FLOYD WALLACE – Wired for Scandal. Ace Double D-357. Paperback original; 1st printing, 1959. Published back-to-back with Lady in Peril, by Lester Dent.

   A sixteen-year-old boy overhears a bugging device transmitting a psychoanalyst’s conversation with a patient and so gets messed up withe the unsympathetic police in a case of blackmail and murder.

   The blackmailer’s identity is fairly obvious, but the story’s strength lies in its portrayal of a bored kid, with little to do, and no one to listen. Even listening to his shortwave receiver adds to his frustration – all those people talking, but no one wanting to pay him any attention.

   On the minus side, we have a police lieutenant willing to risk the boy’s life to catch the real criminal. Personal dislike does not seem motive enough, and contradicts what otherwise is great efficiency.

Rating: ***

PATRICIA McGERR “Match Point in Berlin.” Novelet. Published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, June 1968. . Winner of the MWA contest sponsored by EQMM the preceding year. Not known to have been reprinted. [This statement is incorrect. It was the basis of Chapters 1-3 of Mead’s fixup novel Legacy of Danger. See Comment #3, by Mike Grost.] Drawing below by Austin Briggs.

   Selena Mead was at one time (the 60s) what might be called a hot item. As one of the few female espionage agents in the business, she appeared in some 25 short stories, one novel, and one collection (cleverly disguised as a novel), Before the lady’s first  appearance in 1963, her creator, Patricia McGerr, had been the author of a number of traditional mysteries, but with several based on gimmicks, shall we say, that few other authors would have been hard pressed to even imagine.

   As an example, one of these, Pick Your Victim, reviewed by Bill Deeck earlier on this blog, involves case in which “the murderer is known but the victim is not.” Here’s the link:

         https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=24770

   Mrs. Mead had already been around for a while when “Match Point in Berlin” was published, but it goes way back in her career, in fact before she even had a career. It begins when she was a young woman who is waiting for a train in Berlin as the first step in returning her to a life back in Washington DC, one that she believes she wants. It is a totally mundane one, or it would be, especially compared to one she ends up really having.

   But a man, recognizing her as an American, gives her a list of – she doesn’t know, but he is quite serious about it not falling into the wrong hands.

   It is hidden in a box of matches, or is it? Through a series of mishaps (or are they?) a chase ensues, taking her through all sorts of areas of Berlin where a young naive woman should perhaps not know about, including one moment I jumped at a recognition – no, a realization – that took me by surprise, brilliantly disguised.

   The story is very atmospheric, well choreographed, and filled with enough twists and turns that make it impossible to stop reading. Guaranteed.

   The Internet page below tells the story of a TV series to be called Selena Mead that almost ended up being made, but it was canceled at the last minute. Only a short pilot film was ever made. Actress Polly Bergen was cast as the show’s series character.

         https://www.tvobscurities.com/articles/selena_mead/

RICHARD ROSEN – Fadeaway. PI Harvey Blissberg #2. Harper & Row, hardcover, 1986. Onyx, paperback; 1st printing, September 1987.

   Former baseball center fielder Harvey Blissberg is now a Boston PI, and his first real case is a doozey: two star NBA basketball players have just been found murdered at Logan Airport, The police naturally think of cocaine, but Harvey keeps digging.

   And ends up in Providence again, where in his earlier adventure, he first solved a murder (and the town really is New England’s armpit). Rosen can write crystal clear page-turning prose, and he can write murky. In this book he does an admirable job at both.

      The Harvey Blissberg series:

Strike Three You’re Dead (1984)
Fadeaway (1986)
Saturday Night Dead (1988)
World Of Hurt (1994)
Dead Ball (2001) .

WILLIAM BRITTAIN “The Zaretski Chain.” First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, June 1968. Not known to have been reprinted.

   William Brittain, the author of this small rather obscure tale, was known for a long list of detective and mystery fiction published over the years, most of them appearing in EQMM. Many of them were locked room or impossible crime mysteries. A list of them, along with a good deal of in-depth analysis, can be found here:

https://mikegrost.com/laterimp.htm#Brittain

   In “The Zaretski Chain,” a wealthy man with a fondness for the strange and unusual sets up a confrontation between a PI and a famous escape artist named Wrenn. The former has been on the trail of of the latter for a long time, as that gentleman may also have been responsible for many unusual thefts over the years.

   The challenge presented is this: Wrenn is to be secured with his wrists in cuffed on either side of a flagpole, a chain connecting them on the other side, with a horizontal spar across the pole toward the top. With personal incentives offered to each party, the winner of the contest will be determined on whether Wrenn can escape his confinement within the hour, a captive to be left alone during the allotted time.

   But before the hour is up, the man servant of their host announces that a robbery has taken place. Rushing to the scene of Wrenn’s captivity, he is still there, obviously having escaped and having come back to the place in which he had been trussed up.

   I can think of few stories that take as much time to set up and explain as this one does, but Brittain was a good writer, and it is with some fascination that the devoted reader of such tales (such as I) follows along with quite a bit of interest.

   Even more, the solution to this chronicle about the rather excessive need of someone who is a Problem Solver to unravel it (note the capital letters) is well worth the journey.

JAMES BLISH – Faust Aleph-Null. Serialized in If Science Fiction, August-October 1967. Reprinted as Black Easter or Faust Aleph-Null (Doubleday, hardcover, 1968; Dell, paperback, 1969). Also reprinted as The Devil’s Day, paired with the novel The Day After Judgment (Baen, paperback, 1990).

   Outwardly fantasy, this story is actually a treatise on theology, leading up to the no longer startling conclusion that “God is dead.”

   Some time in the past, God is presumed to have made a compromise with the demons of Evil, in the form of the Covenant, which also allows the practice of Magic. The monastery at Monte Albano, the center of white magic, discovers that the black magician Theron Ware is about to perform a potentially disastrous task for a munitions manufacturer, and so the move to stop it, but without actually interfering.

   The Task? To allow the major demons of Hell freedom on Earth for 24 hours, purely as an experiment. This does not speak wll of munitions manufacturers, of course, but as a class, who else could Blish reasonably pick on? Not acceptable, even given the existence of such demons.

   Naturally the experiment goes out of control, with God’s absence from the scene the factor allowing the demons to stay free, breaking the vows that gave then freedom. End of story.

   More work is needed to make this tale credible as a story; as theology, it may be great stuff.

Rating: ***½

THE CIMARRON KID. Universal International Pictures, 1952. Audie Murphy, Beverly Tyler, James Best, Yvette Dugay, Hugh O’Brian, Roy Roberts, Noah Beery, Leif Erickson. Director: Budd Boetticher.

   There’s more than a hint of grit in Budd Boetticher’s The Cimarron Kid. Not as gritty as the westerns he did with Randolph Scott, mind you, but it’s there nevertheless. Indeed, there’s something a little sweaty, a little dirty and violent about this oater, one starring Audie Murphy in a comparatively early role for him.

   Here, Murphy portrays Bill Doolin, an Oklahoman falsely imprisoned due to his friendship with the Dalton Gang. After being released from jail, Doolin sets out to create a new life for himself. But it’s not to be. Due to an unfortunate incident during a train holdup, when one of the Daltons recognizes him, Doolin (Murphy) once again finds himself on the wrong side of the law. This time, however, he accepts his fate and goes all in with the Daltons, helping them commit a bank robbery in which many of the Daltons are killed.

   Along for the whole ride – figuratively and literally – is Bitter Creek Dalton (James Best) and his Mexican girlfriend Rose (Yvette Dugay), both with whom Doolin forms a tight bond. On Doolin’s trail is the fair-minded Marshal John Sutton (Leif Erickson). There’s a love interest component to the story, too with Beverly Tyler portraying Carrie Roberts, a farm girl who falls for Doolin.

   Much of the movie deals thematically with the question of fate. Was Doolin doomed from the start? Did his relationship with his childhood friends – the Daltons – preclude him from ever having a “normal life”? When the movie ends, it’s not with a bang, but a whisper.

   Overall, a quite enjoyable, thoughtful western with Murphy showing that he had a long future ahead of him in that genre.

EDWARD D. HOCH “The Theft of the Toy Mouse.” Nick Velvet #3. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, June 1968. Collected in The Thefts of Nick Velvet (Mysterious Press, 1978).

   Of the several series characters created by Ed Hoch over his long writing career, I think Nick Velvet, professional thief, is my favorite. Not only is he always hired to steal something outrageous (a complete baseball team, the water from a swimming pool), with all the intricate care that’s required, but he almost always endeavors to learn why anyone would hire him to steal that particular item.

   In this story, which falls early in his early days in his unique line work, he is given $20,000 to steal a toy mouse which, when wound up, runs in circles. It is the focus of a modern film being shot in France, just outside of Paris, a setting which certainly boosts the story’s sense of place. (He does manage to convince his girl friend Gloria to stay home.)

   The story rambles comfortably along and is a lot of fun to read. Unfortunately the location of toy mouse is in a building which has been built (by Hoch) to make it, on reflection, an easy task to steal. And the reason behind the caper is rather mundane. But not, of course while, the story is rambling on.

   Overall, the tale is a bit of a letdown. Being “lot of fun to read” does manage to make up for a good portion of that, though.

ENEMY OF THE STATE. Buena Vista Pictures, 1998. Will Smith, Gene Hackman, Jon Voight, Lisa Bonet, Regina King. Director: Tony Scott.

   Tony Scott’s paranoid thriller Enemy of the State has a lot going for it. Aside from the kinetic direction that doesn’t let up, the movie features Will Smith in his prime alongside Hollywood stalwarts Gene Hackman and Jon Voight. Smith portrays Robert Dean, a Washington DC labor attorney who unwittingly comes into the possession of evidence showing that National Security Agency bigwig Thomas Reynolds (Voight) had a Congressman knocked off.

   With no one to trust, Dean eventually turns to the mysterious “Brill” (Hackman), a former NSA employee who now works as a freelance spy for the right price. The two men – of very different personalities and temperaments – must work together to bring down Reynolds and his henchmen.

   Set primarily in Washington DC and Baltimore, the movie benefits tremendously from on-location shooting, particularly one sequence in Dupont Circle. The movie also has a strong supporting cast, including a youthful Jack Black and a not yet famous Scott Caan, son of Hollywood heavyweight James Caan. Seth Green (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) portrays a NSA tech guy, though he is for some unknown reason uncredited.

   The politics of the movie, for better or worse, are written on its sleeve. The tension between privacy rights and the government’s desire to monitor threats through surveillance and satellites is front and center throughout the film, with the script taking a decidedly civil libertarian approach to the debate. Notably, the movie was released in 1998, several years before 9/11 would change everything.

   Overall, I enjoyed this one, but I have no desire to watch it again. Final assessment: come for Smith, but stay for Hackman and Voight. They’re both very good here.

PAT CADIGAN “The Sorceress in Spite of Herself.” First published in Isaac Asimov’s SF, December 1982. Reprinted in Isaac Asimov’s SF-Lite, edited by Gardner Dozois (Ace, 1993). Collected in Dirty Work (Mark Ziesing, 1993).

   Pat Cadigan has had a long career as a SF writer, mostly shorter fiction, starting in the late 70s, but she’s produced a handful of well-regarded novels, plus an even longer list of movie and TV tie-in’s.  (These I knew nothing about until I looked up what I could learn about her online just now.) In spite of her long resume, this is the first of her work that I’ve read.

   So, based on very little, or perhaps even on nothing, I’ve assumed she’s been involved solely with what’s called cyberpunk fiction, or perhaps stories centered on near future concepts such as virtual reality. “The Sorcerer in Spite of Herself” proves how wrong I was about that.

   It involves a young woman, married perhaps for half a year, who’s been plagued her whole life by her habit of losing things. She doesn’t know why or how, and when she finally breaks down and tells her husband, he doesn’t believe her. As she explains at some length, he begins to change his mind, gradually of course, but eventually so much so that he begins to wonder how they might cancel out this curse she’s been under for so long.

   It all works out, in a most logical fashion, in a climax that is as funny, say, as it is chilling. A minor work, but one most nicely done.

KEN BRUEN – The Killing of the Tinkers. Jack Taylor #2. St. Martins Minotaur, softcover, 2004.

   The death drive drives to self-destruction. Not just to cease to be, to stop the pain, to nothingness. But towards an earlier incarnation. A oneness with everything. The self is an illusion dividing us against everything and everyone, creating a loneliness we cannot bear. Death is coming, ready or not. But as much as we try to avoid it, to do everything we can to stay alive, to self-preserve, take meds (Christian scientists notwithstanding), to exercise, to exorcise the death from life: It’s coming. And at times we even hurry it along, speed it up along its merry way, brush the front steps, invite it in for tea.

   At the end of The Guards, Jack Taylor kills his best friend. It’s justified. But who gives a crap, justified? What does that mean? What does it matter? Like Sam Spade handing Brigid O’Shaunessy over to the cops. Choosing ‘justice’ over love in this corrupted world. What the hell for?

   So here Jack Taylor finds himself. Alone. Addicted to coke, and drinking himself to death. The usual.

   He gets hired to find out who’s killing the hobos. He fucks up the investigation, gets the wrong guy killed, and hires a hit man to clean it up. The end. A freaking mess.

Meantime, as per usual, he gives the reader a bunch of tips: Songs and books to listen to and read on the road to perdition.

   He reverentially mentions Jernigan. Twice. So I order it.

DAVID GATES – Jernigan. Alfred A. Knopf, hardcover, 1991.

   Jernigan is a failed English lit academic who quits to be a half-assed corporate real estate broker, married to another overeducated souse, raising a teenaged boy in the lower Hudson valley. The suburban dream.

   He picks at his wife constantly, little passive aggressive pokes at her laziness and she at his impotence.

   They have a party. It’s the fourth of July. The neighbors are all there. At the pool. And finally she’s had it. She says ‘fuck you—fuck all of you’, strips off her clothes and jumps in the car, backs out of the driveway full speed, eyes full of hate, only to be instantaneously t-boned by a van. Dead.

   Jernigan starts drinking more and more. Gets fired by his firm. And starts screwing his son’s girlfriend’s mom.

   The mom is in a group of suburban survivalists. They squat in suburban buildings, they dumpster dive for barely expired produce behind the supermarkets, they raise bunnies in their basements. To eat. They make their own moonshine. They have no bills. Their kids go to the nice suburban schools. They don’t work. So they can ‘truly live’.

   This kind of life doesn’t suit Jernigan. Does any?

   So he sells his house, moves in with his son’s girlfriends’ mother, and drinks himself into oblivion.

   The end.

   Can’t say I enjoyed this stuff. But there’s something to this death drive. Maybe.