"There's No Such Thing As a Perfect Crime, and We Have the Latest Scientific Methods at Our Beck and Call"

"The Classic Semerák Case."

By Josef Škvorecký (1924-2012; Wikipedia HERE; The Canadian Encyclopedia HERE; and Murder & Mayhem HERE).

Series character: Lieutenant Borůvka.

First appearance: Unknown.

Reprinted in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, October 1967 (today's text).

Short story (15 pages).

Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; go to text page 80).

   "Our complete investigative technique is based on system, on strict order, so we criminologists can't allow ourselves to be guided by haphazard ideas the way they do in detective books."

IT'S the classic dilemma: Was it murder or a suicide? A gung-ho police investigator is grimly determined to find out. All he has to do is to confirm that his hypotheses about S-B, B-T, and T-S are congruent with B-S-T, T-S-T, and B-S-B-T, and how all that fits with a half-hour visit to the Men's Room . . .

Principal characters:

~ Constable First Class Šinták ("was firmly convinced that Lieutenant Borůvka wielded powers not entirely in keeping with normal human abilities"), Sergeant Málik ("our insurance is the modern science of criminology"), Semerák ("you can tell that fellow's a murderer a mile off"), Pěnkava ("saw her alive!"), Bárta ("claims Semerák wore a tweed jacket"), old lady Bárta ("insists it was a brown corduroy jacket"), and Lieutenant Borůvka ("You didn't move a thing—everything is exactly the way you found it?").

References:

- "the Lindbergh kidnaping" (HERE).

- "the Sacco-Vanzetti story" (HERE).

- "two experienced members of the canine squad to calm the beast" (HERE) and (HERE).

Resources:

- Wikipedia (HERE) tells us about Josef Škvorecký's series character:

  "He wrote four books of detective stories featuring Lieutenant Borůvka of the Prague Homicide Bureau: The Mournful Demeanor of Lieutenant Borůvka, Sins for Father Knox 

[3 stories only], The End of Lieutenant Borůvka and The Return of Lieutenant Borůvka."

- Škvorecký deliberately set out to break every Golden Age of Detection rule that an English cleric considered inviolable with his Sins for Father Knox, which is available online (HERE; borrow only).

  A thoughtful review of Sins for Father Knox appeared in the Los Angeles Times (HERE):

  "What I experienced was a bout of ho-hummery, probably because I was hoping his rule-breaking exercises would be both fascinating and comprehensible. Instead, I found them tedious and opaque.

  "And that’s a pity because the stories have a sound and even enviable premise: A beautiful and sexy Czech blues singer solves crimes that the police of several nations can’t solve. But Skvorecky has burdened his premise with an overweight gimmick--the breaking of Father Knox’s whimsical rules--and the gimmick finally crushes the premise."

- Note: If you're thinking of buying any of Josef Škvorecký's books in fine condition, be prepared to pay a pretty penny.

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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"He Stopped for a Moment To Permit His Stereoscopic Ocular Apparatus To Adjust to the Decreased Intensity of the Ambient Lighting"

TODAY we look at two stories huddled together in the same magazine issue, a serious one about obsession and the other about . . . we'll let you figure that one out . . .

(1) "Touches."

By Gregory Benford (born 1941; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; the SFE HERE; and the IMDb HERE).

Illustration by Peter Botsis (ISFDb HERE).

First appearance: Amazing Stories, December 1991.

Reprints page (ISFDb HERE).

Short short short story (4 pages).

Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; go to text page 19.)

   "The pitiful electronic games that the public played were monotonous to him."

"Whoso diggeth a pit," says the preacher, "shall fall therein." In today's story, a man diggeth a pit right enough, not with a shovel but a touchscreen . . .

Main characters:

~ The Gamer ("played the role of a young man, restive and ambitious"), Lisa ("was the only one he could trust"), and the Commissioner ("was known to be jealous and vindictive"). 

Go down about forty more pages and you'll come to . . .

(2) "Gunfight at Bertha's Saloon."

By Thomas R. McDonough (born 1945; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; and the SFE HERE).

Illustration by Jeff Busch (ISFDb HERE).

First appearance: Amazing Stories, December 1991.

Short short short story (3 pages).

Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; go to text page 58).

   "Because this was not the customary way of ingesting lead, he emitted a noise communicating disapproval of the event."

SERIOUS IDEAS often get lost in translation. So does everything else . . .

Main characters:

~ Big Jack McGinty ("I altered my decision matrix"), Dirty Dan Larue ("suddenly suffered a total malfunction"), and Bertha ("emitted a loud oscillation of approximately 15 kilohertz").

Reference:

- "Beta Ceti VII" (HERE). Otherwise known as Diphda, Beta Ceti is a giant star just over 96 light-years away, making a round-trip time for a radio or TV signal of at least 192 years.

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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"Instantly, the Violet Glow Within the Globe Vanished"

"Time To Stop."

By Randall Garrett (1927-87; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; and the SFE HERE).

First appearance: Science Fiction Quarterly, February 1957.

Short short short story (1 page).

Online at SFFAudio (HERE).

   "Here's a vignette that would have been a novelet in the old days."

Commenting on the tyranny of time, the much put-upon Pericles observed: "I see that Time's the king of men / He's both their parent, and he is their grave / And gives them what he will, not what they crave." It's that ominous reference to the grave that one scientist will unwisely overlook—to his everlasting regret . . .

Principal characters:

~ Robert Aghill ("There it is, sirs; a machine that will travel into the future"), Dr. Oswald Latimer ("I have no doubt that you'll not only get your Doctorate, but the Nobel Prize"), and Dr. Harry Rumfort ("Ridiculous! Impossible! Time travel can not be justified mathematically!").

Typo: "whild".

References:

- "the subject of time travel" (HERE) and (HERE).

- "an identity" (HERE).

Resource:

- The last story by Randall Garrett that we're pretty certain he actually wrote was "Stroke of Genius" (HERE).

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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"This Evil Is Much More Ancient Than Atomic Bombs"

ONE of the late, great Edward D. Hoch's most enigmatic series characters investigates . . .

"The Hoofs of Satan."

By Edward D. Hoch (1930-2008; Wikipedia HERE; Michael Grost's megasite HERE and HERE; the ISFDb HERE and HERE; the SFE HERE; and the IMDb HERE).

Simon Ark No. 2.

First appearance: Famous Detective Stories, February 1956.

Reprinted in City of Brass, 1971.

Short story (9 pages).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

   "I know what made those tracks. And the thing you want is here in the woods, now!"

THE devil's in the details, they say, but can he also be running around in frozen Devonshire?

Main characters:

~ Chief Inspector Ashly of New Scotland Yard ("a short, almost tiny man who nevertheless had the deep thundering voice of a much bigger man"), Simon Ark ("Since when do prints in the snow bring Chief Inspectors from Scotland Yard to investigate?"), Mayor Beverson ("Those are not the tracks of any animal I have ever seen"), Roland Summers ("I was busy chopping up some firewood"), Diana Hunt ("The smile vanished for an instant, then reappeared"), and Mark Eagen ("a small, pleasant-looking man who appeared to be about forty years old").

Typo: "a supernational occurance".

References:

- For what might have been Hoch's inspiration for the story see "Devil's Footprints" in Wikipedia (HERE) and David's Basement of the Bizarre (HERE).

- "an ansated cross, an early symbol of Egyptian Christians." See "Copts" (HERE) and "Coptic Cross" (HERE) in Wikipedia.

Resources:

- Concerning Edward D. Hoch's Simon Ark, the SFE tells us that "his first story, 'Village of the Dead' for Famous Detective Stories in December 1955, introduc[ed] Simon Ark, an Occult Detective who claims to be a 2000-year-old Coptic priest. Some of these stories are collected in The Judges of Hades and Other Simon Ark Stories (coll 1971), City of Brass and Other Simon Ark Stories (coll 1971) and The Quests of Simon Ark (1984); they are only marginally fantasy."

- We were in contact with Hoch about a year ago, when a fondness for numbers in story titles showed up in "The Seventh Assassin" and "The Seventieth Number" (HERE).

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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Zed Reckoning

"Spelled Guilty."

By Dave Grinnell (?-?).

First appearance: 10-Story Detective, July 1947.

Short short short story (3 pages).

Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; go to text page 20).

(Note: Some text smudging but interpretable.)

   "'Well,' said Corazel, leaning back and lighting his pipe, 'when I was in England, I noticed a little thing that had not occurred to me before'."

TODAY'S sleuth joins the likes of C. Auguste Dupin, The Old Man in the Corner, Mycroft Holmes, and Nero Wolfe in solving a crime without moving more than a few feet. All it 

takes is a phone call and a head for trivia . . .

Principal characters:

~ Detective Lieutenant William Corazel ("The old-timer with the keen-honed brain"), 

Diamond Bert ("no one knew who he was or what he looked like"), and the Chief 

("How do you know?").

Typo: "barked the Chief Chief right back".

Resources:

- Wikipedia has a short article about armchair detectives (HERE).

- The nom de plume "Dave Grinnell" is too close to "David Grinnell," one of many pen names often used by SFF uberpulpster Donald A. Wollheim (1914-90), for us not to conclude that he was "Dave Grinnell," but it's not certain. Regardless, "Dave Grinnell" produced nine crime fiction tales for Ten Detective Aces and 10-Story Detective Magazine in 1945-47 (FictionMags data; vi = vignette; ss = short story):

  "Gunfire Promotion," (vi) Ten Detective Aces, March 1945

  "The Devil Is a Magician," (ss) 10-Story Detective Magazine, September 1946

  "Put a Lid on Lora," (ss) 10-Story Detective Magazine, November 1946

  "Fright Night," (ss) Ten Detective Aces, February 1947

  "Crawling Clues," (ss) 10-Story Detective Magazine, March 1947

  "Nemesis Unseen," (ss) Ten Detective Aces, April 1947

  "Spelled Guilty," (ss) 10-Story Detective Magazine, July 1947 (above)

  "B.H.’s Slaughter," (ss) Ten Detective Aces, September 1947

  "Remember Me to Roscoe," (ss) 10-Story Detective Magazine, October 1947.

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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"The Man Had Been Stabbed from Within!"

HERE we have, right in the middle of the Golden Age of Detection (and Prohibition), nothing less than a brazen full-on assault on the genre (and the Volstead Act) by the staff of a popular magazine. An unjustifiable act of malice? No, we're more inclined to think they were all going bonkers waiting for the Eighteenth Amendment to be repealed . . .

"Mystery Number."

Judge Magazine, January 9, 1926 issue.

36 pages.

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

   "Within the deserted mansion itself, deserted save for a finger-print expert, a rifle-bore expert, a blood-stain expert, a toxicologist of note, a micrograph photographer, a score of plain clothes men and Inspector McGrouch—summoned hurriedly from his evening game of lotto, stood the Great Glumph, monosyllabic, hawklike, impenetrable."

WARNING! You'll need to have a high STQ (Silliness Tolerance Quotient) to get through this, so before you read it you might check with your psychiatrist—or, better yet, your wife . . .

Mystery references:

- Seven Baldpates (on the cover).

- The Black Hand (page 2).

- "The Amazing Adventures of Sherlock Lupin - A Tragedy of the Comic Weeklies" (pages 5 and 19).

- "Watson, the Needle!" (page 6).

- Mysterious trapdoor full-page cartoon (page 7).

- "The Midnight Crime" (page 8).

- "Stabbed from Within - A Glumph of the Bumps Yarn!" (pages 10 and 22-23).

- Mary Roberts Rinehart full-page cartoon (page 15).

- "The mystery story" cartoon (page 19).

- "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" (page 26).

- "Home Life of a Playwright" (page 27).

- "The Matrimonial Mystery" (page 29).

 

Resources:

- George Jean Nathan was a co-perpetrator of this issue of Judge; there's more about him (HERE).

- S. J. Perelman was also connected with Judge but not, evidently, with this particular issue; to make up for that, see his "Mastersleuth Unmasked at Last!" (HERE).

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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"What Good's the Chocolate Maltese Falcon to a Venusian?"

. . . an excellent question, but you'll be lucky if you find the answer in . . .

"The Last Caper."

By Charles Beaumont (1929-67; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; the SFE HERE; and the IMDb HERE).

First appearance: Fantasy & Science Fiction, March 1954.

Reprints page (ISFDb HERE).

Short story (9 pages).

Online at SFFAudio (HERE).

   "When his hand came off and dropped to the floor, I knew I was in for some surprises myself."

SOME THINGS will never change, like tough-guy private eyes and deadly dames . . .

Main characters:

~ Bartholomew Cornblossom ("She planted one on my kisser and I felt all May and golden fields of ripe wheat and barefoot in soft river mud"), Mike Mallet ("He went down—fast—and began to whimper"), the secretary ("Next time open the door before you come through it, big boy"), 1742-A ("I don't dig getting beat; not by a robot, anyway"), and the green snake guy ("We shall see now how bravely the Earthling struts!"). 

Typo: "a Girl rom".

References:

- I, the Jury (HERE).

- The Martian Chronicles (HERE).

- Brancusi statuettes (HERE).

- Bromo-Seltzer (HERE).

- Sterno (HERE).

- Sonnets from the Portuguese (HERE).

- Botticelli's (HERE) Venus on the Half Shell (HERE).

- Coney (HERE) and (HERE).

Astronomical mentions:

- Mars and Martians (HERE).

- Venus and Venusians (HERE).

- Uranus and Uranians (HERE).

- Jupiter and Jovians (HERE).

- "Betelgeuseville" (HERE) and (HERE).

Resources:

- Another science fictional PI who forgot all about never taking cases from sexy dames can be found in Neil Gaiman's "The Case of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds" (HERE).

- Our only other encounter with Charles Beaumont was his "The Beautiful People," which was converted into a Twilight Zone episode (HERE).

The inspiration for our story.

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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"The Decadence of the Up-to-Date Gangster"

"Bad Man."

By O. O. McIntyre (1884-1938; Wikipedia HERE and the Smithsonian online magazine HERE).

First appearance: Cosmopolitan, February 1931.

True crime article (2 pages).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

   "Gazing at them, at times I have thought I could give a few of them a tousling myself in a fair fight—but don’t count on me!"

"They don't make 'em like they used to" is an old saying that our author evidently heartily agrees with, as he compares and contrasts the criminal class of fifty years ago (1881) with those of the present day (1931) and finds the latest wild bunch deficient in so many ways. Like people who should know better, he shares a romantic nostalgia for those Wild West outlaws who did their dirty deeds with panache. If there had really been a Lone Ranger, this article probably wouldn't have been written . . .

References:

The respectable ones:

- Clinton County (HERE).

- Charles Lindbergh (HERE).

- The Pinkertons (HERE).

- Vincent Astor (HERE).

- The Prince of Wales (HERE).

- The Winter Garden Theatre (HERE).

- The George M. Cohan Theatre (HERE).

- Robin Hood (HERE). (We're ambivalent about this one.)

The respectable ones (to our author):

- Frank James (HERE).

- Jesse James (HERE).

- The James-Younger gang (HERE).

- Billy the Kid (HERE).

- Cole Younger (HERE).

Disreputable to almost everybody:

- The Rosenthal murder case (HERE).

- Charles Becker (HERE).

- Nathan Kaplan (HERE).

- Monk Eastman (HERE) and The Eastman Gang (HERE).

- Johnny Spanish (HERE).

- Max Zwerback (sic) (HERE).

- Jack Zelig (HERE).

- Arnold Rothstein and George "Hump" McManus (HERE).

- "Legs" Diamond (HERE).

Resource:

- O. O. McIntyre was your classic kid from the sticks reacting to the razzle-dazzle life in the Big City, and he milked it for all it was worth. He was often referred to as "Odd" McIntyre. In 1929 Cosmopolitan published a book collection of his stories (HERE).

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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"Cherchez La Femme"

AT the start of our next story the author issues a sort of Queenian "Challenge to the Reader" before those became fashionable. Will you be able to solve . . .

"The Lauriston Mystery."

By Fred Jackson (1886-1953; Wikipedia HERE; the IBDb HERE; and the IMDb HERE).

First appearance: Munsey's Magazine, March 1929.

Novelette (22 pages; 3 illos).

Online at UNZ (good quality; HERE) and Archive.org (poor quality; HERE).

   ". . . she made a gesture with the dagger as though she were stabbing, and her face was like a tigress."

YOU couldn't get a better candidate for prime suspect than young, beautiful, and vigorous Miss Mills, the mere suggestion of which young, handsome, and vigorous Dr. Manning can't abide. But let's face it: she did have two hundred thousand reasons for doing it, and that death threat ain't helping her case one bit. As always, though, there's more here than meets the eye . . .

Comment: Unnecessarily attenuated by needless repetition. As for the mystery . . . elementary.

Principal characters:

~ Dr. Cyril Manning ("liked to diagnose illness without his subjects suspecting it, and to prognosticate, from signs invisible to laymen"), Dr. Oliver Wakefield ("I said nothing about normal or healthy"), Draga Mills ("glanced around like a caged bird, as if seeking moral support"), Mrs. Sarah Lipton ("He was no good at all, and everybody hereabouts knew it"), Bayard Lauriston ("was lying face downward upon the floor in a small pool of blood, near the corner of a huge table. He lay in a litter of books, papers, broken bric-a-brac"), Inspector Fowler ("I can well believe there were extenuating circumstances"), Brunton ("I thought so. Love letters!"), Abbey Smith ("Her eyes bulged as she recognized Inspector Fowler's uniform"), the coroner ("And yet"—the coroner spoke slowly, impressively—"you said in the presence of three gentlemen, now in this courtroom, when one of them informed you of Mr. Lauriston's death, 'I'm glad to hear it'"), and the coroner's jury ("We find that Mr. Bayard Lauriston was stabbed to death on the night of Friday, August thirteenth, by Miss Draga Mills, and recommend that she be held for trial on charge of murder in the first degree").

References:

- "strabismus" (HERE).

- "the Irene Castle bob" (HERE).

- "Correct Posture League" (HERE).

- "runabout" (HERE).

- "an old-fashioned open victoria" (HERE).

- "Robespierre" (HERE).

- "a picaresque hero" (HERE).

- "the tabloids" (HERE).

- "a Florentine dagger" (HERE).

- "the muck-rakers" (HERE).

- "a 'morgue'" (HERE).

- "Sing Sing" (HERE).

- "the River Jordan" (HERE).

Resource:

- FictionMags in re Frederick John Jackson: "Playwright, novelist, producer for stage, screen and television. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; died in Hollywood, California."

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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"Drop Dead!"

THE THEME of someone suddenly gaining extraordinary power and having problems dealing with it is an old one (e.g., King Midas, the sorcerer's apprentice, etc.), which has been beaten into the ground more recently by Hollywood and Spandex superhero fiction. The question of the moment is whether the nebbish in today's story will be able to cope when he gets . . .

"The Power."

(a.k.a. "Rebound" in reprints).

By Fredric Brown (1906-72; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; the SFE HERE; and the IMDb HERE).

First appearance: Galaxy, April 1960.

Reprints page (ISFDb HERE).

Short short short story (3 pages).

Online at SFFAudio (HERE).

   ". . . he decided to take his time planning it so there would be no possibility of his making a careless mistake."

A once well-known public person observed, "The power to do good is also the power to do harm." Are you listening, Larry?

Main characters:

~ Larry Snell ("Why shouldn't he really use what he had?") and a top dame ("Rich men and handsome playboys were after her"). 

References:

- "the whammy" (Merriam-Webster HERE).

- "a relatively uncrowded part of the Catskills" (Wikipedia HERE).

Resources:

- Our story isn't to be confused with Frank M. Robinson's 1956 novel with a similar theme (HERE) or the 1968 movie made from it (Wikipedia; WARNING! SPOILERS! HERE), much 

less the 2021 British film (HERE).

- Our latest contact with Fredric Brown wasn't so long ago, namely his "The Jabberwocky Murders" (HERE).

The bottom line:

  Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati.

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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"Only You Stand Between Order and Destruction"

TODAY'S author passed away last December. Wikipedia tells us that his "writing style is distinctive, frequently employing long, elaborate sentences with few commas. Most of his science fiction books are short, present-tense narratives concerned exclusively with the consciousness of a single obsessive character." He left us a typical example of his stylistics with . . .

"Trashing."

By Barry N. Malzberg (1939-2024; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; the SFE HERE; the IMDb HERE; and Locusmag.com HERE).

First appearance: Infinity Five, 1973.

Reprints page (ISFDb HERE).

Short short short story (5 pages).

Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; go to text page 64).

   ". . . I felt the passion to murder as I had never known it . . ."

IF there's a fine line between zealotry and madness, good luck finding it . . .

Principal characters:

~ "I" ("I'll get him and save us all"), the Committee ("Only you can destroy the madman"), and the madman ("You seem to be upset or angry, is something wrong?").

References:

- "Like Medusa" (Wikipedia HERE).

- Are we being told the truth, or are we being beguiled by one of (THESE)?

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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