"Well, You Hit It on the Nose"

IN ADDITION TO Dan Redman (see the previous posting below), Christopher Anvil also had a spy-SFF mashup series starring "the problem solver," Richard Verner, heuristician, a prime example of those "sleuths" who use their brains as much, if not more, than their fists; but until now we've been able to track down only two of his adventures lurking on the Inter-net.

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   "The essence of getting a satisfactory confession from an espionage agent is to produce in him an acute desire to win your approval. There are ways to do it . . ."

"The Missile Smasher."
By Christopher Anvil (Harry Christopher Crosby, 1925-2009).
Illustration by [Frank] Kelly Freas (1922-2005; HERE).
First appearance: Analog, July 1966.

Reprints page (HERE).

Short short story (6 pages).
Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; scroll down to magazine page 140).

     "I suppose you must have seen many strange problems. But I doubt that you've ever seen one as strange as mine."

Saboteurs are at work, and unless Richard Verner can come up with a solution they just might get away with it . . .

Major characters:
~ The general:
  "Mr. Verner, I understand you're a heuristician—that it's your business to help solve problems other experts alone can't handle."
~ Richard Verner:
  "That should solve the problem."

Resource:
- The maguffin at the center of this story is one of the most useful and yet at the same time potentially destructive technologies contrived in the 20th century (Wikipedia HERE).

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   "Sometimes a panhandler is hard to get rid of. Particularly when the panhandler is extraterrestrial—and you don't know why he wants what to take where."

"The Uninvited Guest."
By Christopher Anvil (Harry Christopher Crosby, 1925-2009).
Illustration by [Frank] Kelly Freas (1922-2005; HERE).
First appearance: Analog, March 1967.

Reprints page (HERE).

Short short story (6 pages).
Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; scroll down to magazine page 133).

     "Yesterday, it sidled up to one of our technicians, and took off a slice of his clothes and about four square inches of skin surface underneath."

This time our heuristician can smell the solution to the problem presented by an unexpected visitor . . .

Major characters:
~ The general:
  "I don't care who you call in, or what you do. Just get rid of this thing before it wrecks our whole space program!"
~ Richard Verner:
  ". . . opened a pocketknife, cut one of the sacks, reached in to feel a small, hard, curving surface with a roughness underneath, drew back his arm, and threw."

Resources:
- "a miniature, short-lived nova": Not as scary as a supernova, but that would all depend on where you're standing at the moment (Wikipedia HERE).
- "It could come from Jupiter": That's a good guess. "Jupiter is perpetually covered with clouds composed of ammonia crystals and possibly ammonium hydrosulfide." (Wikipedia HERE).

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Resources:
- The idea behind heuristics necessarily makes it more imprecise than a strictly logical approach (pace, Mr. Spock):

   "A heuristic technique (Ancient Greek: εὑρίσκω, 'find' or 'discover'), or a heuristic for short, is any approach to problem solving or self-discovery that employs a practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect or rational, but which is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate, short-term goal. Where finding an optimal solution is impossible or impractical, heuristic methods can be used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution. Heuristics can be mental shortcuts that ease the cognitive load of making a decision. Examples that employ heuristics include using trial and error, a rule of thumb, an educated guess, an intuitive judgment, a guesstimate, profiling, or common sense." (Wikipedia HERE).

- As you can see from this list, the majority of Richard Verner's adventures appeared in crime fiction digests (data from FictionMags).

  (1) "The Problem Solver and the Spy," Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, December 1965 (online HERE)
  (2) "The Problem Solver and the Hostage," Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, February 1966
  (3) "The Missile Smasher," Analog, July 1966 (above)
  (4) "The Problem Solver and the Killer," Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, August 1966
  (5) "Key to the Crime," Shell Scott Mystery Magazine, September 1966
  (6) "The Problem Solver and the Defector," Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, December 1966 (online HERE)
  (7) "The Murder Trap," The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine, January 1967
  (8) "The Uninvited Guest," Analog, March 1967 (above)
  (9) "The Problem Solver and the Burned Letter," Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, April 1967 (online HERE)
  (10) "The Hand from the Past," Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, May 1972.

- We've also featured the two known adventures of another trouble shooter, Galactic's Dan Redman (HERE).
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