Friday, February 7, 2025

"I Made Up My Mind the Only Way Was To Murder Him"

MANY OF YOU have probably seen, or at least heard of, one of the movie versions of Spartacus (1960; remade in 2004); but you might not  know that the original novel (1951) was written by a busy pulpster who, for instance, turned out seven crime novels featuring the series detective character Masao Masuto, speculative fiction (SFF) for the likes of Fantastic Universe and F&SF, and the occasional mood piece, one of which is . . .

"For Always."
By Howard Fast (1914-2003; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; the SFE HERE; the IMDb HERE; Goodreads HERE; and the Fan Page HERE and HERE).
Illustrator unnamed.
First appearance: Liberty, July 15, 1939.
Reprinted in The Grand Magazine, April 1940.
Short short short story (1 page).
Online at Archive.org (HERE).

   "What does a man think of when he waits with premeditated murder in his mind?"

INDEED. It seems that with the best of intentions people can be moved to do heinous things, and even love won't stop at murder. In fact, it's been known to encourage it . . .

Principal characters:
~ Tom Norris ("Loyalty is only a word"), Gerry ("Don't make it worse, Tom"), Miss Green ("Is something wrong, Mr. Norris?"), and Phil ("He stood there swaying, groping for the light switch, and I felt contempt, disgust . . .").

Resources:
- The Luminist Archives presently has eight Howard Fast titles (HERE), three of them SFFnal.
- For samples of Fast's SFF see SFFAudio (HERE) and (HERE).

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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Wednesday, February 5, 2025

"A Talent That Borders on Genius"

"Whodunit?"
By Vincent Starrett (1886-1974; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; the IMDb HERE; A Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection HERE; and Studies in Starrett HERE).
First appearance: The Rotarian, October 1943.
Article (2 pages).
Online at Google Books (HERE).

   "Everything is there, you see, except the red herring; and we can put those in for ourselves."

AVID SHERLOCKIAN (or, if you prefer, Holmesian) Vincent Starrett offers detective fiction readers of the mid-1940s a charmingly written survey of contemporary books by authors not named Conan Doyle. The old reliables are here, but there could be someone you might never have heard of.
 
Prose moments:
  "Yet a majority of Shakespeare's plays hinge on crime: Hamlet may almost be called the first long detective story, and Macbeth is even more suggestive of Scotland Yard than of Scotland."
   ". . . they are the first detective stories in the world to be written in a completely American style."
  "The imitation article is seldom the equal of the thing it apes."
  "Although it is possible that he writes his mystery tales with his left hand . . ."
  "Mrs. Christie's extraordinary ingenuity in contriving situations that baffle the reader is a talent that borders on genius."

References:
- "a certain Mrs. Paschal":
  "The Victorian era (1837–1901) witnessed the appearance of an overwhelming number of female literary detectives. The rush began in the 1860s with the publication of Revelations of a Female Detective, which featured the debut of Mrs. Paschal, a detective of 'vigorous and subtle' brain who works for an all-women branch of the police department." (Olivia Rutigliano, "The Lady Is a Detective," Lapham's Quarterly HERE).
- Starrett mentions Alexander Woollcott, whose association with real life crime we once documented (HERE).
- "the murder of Isadore Fink, the Bronx laundryman, in 1933":
  Ben Hecht wrote about the case (HERE).
- "the disappearance and dismemberment of Dr. Parkman":
  "The Parkman murder has been called the O. J. Simpson trial of the nineteenth century. It had everything a good murder story needs: a rich, well-known victim; a well-respected suspect; gruesome evidence; and a possible underdog hero." ("The Murder of Dr. Parkman," American Experience HERE).
- Starrett seems willing to cut Eden Phillpots some slack for his writing, but others weren't so kind:
  "Yet Phillpotts' novels tend to be slow-moving and talky, with characters speaking in highly formal, stylized speech that fell out of fashion over time. By the late-1930s, Phillpotts' mysteries were becoming lengthier and slower; and while he still had his admirers, the influential critic Anthony Boucher was openly contemptuous of the grand old man in the 1940s, writing of his novel Flower of the Gods, for example, 'infinite talk and no action. A doctor's prescription should be required for this powerful soporific'." (Curtis Evans, The Passing Tramp HERE).
- "To Meet Miss Madeleine Smith":
  "Madeleine Hamilton Smith (1835–1928) was a 19th-century Glasgow socialite who was the accused in a sensational murder trial in Scotland in 1857." (Wikipedia HERE).
- "Marie F. Rodell":
  "Rodell wrote Mystery Fiction: Theory and Technique; in his column of November 7, 1943, Chicago Tribune book columnist Vincent Starrett called this 'one of the most entertaining textbooks ever written.' She was the editor of the Regional Murder Series. She also wrote and published books under the pen name Marion Randolph." (Wikipedia HERE).

Resources:
- We did a superficial survey of Vincent Starrett's works (HERE).
- Other Starrett encounters:
  ~ "The Mid-Watch Tragedy" (HERE)
  ~ "Dupin and Another" (HERE)
  ~ and "The Adventure of the Cat and the Fiddle - A Sherlockian Sonnet" and "Man in Hiding" (HERE).

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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Monday, February 3, 2025

A Bad Habit

HERE'S a humorous article that reveals more about detective fiction and the reading habits thereof at the turn of the last century than the author might have realized:


Source: "The Last Chapter First" in "Literary Chat," Munsey's Magazine, July 1900. Online (HERE).

So we see from this that readers were expecting more from detective fiction than just blood and thunder, although there was already plenty of that. They were reading to see whodunit. Only later would the hardboiled school eventually eclipse the whodunit.

Saturday, February 1, 2025

A TERROR DETECTIVE Twofer

WE COULDN'T pass up an opportunity to feature two of our favorite pulpsters as they appeared together in an issue of the same magazine:

(1) "Seeds of Death."
By Arthur Porges (1915-2006; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; the SFE HERE; and his Fan Site HERE).
First appearance: Terror Detective Story Magazine, October 1956.
No known reprints.
Short short story (7 pages).
Online at Archive.org (HERE).
(Note: Text faded but not too badly.)

   "Now say that I have a policeman’s mind if you like, but it always makes a difference when a man leaves money."

INSPECTOR KING reminisces about a bizarre murder that he solved while on vacation: "I was reminded of the case by an item on the menu tonight."

Typo: "they call if from the Yard".

Principal characters:
~ Inspector King ("It seemed a perfect alibi—too bloody perfect"), Will Howard ("No brains?"), Peter Loret ("And the solution required no brains at all"), Francis Raymond ("He was quite intrigued over the immense number of excited gulls that had been noticed at the scene of the accident"), and Joel Hoffman ("The old story, of course: gambling, women, and liquor").

References:
- "a tricky little Forester" (HERE) "item—a Hornblower" (HERE) "yarn—" (HERE).
Source: Wikipedia (HERE).

Resource:
- We've seen Arthur Porges's work several times here, the latest being "These Daisies Told," "The Missing Bow," and "A Model Crime" collected (HERE).

IF YOU scroll down to page 98, you'll come to . . .

(2) "See No Murder."
(a.k.a. "Witness in the Dark").
By Fredric Brown (1906-72; Wikipedia HERE and A Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection HERE).
First appearance: New Detective Magazine, June 1953.
Reprints:
  Terror Detective Story Magazine, October 1956 (today's text).
  Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories to be Read with the Lights On, 1973, as "Witness in the Dark"
  Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories to be Read with the Lights On (Volume I), 1976, as "Witness in the Dark"
  Carnival of Crime, 1985, as "Witness in the Dark"
  The Freak Show Murders, 1985.
Novelette (22 pages).
Online at Archive.org (HERE).
(Note: Somewhat faded text.)
(Further note: Page 113 is missing and page 111 printed twice.)

   "When all candles be out, all cats be grey."

Segments:
  Chapter One. "Go at it cold and maybe you'll get something we missed."
  Chapter Two. Murder Without Motive
  Chapter Three. Blind Man’s Bluff.

IT WAS JUST a matter of a burglary gone wrong; even the homicide detective assigned to the case is inclined to agree. Sure, there are some oddball aspects to it: the blind shooter, the chicken feathers, the way the burglar behaved; but everybody associated with it has an airtight alibi, and peculiar, inexplicable things do crop up in any investigation from time to time. But, then, there's that missing cat . . .

Principal characters:
~ Detective George Hearn ("I’m not too bright, but I’m not too dumb"), Captain Eberhart ("Screwy as it seems, George, we’ve almost decided that it really was plain and simple robbery"), Marge ("You mean the killer gave him the gun?"), Max Easter ("And he did begin to see"), Louise Easter ("was a good-looking woman, even in a house dress. It would have been interesting to examine her to see if she had any bullet scrapes"), Armin Robinson ("Of course he didn’t know about the embezzlement or that they were planning to run away together"), Mrs. Armin Robinson ("Not for the loss of a husband, Mr. Hearn"), Lloyd Eldred ("You’ve heard of hysterical blindness, haven’t you?"), and the doctor ("Mr. Easter should have recovered his sight in not over six hours").

Resources:
- With reference to Terror Detective Story Magazine (1956-57), FictionMags notes the following:
  "Despite the title, the stories in Terror Detective Story Magazine displayed neither terror nor detection, but focused instead on blatant sexual content. Despite the presence of well-known authors like Harlan Ellison, Fredric Brown & Henry Slesar, the magazine had little to recommend it and folded after 4 issues."
- Josephine Tey (HERE) invalided her Scotland Yard detective Alan Grant in The Daughter of Time (1951), but he was able to see. Sleuths that weren't blessed with sight include, of course, Max Carrados (HERE) but also the scarcely-heard-of John Dyce (HERE) and Stephen Garth (HERE), as well as others.
- It's been over a year since we last perused a Fredric Brown production, namely "Murder and Matilda" (HERE).

The bottom line:
  Our very eyes
  Are sometimes like our judgments, blind.
   — Shakespeare

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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Tuesday, January 28, 2025

"A Living, Breathing Biological Reality"

THE IDEA of the fictional "private eye" goes back a long ways, even before Poe latched onto it and Conan Doyle turned it into a franchise. As we see in today's story, the PI trope is still very much with us in the 21st century:

"Unclaimed."
By Annalee Newitz (born 1969; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; and the SFE HERE).
First appearance: Shimmer No. 18, Summer 2014.
Reprints page (ISFDb HERE).
Found in Pwning Tomorrow (2015; ISFDb HERE).
Short story (18 pages).
Online at Archive.org (HERE).
(Parental warning: Strong profanity and extreme violence.)

   "But still the unknowable invaded her."

A SIMPLE, STRAIGHTFORWARD skiptrace turns into something totally unexpected when a private investigator gets hired to find a missing author. Piece of cake, right? By now you should know better . . .

Prose moments:
  "A spinal column of stairs stretched up to the weedy peak in a scoliotic curve. The summit was a shattered jawbone of stone teeth the size of dinosaurs."
  "If there was one thing Tom had learned in all her years as a detective, it was that passions didn’t disappear—they metastasized."
  "Plants erupted from enormous pots, and vines scaled the walls, clinging to the ceiling with corrosive fingers." 

Main characters:
~ Leslie Tom ("A gray wave of sleep overtook Tom, bringing with it a vision she knew wasn’t hers . . ."), Hu ("There was one terrible second of silence before he started screaming"), Nick Gray ("Fine. Two million it is"), Nelly McAuley ("The books will never disappear if I absorb them into my body, because my body will live forever"), J.J. Coal ("She was a weird lady"), Les Cohen ("I hope she’s dead"), and a paramedic ("Lucky you didn’t get sucked into that thing"). 

References:
- "the proteome" (HERE).
- "ateleological": "Bereft of teleology; not showing evidence of design or purpose" (HERE).
- "a compositelaced scorpion’s carapace with six human arms instead of legs" (HERE and HERE).
Sources: Wikipedia (HERE) and Wiktionary (HERE).

Resources:
- You might not agree, but we think there are character and plot parallels between this story and Les Johnson's "Murder in Space" (HERE).
- Is "Unclaimed" merely fiction or a prediction of the future? It depends on who you ask (HERE). Also see David Berreby's "The Punishment Fits the Crime" (HERE).

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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Saturday, January 25, 2025

Norgil the Prestidigitector Times Three

COMIC VINE informs us about a magician detective who had a short run in the comics but a pretty good run in the pulps:

   "Along with writing The Shadow pulp novels Walter Gibson [a professional magician] also wrote non-fiction and short stories; one of the other series characters that he wrote about from time to time was Norgil the Magician, who was a normal stage magician who sometimes caught petty cooks.
   "Most of the short stories had the same basic theme, with Norgil using a stage magic to outdo a thief and then explain to whoever was around to listen (and the reading audience) how the trick worked." (Comic Vine HERE.)

It's true the stories have "the same basic theme," but they move along at a good clip; they are light-weight entertainment at its best.

(1) "Murderer's Throne."
By Maxwell Grant (Walter B. Gibson, 1897-1985; Wikipedia HERE and HERE; the ISFDb HERE; the SFE HERE; the IMDb HERE; and Magicpedia HERE).
Norgil the Magician No. 3.
First appearance: Crime Busters, February 1938.
Collected in Norgil the Magician, 1977 (ISFDb HERE; book online HERE).
Short story (14 pages).
Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; go to text page 24).
(Note: Text very faded.)

   "Within the next five minutes, the suave magician was due for the biggest surprise of his stage career."

A CRIMINAL KINGPIN is about to go on the lam, but not before he has robbed and murdered as he usually does. Ironically enough, in order to catch him, a perfectly innocent Norgil will also have to go on the lam—only to face a hair-raising close encounter with an electric chair: "This time others gave the cue—and their guns didn't carry blanks."

Chapters:
  I. Crooks Hear News
  II. Underground Evidence
  III. The Wrong Finale
  IV. Norgil's Vanish
  V. The Death Chair.

Typos: "long befort"; "that would fellow it".

Principal characters:
~ Norgil ("was aiming his blank-loaded revolver"), King Blauden ("controlled every racket in this town"), Louis Lanning ("a drab, timid type of fellow"), Fritz ("Fritz's brisk, nasal speech was a perfect imitation of the local commentator"), Irene ("might furnish evidence"), Bogo ("was deadly when he had his knife"), and Detective Caston ("What about it?").  

(2) "Murder in Wax."
By Maxwell Grant (Walter B. Gibson, 1897-1985).
Norgil the Magician No. 14.
First appearance: Crime Busters, April 1939 (cover story).
Collected in Norgil - More Tales of Prestidigitection, 1978 (ISFDb HERE; book online HERE).
Short story (15 pages).
Online at Archive.org starting (HERE) and finishing (HERE).

   ". . . the steady drip-drip of the raining blood, that seemingly could betoken nothing less than the passing of a human life!"

BLOOD ON THE CEILING. Sounds dramatic, doesn't it? Nah, it's just red ink. Blame it on the cat. But, guess what, it really is blood, which means the cat, bless him, can keep the rest of his nine lives—but it also means that someone else is responsible for that corpse. Could it be . . . the robot?

Chapters:
  I. Drops of Blood
  II. Wanted—A Corpse
  III. The Chamber of Horrors
  IV. The Double Surprise
  V. Finished Crime.

Typo: "Lieberstraum".

Principal characters:
~ Norgil ("there should be a corpse"), Miriam Laymond ("There was fascinated horror in her eyes"), Harmon Wier ("When Wier smiled, it meant that he was satisfied, for his face was normally quite solemn"), Fritz ("Then there were a dozen or more who went down to the Chamber of Horrors"), and Boots ("Make it snappy").

References:
- "many famous magicians—de Kolta" (HERE), "Powell" (HERE), "and Dunninger" (HERE)
- "another large room filled with waxworks" (HERE and HERE)
- "Lieberstraum" [sic] (HERE)
- "the Chicago massacre" (HERE)
- "Marie Antoinette on the guillotine" (HERE)
- "Bluebeard's secret room" (HERE and HERE)
- "a waxwork Napoleon at St. Helena" (HERE, HERE, and HERE)
- "Belshazzar’s Feast" (HERE)
- "the Admiral Peary platform" (HERE)
- "old Simon Legree, ready to take a whack at Uncle Tom" (HERE and HERE).
Sources: Wikipedia (HERE) and Magicpedia (HERE).

(3) "Too Many Ghosts."
By Maxwell Grant (Walter B. Gibson, 1897-1985).
Norgil the Magician No. 21.
First appearance: Mystery Magazine, May 1940.
Illustrated by Orban (1896-1974; ISFDb HERE).
No apparent reprints.
Novelette (17 pages).
Online at Archive.org (HERE).
(Note: Text extremely faded.)

   "Mystery stalked hand in hand with tragedy."

THERE'S PLENTY of skullduggery surrounding a production of Hamlet in a cash-strapped theater, the worst of it being a fatal collapse of proscenium curtains right on top of the leading man. Trying to figure out who would benefit from it and why has Norgil in the dark, literally as well as figuratively . . .

Chapters:
  I. The Ghost Walks
  II. The Man Below
  III. For One Night Only
  IV. The Death That Missed
  V. The Ghostly Hand
  VI. The Fingers Write.

Typos: "Norgill"; "Shapespeare"; "blackbard".

Comment: The exclamation mark (!) gets overused.

Principal characters:
Norgil ("Too many ghosts!"), Miriam Laymond ("stared with eyes that seemed hypnotized"), Marcus Pendleton ("he was a lousy Hamlet"), Martin Kyne ("But this will lift the hoodoo from the opera house"), Freeland Dubray ("his glazing eyes steadied for the moment"), Ray Laddimer ("There isn’t a show in the country that would play this opera house"), Bill Gorner ("When I say nobody, I ain’t allowing for no ghosts"), and Andrew Wardlon ("blubbered the truth").

References:
- "the rôle of Hamlet" (HERE)
- "Hamlet’s Father" (HERE)
- "a vampire bat" (HERE)
- "a burlesque policy" (HERE)
- "the soubrette" (HERE)
- "back to repertoire" (HERE)
- "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (HERE)
- "ectoplasm" (HERE)
- "the proscenium arch" (HERE)
- "the asbestos front curtain" (HERE)
- "the skull of Poor Yorick" (HERE)
- "used in ‘Rip Van Winkle'" (HERE)
- "the thunder trough" (HERE)
- "It’s an old stunt" (HERE).
Sources: Wikipedia (HERE).

Resources:
- Murder in the theater seems to be popular with Hollywood; at least two Murder: She Wrote episodes (HERE and HERE) used the trope.
  Print authors haven't ignored it, either (HERE).
  A superior made-for-TV movie written by mystery fiction cinema doyens Richard Levinson and William Link is Rehearsal for Murder (HERE), an adaptation, when you think about it, of Hamlet's The Mousetrap.
- Jess Nevins's entry about Norgil:
  "W. Bates Loring is a famous stage magician who as 'Norgil the Magician' is capable of selling out houses night after night. He is also a dedicated crime fighter. He doesn’t have any real magic, but the tricks and gimmicks he learned on-stage are sufficient to capture the bad guys, whether city racketeers or jewel thieves or villainous stage magicians. Norgil has quick and sure hands, is known and feared by other criminals, and is assisted by Fritz, who sometimes doubts his boss and sometimes needs to be rescued but is always faithful." (Jess Nevins's Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes HERE.)
- The Norgil the Magician stories (FictionMags data: ss = short story; nv = novelette):
   "Norgil," (ss) Crime Busters, November 1937, as by Maxwell Grant (see The Pulp.Net about Crime Busters HERE)
   "Ring of Death," (ss) Crime Busters, January 1938, as by Maxwell Grant
   "Murderer’s Throne," (ss) Crime Busters, February 1938, as by Maxwell Grant (above)
   "The Second Double, (ss) Crime Busters, March 1938, as by Maxwell Grant
   "Drinks on the House," (ss) Crime Busters, April 1938, as by Maxwell Grant
   "Chinaman’s Chance," (ss) Crime Busters, May 1938, as by Maxwell Grant
   "The Glass Box," (ss) Crime Busters, June 1938, as by Maxwell Grant
   "The Mad Magician," (ss) Crime Busters, July 1938, as by Maxwell Grant
   "The Ghost That Came Back," (ss) Crime Busters, August 1938, as by Maxwell Grant
   "The Silver Venus," (ss) Crime Busters, September 1938, as by Maxwell Grant
   "Double-Barrelled Magic," (ss) Crime Busters, November 1938, as by Maxwell Grant
   "Magician’s Choice," (ss) Crime Busters, December 1938, as by Maxwell Grant
   "Old Crime Week," (ss) Crime Busters, February 1939, as by Maxwell Grant
   "Murder in Wax," (ss) Crime Busters, April 1939, as by Maxwell Grant (above)
   "The Mystery of Moloch," (nv) Crime Busters, June 1939, as by Maxwell Grant
   "$5,000 Reward," (nv) Crime Busters, July 1939, as by Maxwell Grant
   "The Chest of Ching Ling Foo," (nv) Crime Busters, September 1939, as by Maxwell Grant
   "The Blue Pearls," (nv) Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine, December 1939, as by Maxwell Grant
   "The Lady and the Lion," (nv) Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine, January 1940, as by Maxwell Grant
   "Crime in the Crystal," (nv) Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine, March 1940, as by Maxwell Grant
   "Too Many Ghosts," (nv) Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine, May 1940, as by Maxwell Grant (above)
   "Battle of Magic," (nv) Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine, July 1940, as by Maxwell Grant
   "Tank-Town Tour," (nv) Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine, November 1940, as by Maxwell Grant.

The bottom line:
Artwork by Gary Larson

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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Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Reggie in Linotype

RETURN WITH US to those halcyon days when, for just a few cents, quality mystery fiction could be found in the back pages of a daily newspaper. To judge from today's examples, people of that era must have had excellent eyesight if they were expected to discern 6-point text spread across eight narrow columns. If that doesn't describe you, then break out your bifocals and read about a British detective that you might have heard of:

(1) "The Efficient Assassin."
By H. C. Bailey (1878-1961; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; and the GAD Wiki HERE).
Collected in Call Mr. Fortune (1920) (also online HERE).
Published in The Sunday Star, Washington, D.C., September 4, 1921.
Found on Archive.org (HERE).

IT GOES without saying that you'll be making extensive use of the magnifier thoughtfully provided by the Internet Archive. (Thirteen hits will display two columns.)

(2) "The Business Minister."
By H. C. Bailey (1878-1961).
(Click on image to enlarge.)
Collected in Call Mr. Fortune (1920) (also online HERE).
Published in The Sunday Star, Washington, D.C., October 16, 1921.
Online at Archive.org (HERE).
 
Extra:
Like many other sleuths, Reggie Fortune has his own peculiar personal habits . . .

"Domestic Habits of the Private Eyes."
By Stella Gibbons (1902-89; Wikipedia HERE).
Found in Punch, May 19, 1954.
Article (2 pages).
Online at Archive.org (HERE).
(Note: Text somewhat fuzzy.)

   "This may be overdoing it a bit for most of us, but it's better than weak coffee and dust . . ."

References:
- "the Cheyney hero" (HERE and HERE)
- "the Doctor" (HERE); "Mr. Holmes" (HERE); "Mrs. Hudson" (HERE)
- "Phillip [sic] Marlowe" (HERE)
- "Mr. Reggie Fortune" (HERE)
- "James Bond" (HERE)
- "M. Hercule Poirot" (HERE)
- "Father Brown" (HERE)
- "Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin" (HERE)
- "Mr. Anthony Gilbert's George Crook" (HERE)
- "Lord Peter Wimsey" (HERE)
- "Albert Campion" (HERE); "Magersfontein Lugg" (HERE).
Sources: Wikipedia (HERE), The Thrilling Detective (HERE), and Roy Glashan's Library (HERE).

Resource:
- Our latest meeting with H. C. Bailey was a non-Reggie story, "A Matter of Speculation" (HERE).

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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Monday, January 20, 2025

"The Distinction Was Lost on the Now Dead Colonel, His Eyes Staring Vacantly Ahead"

"Murder in Space."
By Les Johnson (ISFDb HERE; the SFE HERE; and the author's webpage HERE).
Found in Baen Free Fiction 2021.
Artwork by David A. Hardy
Short story (10 pages as a PDF).
Online (HERE; go to Chapter 8).

   "In cases like this, if murder were involved, then ninety percent of the time the motive was money, sex, or power. He corrected himself; the ninety percent was for men, who committed the most murders. If the perp was a woman, then he could add jealousy to the list and be within the same ninety percent statistic."

"RUSSIA," as Winston Churchill once remarked, "is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." Private eye Charlie Shattles is about to find out how mysterious, enigmatic, and just plain baffling things can get in 21st-century Russia—if he doesn't get killed first . . .

Prose moments:
   "Funny how no one was eager to speak with a private investigator. They could not easily put off the police as easily as they could him. They also knew he was not as likely as the police to follow all the rules when conducting his interview and investigation. Such was the life of a PI."
   "He began to channel his inner Dashiell Hammett."
   "For a PI who specialized in space-related cases, Shattles hated going into space."
   "Money—yes. Sex—almost certainly. Power—maybe. The motive was certainly there, but was there opportunity?"
   "Near-death experiences like that just didn’t go away like they did in the entertainment vids where all the ‘tough’ guy or woman needed was a stiff drink and the company of the opposite sex."
   "Sometimes he hated having to always be reading people. He longed for a day that he could take people at face value. Maybe someday . . ."

Main characters:
~ Maksim Kezerashvili ("had gotten himself killed when he and his expensive space yacht became interplanetary dust and gas after the ship’s fusion drive lost containment allowing superheated plasma to rapidly escape from its formerly highly condensed state and vaporize his ship—as unconstrained superheated plasmas were likely to do"), Charlie Shattles ("You want me to investigate the death of your CEO and determine if it was actually an accident and, if not, to help the police catch whoever killed him"), Joseph Bychkov ("If I were you, I would begin with me"), Lada Agapov ("greeted Shattles with a smile and nearly flawless British English") Lana Kezerashvili ("stands to inherit the bulk of his money, including a sizeable number of shares in this company"), Martina Egorov ("A quite simple disagreement"), Roger Grimes ("was unremarkable in appearance, dressed in a heavy black overcoat and wearing an old-fashioned hat reminiscent of what American men might have worn in the 1930s or 40s"), and Viktor Fedorov ("was tall, at least 6’ 2”, had blond hair, green eyes, and looked like he lifted cars in his morning workouts. In other words, his mere presence would intimidate most men and attract most women").

Typo: "did not reach [should be react]".

Comment: PI Charlie Shattles deserves his own book.

References and resource:
- "Proxima Centauri" (HERE)
- "Star City" (HERE)
- "Baikonur Cosmodrome" (HERE)
- "Russian parliament" (HERE)
- "Wernher Von Braun" (HERE)
Artwork by Chesley Bonestell
- "Jeff Bezos" (HERE)
- "cis-lunar" (HERE)
- "the Duma" (HERE).
Source: Wikipedia (HERE).
- Note: "Murder in Space" is set against the background of the author's novel, Saving Proxima (2021):
  "The year is 2072. At the lunar farside radio observatory, an old-school radio broadcast is detected, similar to those broadcast on Earth in the 1940s, but in an unknown language, coming from an impossible source, and originating at an equally impossible location—Proxima Centauri. While the nations of Earth debate making first contact, they learn that the Proximans are facing an extinction-level disaster, forcing a decision: will Earth send a ship on a multiyear trip to provide aid?"
 Go (HERE) for more.

The bottom line:
  It is not in the best interests of any government to tell the truth.

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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Saturday, January 18, 2025

"For One Split Second She Considered Taking a Chance and Shooting It Out"

"Hand in Hand with Murder."
By Norman A. Daniels (1900-95; ONTOS HERE; the GAD Wiki HERE; the IMDb HERE).
First appearance: Mystery Book Magazine, Fall 1948.
Short story (10 pages).
Online at Archive.org (HERE).

   "Any makeshift grave is a nervous grave, apt to disgorge its contents to the slightest curiosity."

AT THE VERY LEAST a perfect murder calls for careful planning, but that doesn't seem to be a part of this particular discontented housewife's skill set. So she's forced to fall back on unpredictable dumb luck—and for a while it seems to be working. For a while . . .

Principal characters:
~ Nora Bradford ("But I thought—I thought—"), Oswald Bradford ("Oswald, wouldn’t it be funny if they insisted the dead man was you? Think what would happen. You’d be dead, but not dead"), Paul Bradford ("She recognized the squawky voice of Oswald’s older brother"), Aunt Margaret ("promptly fainted dead away"), Oswald's boss ("Nora thought he was a heel, but she did like the way he eyed her"), Mark Edwin ("Nora let him kiss her and found it interesting"), Judith Edwin ("a perfect darling"), and Lieutenant Forsythe ("It’s a lovely evening. A very lovely evening").

References and resources:
- "His draft card—4F he was":
  "Four F is a term that is not commonly used in the military. However, there is a similar term in the military that sounds similar – 4-F. This term was used during the draft era (1940s-1970s) of the United States Armed Forces. During this time, there were physical, mental, and moral requirements that needed to be met in order to serve in the military.
  "4-F was a designation given to individuals who were deemed unfit to serve in the military for physical, mental, or moral reasons. For instance, physical disabilities, illnesses, and medical conditions that would inhibit an individual’s ability to perform military duties would make them eligible for a 4-F deferment.
  "Additionally, individuals with certain mental health conditions such as severe depression, anxiety, or schizophrenia, were also disqualified from service.
  "Furthermore, individuals with a criminal history, drug addiction, or other moral issues were also deemed unfit for service and received a 4-F rating. Essentially, 4-F was a classification indicating that the individual was unfit to serve in the military and thus, not eligible for the draft.
  "It’s worth noting that this classification system is not used anymore, as the draft was abolished in 1973, and the military has transitioned to an all-volunteer force. Instead, today’s military enlistment standards are regulated by medical and fitness standards that apply to all branches of service.
  "Overall, the term 'four F' is not commonly used in the modern military, as it belongs to an outdated classification system from the past." (Coalition Brewing HERE; also see HERE.)
- Other Norman A. Daniels stories that we're pretty sure were his: "The Painted Circle" (HERE; third story); "Satan Turns the Timetables" (HERE; no longer online); "Man Afraid to Die" (HERE); "Medical Murder" (HERE); and "The Trap" (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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