ADAM HALL – Knight Sinister. Pyramid, US, paperback, 1971. Harper, US, paperback, 1990. First published in the UK in 1951, written by Elleston Trevor under the pseudonym Simon Rattray.

   Before he became famous as Adam Hall with the publication of The Quiller Memorandum, Elleston Trevor produced five chess-oriented mystery/suspense novels; these were published in England under the pseudonym Simon Rattray, and reprinted here under the Hall name after the success of Quiller. They concern the adventures of wealthy Hugo Bishop, who, as a writer of books about personality under stress, investigates odd or unusual events around the world. He is assisted in this occupation by Miss Vera Gorringe, M.A., who searches out situations and people out of the ordinary.

   Since his books bring him into the public eye, it isn’t unusual that a married woman in love with a man who seems to have disappeared should ask Bishop for help. Although this isn’t the sort of case he normally cares for, Hugo is intrigued when the missing man keeps sending the woman notes requesting assignations, which he then doesn’t keep. The woman’s husband. who is directing a play in which the missing man had a part, seems unaware of the triangular situation.

   With time out for trips in his venerable Rolls-Royce, manipulation of pieces in his everlasting chess games, intermittent consultations with Inspector Freddy Frenay (an old school friend now at Scotland Yard), and muted advice from “Gorry,” Hugo engineers a confrontation scene that concludes the case but doesn’t quite solve the problem.

   Bishop is a combination of Peter Wimsey and Ellery Queen, with the finer points of both. The chess motif plays a definite part in the logical progression and conflict in this and the other books in the series, as indicated by the American titles: Queen in Danger, Bishop in Check, and Pawn in Jeopardy, ail reprinted here in paperback by Pyramid in 1971, and Rook’s Gambit, which appeared the following year.

   Another unusual early novel by Trevor is Heat Wave (1958), first published under the pseudonym Caesar Smith — a harrowing psychological suspense story about a man who falls deeply in love a few short hours after murdering his wife.

———
   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.