HUSTLE. BBC-TV, UK. Series Four: April 18 to May 23, 2007. (Seen on the American Movie Classics cable channel in US.) Marc Warren, Robert Glenister, Jaime Murray, Robert Vaughn, Rob Jarvis. Created by Tony Jordan.

   Hustle has returned for a new series (the fourth: one hour each, no adverts) about the ‘lovable’ group of London conmen (one woman) who, of course, delight in fleecing those that deserve to be fleeced.

   In the first episode we hear that leader Mickey Stone is pursuing a mark in Australia (actually actor Adrian Lester has left the series) and so the group go about pursuing an oil-rich Texan (played by Robert Wagner) by flying to Los Angeles and attempting to sell him the Hollywood sign.

   These stories are, in general, quite enjoyable but the problem is that they tend to be very similar and we have already had 24 of them. This first tale, with its Californian setting, seems particularly unlikely, but then realism is not the aim.

   The second story returns to England with a story involving passing a dud horse off as a high-flying racer and selling it to an upstart cockney millionaire. Very watchable, but you run the risk like with a box of chocolates of eating too many all at once — and you don’t want to look too closely at what’s gone into it.

Editorial Comments:   This review was reprinted from Geoff’s apazine Caddish Thoughts #127, July 2007. The series has proved successful enough that four more seasons of episodes have appeared since he wrote this review. (The eighth season, which ended in February 2012, is reported to be the last.) Only the first four seasons have been released on DVD in the US.

        #12. INDIAN JOHN SEATTLE, by Charles Alexander.

   This next installment of my columns for Mystery*File features a look at another series character who appeared in the pages of Detective Fiction Weekly. The “Indian John Seattle” stories by Charles Alexander made up a short series of at least fifteen stories published in DFW from 1933 through 1939, plus two stories in Ace-High Detective Magazine 1936-37.

   The stories are rural in setting. Stories published in DFW were a mixture of settings, both urban and rural. Many stories took place in urban environments, but there were a large number that were rural in setting. The Tug Norton series by Edward Parrish Ware was one that had stories in both urban and rural settings. Ware’s Ranger Jack Calhoun series was mostly rural, with a little in small towns. Even an urban series such as Morton & McGarvey by Donald Barr Chidsey had some stories in a rural environment.

   Indian John Seattle is a sheriff of primarily rural Plainview County in Oregon, and his shabby office is in the courthouse in the town of Plainview. He gets his name from his learning all about Indian ways and outdoor skills. He spent his boyhood with the Nez Perce Indians. “He was an instinctive and Indian-trained hunter; criminals were his prey.” (Head Hunt)

   The first story, “Death Song,” states that to catch a killer, “he must play Indian cunning on them.” This seems to work, as he flushes out the guilty man into running and later confessing the murder. This story also notes: “Many crimes of the forest Seattle had solved. He knew men—knew them through and through when they placed themselves against the background of canyon and forest where he had gained his wisdom.” In a later story, “Up Death Creek,” Seattle is called “A human steel-trap in the path of the evil-doer.”

   In the second story, “Head Hunt,” his deputy sheriff is introduced: “Hal Minton, … a tall and neat and taciturn man in his late twenties.” He is also described as “tight-lipped and grim of eye, advertised the dignity of the law.”

   Minton does not always approve of the way Seattle does things. Seattle, by contrast to his deputy, was “a bandy-legged figure in worn moleskins, wearing a time-honored Stetson, …” He is slightly bent from much time in the saddle, although he regularly uses an ancient Ford automobile he calls Flap-fender.

   No mention is made of any family of Seattle’s, nor is it known where his home was. He kept odd hours as sheriff, and was likely to turn up making the rounds of the town of Plainview at 3 A.M. He seems to have lived for his job.

   His cases were murder-involved, and Sheriff Seattle had plenty of experience. He “had a nose for trouble, a reaction, perhaps instinctive, to the lurking threat of danger. Years in the wilderness had equipped him with the wariness of the wolf, the cat-like cunning of the cougar.” (Head Hunt)

   In “Head Hunt” he tracks down two murderers and finds the missing head of their victim, meanwhile avoiding a death-trap. Seattle carries an old .45 Frontier Model Colt, and certainly knows how to use it.

   In the story, “The Weeping Lorena,” there is also no mystery as to who are the murderers and what they did. The story is regarding Indian John Seattle’s discovery of the crime and dealing with the criminals. The criminals in this story are contemptuous of the local law enforcement, calling them “hick cops.”

   However, they find that Sheriff Indian John Seattle is no fool as he quickly uncovers their scheme and crime. This story reveals that Seattle has no confidence in the abilities of his deputy, Minton. Seattle mentions that Minton is usually the first on the scene of the crime, but the last to solve the crime. In “Death Watch,” Minton actually interferes with Seattle’s attempt to uncover the crime and fasten the guilt where it belongs.

   There were other series in DFW about rural sheriffs who solved crimes. One of these was the series about Sheriff Whitcher Bemis, written by Harold de Polo and published in DFW from 1927-1928. De Polo also had another rural sheriff series in DFW: Sheriff Ollie Bascomb from 1931-1941. Both of de Polo’s series have a bit of humor in them, and the Whitcher Bemis series attempts a rural dialect for the characters.

   The Sheriff Indian John Seattle series is different than these two series primarily in having no humor present in the stories, and presenting the sheriff as a person of dignity, and not just a hick sheriff.

   â€œDeath Watch” involves another criminal who thinks he can outsmart Sheriff Seattle, and tries to kill him when his plans are failing. However, the criminal overlooks a simple thing in his plan, and it comes back to point the finger at him. In this story, Seattle actually kills one of the criminals. Usually he prefers to catch them alive for trial, although a number of times he has to wound the criminal in order to get his man. One of the better stories in the series.

   In “Up Death Creek” Seattle has to solve a bit of a puzzle in order to finish this case. The blurb for the story reads as follows: “The bullet pneumonia of Whisky Brown, the torn boot with the missing calk—Indian John had to read those sinister signs to save an innocent man from the gallows.”

   In “Claws of the Killer” the two murderers think they have a good plan by killing someone and claiming a wild bear did the crime. However, Sheriff Seattle manages to capture both and point out a large flaw in their scheme.

   â€œDeath is a Hummingbird” involves a bizarre and very improbable method of murder that I have not seen before. Using hummingbirds to start fires! An absurd idea. The story basically falls apart, and Sheriff Seattle uses a ridiculous bluff on the murderer to make him confess.

   In “Rat Nest,” a much better story, Seattle is investigating some poachers, and when he arrests one of them for murder he winds up making the biggest mistake of his career. However, when he investigates further, he learns the truth behind the matter.

   In “Deputy Sheriff Rattlesnake” the murderers kidnapped Seattle and placed him in a death trap, from which he escaped. However, while he was missing, deputy sheriff Minton and the coroner argued over who should be sheriff if Seattle did not show up. So it sounds like he was feared, but not missed.

   This was an average series of stories compared to the many other series that ran in DFW, but it is better than the two rural sheriff series written by Harold de Polo. I prefer the series without much humor in it, compared to the humor present in the de Polo series.

      The Indian John Seattle series, by Charles Alexander:

   In Detective Fiction Weekly:

Death Song     April 8, 1933
Head Hunt     August 12, 1933
The Weeping Lorena     October 7, 1933
Bullet-Hole Business     January 27, 1934
The Hicks Have It     March 17, 1934
Death Watch     June 16, 1934
Up Death Creek     June 30, 1934
Back-Fire Murder     July 28, 1934
The Lady Says     October 6, 1934
Claws of the Killer     March 23, 1935
Homicide Expert     November 23, 1935
Death Walks on Water     June 4, 1938
Death is a Hummingbird     June 18, 1938
Rat Nest     September 24, 1938
Deputy Sheriff Rattlesnake     February 4, 1939

   In Ace-High Detective Magazine:

Black Creek Brimstone     September, 1936

Drummer of Doom     February-March, 1937

    Previously in this series:

1. SHAMUS MAGUIRE, by Stanley Day.
2. HAPPY McGONIGLE, by Paul Allenby.
3. ARTY BEELE, by Ruth & Alexander Wilson.
4. COLIN HAIG, by H. Bedford-Jones.
5. SECRET AGENT GEORGE DEVRITE, by Tom Curry.
6. BATTLE McKIM, by Edward Parrish Ware.
7. TUG NORTON by Edward Parrish Ware.
8. CANDID JONES by Richard Sale.
9. THE PATENT LEATHER KID, by Erle Stanley Gardner.
10. OSCAR VAN DUYVEN & PIERRE LEMASSE, by Robert Brennan.
11. INSPECTOR FRAYNE, by by Harold de Polo.

ERIC AMBLER – A Coffin for Dimitrios. Alfred A. Knopf, US, hardcover, 1939. First published in the UK as The Mask of Dimitrios: Hodder & Stoughton, hardcover, 1939. Reprinted many times, in both hardcover and paperback.

   Eric Ambler has long been known as a master of international intrigue. His novels typically involve a more or less ordinary protagonist who has blundered into some sinister situation and has become enmeshed in it against his will. He must then extricate himself by appearing to take part in the intrigue, often as a reluctant agent for the authorities.

   Ambler’s narrative style is straightforward and economical; his plots, whether simple or complex, are suspenseful; his action scenes are high points in the books.

   A Coffin for Dimitrios is the story of a man with an obsession. Charles Latimer, a writer of detective novels, is on holiday in Istanbul when he meets Turkish Secret Police colonel Haki; Haki admires Latimer’s work and, like many policemen, has an idea for a novel, which he thinks Latimer should write.

   The idea is old-hat, but the story Haki tells Latimer as an aside — about the criminal Dimitrios Makropoulis — fascinates the writer. Dimitrios, who has been fished out of the Bosphorus, dead of a knife wound, has been involved in murder, an assassination plot, pimping, and drug trafficking; now he lies in the morgue, and Latimer impulsively asks to view the body.

   The viewing affects Latimer powerfully, and he becomes determined to trace the life of Dimitrios. His search takes him to Smyrna, Athens, Sofia, Geneva, and Paris. It reveals more facets of Dimitrios’s life than the police dossiers hold, and it throws Latimer into the company of a mysterious man named Peters who seems very interested in the fact that the writer saw Dimitrios’s body in the morgue. So interested, in fact, that he aids the investigation, and Latimer finds himself in a situation stranger and more dangerous than any in his own detective stories.

   This is an intriguing and suspenseful novel with an ironic twist at the end that causes us to reflect on how little we really learn from life’s experiences. More or less faithful to it is the moody 1944 film version starring Zachary Scott, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre, which appeared under the original British title of the novel, The Mask of Dimitrios. The film’s screenplay was authored by another mystery writer, Frank Gruber.

   Charles Latimer reappears in one other novel, The Intercom Conspiracy (1969).

         ———
   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.

SHOTGUN SLADE. Revue Studios/MCA TV. Syndicated, 1959-61, 78 episodes. Created by Frank Gruber. Executive Producer: Nat Holt. Cast: Scott Brady as “Shotgun” Slade.

    “Shotgun” Slade (his first name was never mentioned) was the lone member of the Slade Detective Agency, with his office in Denver. He traveled all over the Old West for clients who had hired him.

    Scott Brady (He Walked by Night) was convincing as a tough Western PI who could handle himself in a fight, but less convincing as Slade the ladies man. Oddly, while he had a beautiful woman waiting for him in virtually every town, Slade thought of himself as a loner.

    It was 1959, the PI was beginning to replace the Western on TV, this gimmick heavy syndicated TV series wanted it both ways. Creator Frank Gruber is a familiar name to Pulp and Westerns fans alike. Gruber had worked with Executive Producer Nat Holt on several B-Westerns including The Great Missouri Raid, as well as the TV series Tales of Wells Fargo. Holt is also remembered for his movie work with Randolph Scott (Rage at Dawn). At one point Ralph Dietrich, whose producer credits include a couple of Charlie Chan films, took over as producer from Gruber.

    The series was typical of 50s TV-Film syndication. Stories required a least one fight and, as often as possible, for Slade to be knocked out from behind so he could wake up in the care of the beautiful woman of the week.

   Slade would narrate over scenes to give exposition so not to slow down the action in this time limited thirty minute PI/Western. The mysteries offered few clues and suspects, but focused on twist after twist until the villain was revealed.

   While the locations were pure Western, the stories were more noir PI than the morality plays of TV Westerns. In “Golden Tunnel,” Slade’s old friend and owner of a mine called Slade for help. He was seventy years old and had a young wife he trusted (and shouldn’t) and a nephew he trusted (and shouldn’t) helping him run the place.

    There were problems at his mine, someone had taken a shot at him, and, oh by the way, he just discovered the son he thought dead was alive and wanted Slade to make sure his new Will gets to the probate court when he dies, which he does in the next scene.

    Throughout the series the guest cast was filled with character actors (Alan Hale, Stacy Keach), B-movie favorites (Marie Windsor), and an occasional surprise (Ernie Kovacs).

    There is a reason so much of TV-Film syndication from the 50s and 60s look alike. In Storytellers to the Nation: A History of American Television, by Tom Stempel (First Syracuse University Press, 1996), D.C. Fontana (Star Trek) discussed the limitations imposed on writers of half hour TV film syndicated shows established by Ziv and followed by Revue (Universal).

    There were countless Westerns and PI shows on the air in 1959. Every series needed something to stand out from the crowd. Shotgun Slade had two obvious gimmicks.

   First was his weapon, a gun he had made himself, with a rifle barrel atop a double barrel shotgun. While it had its uses, such as using the barrel to knock the handgun out of the bad guy’s hand, it looked awkward as Slade carried it everywhere he went.

    The other gimmick was the jazz soundtrack by Gerald Fried (The Killing). The idea of using jazz music as the soundtrack for a show set in the “Old West” was an interesting but doomed experiment. It proved that no matter how popular the music is at the time of the viewers, the music needs to fit the time of the characters.

    A review in Billboard (8/22/60) gave the soundtrack album (The Original Jazz Score from Shotgun Slade, by Stanley Wilson and his Orchestra; Mercury Records) three out of four stars and said, “…Altho the TV show is a Western, the music is much more closely allied to current ‘private eye’ type, jazz-oriented music than to the old-fashioned Western ditties. It makes for good listening tho it doesn’t have the same melodic appeal of the Mr. Lucky or the Peter Gunn material.”

    Words can not come close to properly describing this song, from an episode of Shotgun Slade, sung by Monica Lewis. (Follow the link.)

    Shotgun Slade gave Oscar winning director Sydney Pollack (Out of Africa) his first director job. In The Directors: Take One, Volume One, by Robert J. Emery (Allworth Press 2002), Pollack explained how he got his chance when Shotgun Slade had been cancelled but had a few episodes left to film so they gave him a chance to learn on the job.

    The series was popular and, according to Broadcasting (May 30, 1960), it was syndicated in 170 markets. But if you expect Peter Gunn on horseback, you will be disappointed. It had some interesting talent in front and behind the camera, and tried new things with music and drama, but in the end Shotgun Slade offers little (beyond what not to do) worth remembering.

    Episodes of Shotgun Slade are available from various DVD sellers and all over the Internet from archives.org to YouTube.

DEBORAH GRABIEN – New Slain Knight. St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne, hardcover, November 2007.

Genre:   Paranormal/Suspense. Leading characters:  Ringan Laine/Penny Wintercraft-Hawkes; 5th in “Haunted Ballad” series. Setting:   England.

First Sentence:   In the large upstairs room at the pub called the Duke of Cornwall’s Own, a local band, the Tin Miners were playing to an enthusiastic audience.

   Traditional musician Rupert “Ringan” Laine and theater producer Penny Wintercraft-Hawkes are looking forward to a rare vacation off together. Plans change when Ringan’s sister, whose mother-in-law needs her, asks to send him her 14-year-old daughter, Rebecca, a violin prodigy.

   Staying with Gowan, a musician friend in Cornwall, seemed like a good idea until Penny has a vision of a man dying and Becca starts sleep-walking. What are the forces from the past and beyond the grave influencing these two women?

   Books that include a cast of characters and a map are such a treat. It is even better that Ms. Grabien’s characters are so distinct and strong that I didn’t need reminding of them, but it’s still a lovely thing to have.

   The recurring characters of Ringlan and Penny are now old friends to me, but the author doesn’t assume they are known to every reader. New readers will have no problem learning who they are and uncovering their backstory. I think this is an important thing for an author to do.

   The new characters are interesting, and fully dimensional. There is one character, Gowan, you start by liking but the shine dims a bit; for another, Lucy, the reverse is true. It is very well done. Lucy is a particularly interesting character as she is a researcher and a true skeptic — something you don’t usually see in a book with paranormal elements. She is very believable and adds the perfect balance to the story.

   Ms. Grabian’s powers of description not only create a sense of place by showing us around Cornwall, but provided us a sense of the characters through their personal environments. When including old documents, I appreciate her leaving them in the appropriate Old English and Victorian spelling and grammar. She trusts the ability of her audience, which is wonderful.

   Each of Ms. Grabian’s “Haunted Ballad” books is based on an actual old ballad, with a verse from the ballad at the beginning of each chapter. From that, she constructs a story each with a unique use of the paranormal element and a solidly constructed plot. Just when you think you’ve found a hole, she closes it.

   The characters ask the questions you mentally ask, and she answers them. The tension and suspense increase at a steady rate but without ever crossing over into graphic horror. The result is even more frightening than if she had, and then she adds excellent twists.

   I thoroughly enjoyed this book and closed it without identifying any flaws in its construction. The only question for potential readers is whether they enjoy books with a paranormal theme. If the answer is yes, I highly recommend New Slain Knight.

Rating:   Excellent.

    The “Haunted Ballad” mystery series —

1. The Weaver and the Factory Maid (2003)
2. The Famous Flower of Serving Men (2004)
3. Matty Groves (2005)
4. Cruel Sister (2006)    [Reviewed here.]
5. New Slain Knight (2007)

   Dawn at Socorro (1954), a thinly-veiled Earp/Clanton drama, covers much of the same ground as OK Corral and Hour of the Gun, with a fraction of the time and pretension. Rory Calhoun is the Doc Holliday figure, Alec Nicol is Johnny Ringo, and Lee Van Cleef is the last surviving Clanton.

   There’s a nice bit where Van Cleef arrives at a Swing Station to ambush the stage carrying Calhoun. As the stage draws near, he turns to the Station Man, jacks a round into his Winchester and says something like “My name’s Billy Clanton. Be sure and tell everyone you saw me kill Doc Holliday.”

   Footage of Calhoun offing the baddies in this film (Gee, hope I didn’t spoil the suspense!) was later used as flashbacks in Red Sundown (1956), directed by Jack Arnold with his customary flair for violence.

   Domino Kid (1957) features Calhoun as the guy out to get the men who killed his parents and looted their ranch while he was off to War. It starts out very fast and interesting, with fine cameos of two of the baddies, played by Roy Barcroft, fatalistically toasting his opponent before the gunfight, and James Griffith, psychotically snarling and justifying his actions as Frontier Law.

   This lasts about the first 20 minutes, and then the action just sort of stops. Dead in its tracks. Disappointing, but the first part is still quite nice.

   Four Guns to the Border (1954) is a Western Caper film, with Calhoun the head of a gang that includes Jay Silverheels, George Nader, and John McIntire. Their plan is to visit the town that Calhoun was run out of years ago by his erstwhile gunbuddy, the gutless Charles Drake, and rob the bank while everybody’s gathered at the stables watching Calhoun and Drake duke it out.

   There’s lots of moody, tenseful waiting around at a Swing Station outside of town, and what looks like a very grim climax indeed — at first.

   Calhoun wrote the script for an interesting Western, Shotgun (1955) featuring Sterling Hayden, Zachary Scott and Yvonne De Carlo, but his last good oater was The Gun Hawk, where he’s a wounded, burned-out gunfighter pursued by Sheriff Rod Cameron. In this one he gets the chance to reprise the ending of Four Guns to the Border and bring it to its logical conclusion.

● DAWN AT SOCORRO. Universal International, 1954. Rory Calhoun, Piper Laurie, David Brian, Kathleen Hughes, Alex Nicol, Edgar Buchanan, Mara Corday, James Millican, Lee Van Cleef. Director: George Sherman.

● DOMINO KID. Columbia Pictures (1957). Rory Calhoun, Kristine Miller, Andrew Duggan, Yvette Duguay, Peter Whitney, Roy Barcroft, James Griffith (the latter two uncredited). Director: Ray Nazarro.

● FOUR GUNS TO THE BORDER. Universal International, 1954. Rory Calhoun, Colleen Miller, George Nader, Walter Brennan, Nina Foch, John McIntire, Charles Drake, Jay Silverheels, Nestor Paiva. Based on a story by Louis L’Amour. Director: Richard Carlson.

● THE GUN HAWK. Allied Artists, 1963. Rory Calhoun, Rod Cameron, Ruta Lee, Rod Lauren, Morgan Woodward, Robert J. Wilke, John Litel. Director: Edward Ludwig.

NOTE:   Dan reviewed The Gun Hawk at much greater length here earlier on this blog. Another Rory Calhoun western recently reviewed by Dan was The Silver Whip. This post is a continuation of that one. You may go back and find it here.

BARBARA WORSLEY-GOUGH – Alibi Innings. Michael Joseph, UK, hardcover, 1954. Penguin 1321, UK, paperback, 1958. No US edition.

   There have been other mysteries taking place a cricket background, I’m sure, but I’ve never read any of them. I’m also sure that the game is described well in Alibi Innings, but I don’t know how to play cricket, and after reading this book, I still don’t. Readers in the UK would fare the same, I imagine, reading books in which the game of baseball is played.

   But judge for yourself. Here’s an excerpt, from page 63:

   It’s an idyllic day on a hot summer afternoon, an annual affair, withe Squire Easton’s team taking on the local villagers. It’s too bad that murder has to spoil it, but although it’s not said, it’s clear that Dr. Randall Curtis found the body of Mrs. Easton before the match began, and he said nothing, not to spoill the Squire’s day.

   Mrs. Easton is one of those people about whom no one can say any good, an ill-tempered old woman who delighted in flaunting her power over others. And yet, as the author of Alibi Innings, Barbara Worsley-Gough makes us feel the sadness in her passing as no other mystery writer has done in my recent memory. Strangely enough, no one really minds that she is dead, but — if this makes sense — everyone is disturbed that she is no longer there.

   There are only a finite number of suspects, though the inevitable cry goes up that it must have been a tramp or a gypsy. While this is a detective story, as must happen more often than not in real life, all of the mysterious clues and other misleading evidence seem to unravel themselves, rather the need of having a mastermind detective to stand up and take charge. More time is spent repairing some unfortunate marriages that are about to take place, and by the end of the story, everyone seems to be relieved that they are not.

   According to Hubin, one of Worsley-Gough’s other novels (and there are eight listed inside the front cover of the Penguin editon) is a mystery (Lantern Hill, 1957), and one of the characters (the Squire’s closest friend, Aloysius Kelly) appears in that one as well. He’s not the detective of record in this one, however, making his flamboyant presence widely known in the first half, but fading away in the second.

   This is an old-fashioned mystery, one with characters the reader will identify with, even though they no longer exist, and if they did, perhaps only for the shortest period of time and locale.

[UPDATE] 04-27-12.   Marv Lachman has written a long article in which he discusses many works of detective fiction in which the game of cricket plays a substantial role. You can find it here on the main Mystery*File website. As for me, even though I wrote this review over 20 years ago, I still have no idea how cricket is played. (It’s nothing I’m proud of. It just is.)

DIAMOND GEEZER. Granada TV, UK, April 2007. David Jason, Stephen Wight, Gary Whelan. Created by Caleb Ranson.

   Diamond Geezer was a three part series (90 minutes each, less adverts) to follow up the original programme (20 March 2005). Des (David Jason) is a superior crook with a heart who sets out to accomplish some impossible crimes. They are watchable but ludicrous and certainly not as clever as they profess to be.

   For example in the first, where Des steals the world’s largest diamond from Buckingham Palace no less, he has an accomplice press a button on a phone-sized devise which immediately knocks out all the close circuit TV in the Palace. No explanation at all as to what this devise is that can render the security useless or how Des could get one.

   Amusing, I suppose, if you want an evening with the brain disengaged.

Editorial Comment:   Although not released in the US, all three episodes plus the 2005 pilot are available on DVD in the UK. You need a multi-region player, but the box set should not cost you more than $20, including shipping. I had thought of picking it up, but after reading Geoff’s review, I am much less anxious to do so.

   I love to read essays on literature, but above all I love to read essays on crime fiction. During the last 120 years so many essays on crime fiction were written that I have probably read less than five per cent.

   Nevertheless I have put together a list of my favourites. When I talk with booksellers in mystery bookstores in Germany they complain that any kind of reference work does not sell well. The readers of crime fiction just want the pure stuff, the thrill of the stories. They are not interested in information about crime fiction.

   This seems to be different with the readers of the Mystery*File blog. There should be some interest in my choice of the twelve best essays on crime fiction. The subjects vary, of course, as crime fiction is a varied genre. For me the ideal literary essay combines the following general features: some useful information, intelligent thought, a good prose style, a little bit of experimentation, and the author’s individual voice must be heard.

   Most of these essays may be most easily found in two sources. (*) Reprinted in: Howard Haycraft, editor: The Art of the Mystery Story, and (**) Reprinted in: Ed Gorman, Lee Server, Martin H. Greenberg, editors: The Big Book of Noir.

   Here comes the list:

1. “The Simple Art of Murder,” by Raymond Chandler. (*)     For me this is one of Chandler’s best texts (texts including novels and short stories), very often quoted.

2. “A Defence of Detective Stories,” by G. K. Chesterton. (*)     Chesterton has again and again surprising and brilliant ideas and expresses them in excellent prose.

3. Foreword in Patricia Highsmith’s story collection Eleven, by Graham Greene.     A very good understanding of Highsmith’s special art of crime writing, precise language, masterful.

4. “The Locked-Room Lecture,” by John Dickson Carr. (*) The famous chapter from the novel The Three Coffins by the undisputed master of the locked-room mystery.

5. “Warning! Warning! Hitchhikers May Be Escaped Lunatics!,” by Stephen King. (**)     Very direct and frank, rather personal, full insight into Jim Thompson’s work from the viewpoint of a famous storyteller.

6. “Chester Himes: America’s Black Heartland“, by James Sallis. (**)     A fine, informative essay by a literary expert and great crime writer.

7. “The Guilty Vicarage: Notes on the Detective Story, by an Addict,” by W. H. Auden.     A very particular view on the subject by the famous poet, in: The Dyer’s Hand and Other Essays.

8. “Forgotten Writers: Gil Brewer,” by Bill Pronzini. (**)     An impressive portrait of a once very successful writer of paperback originals whose life ended tragically.

9. “The Writer As Detective Hero,” by Ross Macdonald. A typical Ross Macdonald text, with a lot of psychology and personal reflection, in: On Crime Writing.

10. Introduction to The Hard-Boiled Detective: Stories from Black Mask Magazine 1920-1951, by Herbert Ruhm.     A highly informative essay on Black Mask Stories.

11. “Gaudy Night,” by Dorothy L. Sayers. (*) A self-critical and ironic look on the writing process of a detective novelist of the Golden Age.

12. “The Novels of Vin Packer,” by Jon L. Breen, in: Murder Off the Rack: Critical Studies of Ten Paperback Masters, edited by Breen and M. H. Greenberg.     A convincing argument for the appreciation of the neglected work of an outstanding writer.

   Looking finally at my list I see I have missed many names, for example the names of Anthony Boucher, Patricia Highsmith, Julian Symons, Francis M. Nevins, Marcia Muller, H. R. F. Keating, Fredric Jameson, Ed Gorman, Sara Paretsky, Bill Crider, Mike Ripley and so on. Probably a list with 50 titles would be more adequate.

THE CRIMSON KEY. 20th Century Fox, 1947. Kent Taylor, Doris Dowling, Dennis Hoey, Louise Currey, Ivan Triesault, Bernadene Hayes, Victor Sen Young. Original story and screenplay: Irving Elman. Director: Eugene Forde. Shown at Cinevent 39, Columbus OH, May 2003.

   This “B” film, independently produced by Sol Wurtzel for release by Fox back in 1947, was an entertaining (if somewhat muddled) crime drama, with Kent Taylor as private eye Larry Morgan attempting to sort out the conflicting loyalties (and dubious innocence) of the various characters (mostly women) who keep hiring him for what turn out to be motives that don’t make him a great favorite of the police.

   It was fun to see Dennis Hoey, the befuddled Lestrade of the Sherlock Holmes series, as a befuddled husband, and Victor Sen Young, buried at the bottom of a very long list of credits (from which I resurrected him), registers strongly as a faithful, possibly sinister Oriental servant.

   Kent Taylor’s crisp performance, dotted with breezy one-liners, validated his star billing, and Doris Dowling, Bernadene Hayes, and Louise Currie, played (respectively) two women who hire Taylor, and his faithful, seldom paid secretary.