few Puerto Rican actors to star in his own drama series, playing Jonny Calvo, who had all kinds of problems. After serving four years in prison for involuntary homicide (I believe), he has his parole officer on his back, wanting him to stay out of trouble; his ex-crime boss wanting him back on the payroll and back in trouble; and an FBI agent who wants him to go to work, undercover, for the ex-crime boss. He also has an ex-wife (I believe) and a son he can only watch on the playground. No contact.

   To make ends meet – it’s better than mopping floors in a pizza joint – he accidentally finds himself doing what private eyes do, even though he has no license. In the pilot he hired by a girl’s stepfather to find her. All he knows is that she’s disappeared somewhere in Manhattan, and you probably know what that means.

   The setting, in other words, is the grittier part of the night club and other sleazy entertainment scene. While on the trail, Calvo gets beaten up every so often, runs into cars in between time, and is pushed into walls with what seems relentless regularity. It isn’t all gloom and doom, though. Calvo has an infectious smile that seems to brighten even the darkest alley he happens to find himself in. (I may be mistaken, but I don’t believe he is ever referred to as Jonny Zero in this first episode.)

   All thirteen episodes have been televised in other parts of the world – Australia, for one, I believe – and searching for copies on DVD, I found a set offered online by a source in Pakistan. Yelp reviews are bad, however, so I’ll pass, but it was good to see at least this one again.

JOE R. LANSDALE – Mucho Mojo. Hap Collins & Leonard Pine #2. Limited edition: Cemetery Dance, hardcover, 1994. Mysterious Press, hardcover, 1994; paperback, 1995. Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, trade paperback, January 2009. Listed as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and was awarded the British Fantasy Award. TV Adaptation: The book was the basis of the second season of Hap and Leonard (Sundance, 2017).

   Lansdale is well-known (at least to Bill Crider and me), but primarily for horror, in which field he’s a multiple award winner. This is his first “traditional” crime novel to my knowledge. (*) Mysterious thinks it’s a breakout.

   Hap Collins is white, fortyish, and working in the rose fields of East Texas. Leonard Pine is black, the same, and gay (but not very cheerful) on top of it. They’re tighter than ticks on the proverbial redbone, and Leonard has a bad leg gotten saving Hap’s life during some shady doings. They are sort of drifting along when Leonard’s Uncle Chester dies and leaves him a hundred grand and his house, which changes a lot of things. They discover that Uncle Chester was going senile before he died, and had hinted to the local police that somebody was murdering black children.

   Then, while putting his house in shape, they discover a bunch of kiddie porn magazines and dig up the bones of a 10-year old child buried in a box under the floor. The police think Uncle Chester did it, but Leonard doesn’t believe it, so he and Hap begin to dig deeper. So to speak.

   This is an entertaining book, and Hap and Leonard are interesting and refreshingly different characters. I don’t know that they’ re all that believable: 40-year old field hands with as much on the ball as our dynamic duo strike me as more than a little unlikely, but hey, it’s just a story, right? And a good one, too. Lansdale knows how to spin a yarn. He’s got a good East Texas “voice,” and Hap narrates the story effectively, with a fair share of quips and country sayin’s.

   There’s a lot of dialogue, and not much of the brooding atmosphere you might expect from Lansdale. It won’t be everybody’s cup of tea, but you won’t know if it’s yours ’til you try a sip.

(*) EDITOR’S NOTE: There was one earlier book in the series: Savage Season, a small press edition published in hardcover by Ziesing in 1990,.

R. T. CAMPBELL – Unholy Dying. Professor John Stubbs #1. Westhouse, UK, hardcover, 1945. Dover, trade paperback, 1985, 2019.

   R. T. Campbell was the pen name of Ruthven Campbell Todd, a noted art critic, poet and fantasy novelist. He was obviously also a lover of detective stories, since under the Campbell byline he wrote seven of them, all within the space of two years, 1945 through 1946. Some of the them have been reprinted over years in the US, including three or four of them last year.

   His series character, professor of botany John Stubbs, was a direct copy of John Dickson Carr’s Gideon Fell, a fact which falls into the category of “good intentions.” Based on this first one, it’s an enjoyable tale, true enough, but if it matched up in overall quality to that of its model, more people would have heard of both Campbell and Stubbs, and no, Sheila, they don’t or didn’t, then or now.

   From page 4, a very apt of the detective himself: “…my Uncle John, looking like a shortsighted baby elephant, struggling up from his seat, which he must have found a pretty tight fit, waving a large bundle of manuscripts to his acquaintances around him and absentmindedly ignoring the protests of his neighbors, who, in the execution of this friendly gesture, he swiped on their heads, to the devastation of the flora and fauna on several professors’ wives’ hats.”

   The story is in large part told by his nephew, journalist Andrew Blake. Dead, by poison, is an obnoxious other member of academe, generally known to have stolen the work of others and a general overall boor in person. Unlike locked room and other “impossible” mysteries, in this case, all of the doors to the conference were open, and anyone could have done it.

   But Stubbs, visably eager to take on his first case of murder, narrows the list of suspects to no more than five or six, which ordinarily would make the case also easy for the armchair detective at home to solve as well as Stubbs, who makes the unfortunate mistake of not telling anyone of his deductions, only ominous hints, and another murder occurs. Also not as ept as a detective story should be, if the killer turns out to be a surprise, it’s because that character of that person never is gone into. Not out of a hat, but somewhat close.

   The telling is literate, but it still gets bogged way way down during the investigation. I’d have to call this one as being in the wheelhouse of those readers who already fans of the Golden Age of Detection. It won’t convert any others.

      The Professor John Stubbs series –

Unholy Dying (n.) Westhouse 1945. (*)
Adventure with a Goat (n.) Westhouse 1946.
Bodies in a Bookshop (n.) Westhouse 1946. (*)
The Death Cap (n.) Westhouse 1946.
Death for Madame (n.) Westhouse 1946. (*)
Swing Low, Swing Death (n.) Westhouse 1946. (*)
Take Thee a Sharp Knife (n.) Westhouse 1946.

(*) Currently available as Dover reprint paperbacks.

   —

   Here’s a link to one other recent review of this one:

http://moonlight-detective.blogspot.com/2019/06/unholy-dying-1945-by-rt-campbell.html

   And for a review of Bodies in a Bookshop on this blog by Doug Greene, go here.

   A long distance email conversation between Walker Martin and Sai Shankar about the former’s formative days as a Black Mask collector has evolved into a post on the latter’s “Pulp Flakes” blog. You can read it here. (Follow the link.)