Publishers of mystery short story collections

I do not intend to comment about every book published by C&L, because I haven't read them all and don't intend to; after all, in any varied list there are items one has no interest in, especially, in my case, anything involving sports except for horse racing. But I do want to review some of the books, especially the ones in the "Lost Classics Series." (Of course, no book in the C&L inventory is reviewed that I don't have, or haven't read. There is a large selection, of which this web page only covers a few.)

The Lost Classics Series

• Anthony Berkeley (1893-1971): The Avenging Chance, and Other Mysteries from Roger Sheringham's Case Book (8 stories and et-cetera) -- The beer-drinking Roger Sheringham falls into the erratic-detective category among rivals of Sherlock Holmes -- that is, like Inspector Morse, he tends to jump to conclusions, brilliantly deduced but often wrong. More interesting in the novels about him, Sheringham still comes across well in these rather light short stories. The title story "The Avenging Chance" was later expanded into the classic novel "The Poisoned Chocolates Case" with its six alternative solutions (a tour de force, but somewhat contrived -- his best novels being written under the name Francis Iles as 'reverse' detective stories, and his classic Berkeley, not starring Sheringham, "Trial and Error"). "The Mystery of Horne's Copse" is the other superb story in this collection -- the others, unfortunately, are rather boring even though well-plotted; this author needs the longer form to express his ingenuity to the fullest.

• ** Christianna Brand (1907-1988): The Spotted Cat and Other Mysteries from Inspector Cockrill's Casebook (9 stories and a play) -- 'Cockie' as the birdlike little Chief Inspector is called, reminds one of Inspector Richard Queen. Cockrill, as his very name implies, is a birdlike little man, yet like a robin he always spots the worm with an uncanny eye. He is also a very clever town (i.e., not Scotland Yard) policeman, not so much with the forensics as with his quick mind for human relationships and the deviousness of the most apparently innocent, and of course the raptor's eye for the single slip-up of its prey. (He does not resemble the actor Alastair Sim, although "Green for Danger" is a classic mystery movie as well as a classic detective novel.) This is a good, if small, collection, the best stories to my mind being "Blood Brothers", "Poison in the Cup", "The Telephone Call", "The Kissing Cousin", and "The Man on the Roof" (an excellent 'locked-room' murder). As for the marvellous play, a Freemanesque 'inverted tale' where you see the villains at work before their detection, I'd like to see it performed -- perhaps British television with its knack for finding the right casting could come up with a Cockrill series...hint, hint. In any case, this book collects all of the short works concerning Cockrill. Interesting side note: Brand often casts her villains as ostensibly bitchy or publicly ditzy women; like as not cherchez la femme for the killer, with her man just a wimpish accomplice.

• Charles B. Child (1903-1993): The Sleuth of Baghdad (15 stories) -- Chafik J. Chafik is an Inspector of the Baghdad police in pre-Saddam Hussein days. He is a little man, a religious Moslem, who is both ruthless and compassionate, often coming out with Charlie-Chan-like aphorisms to spice up the exotic stories. His Sergeant Abdullah is his usual partner, but often he enlists the help of his 'Baker Street Irregulars' in the form of bazaar urchins led by his adopted son Faisal. "Death in the Fourth Dimension" is one of the best and most typical of the stories, all of which are entertaining and often clever -- in detection if not in the complexity of the crime.

• * Joseph Commings (1913-1992): Banner Deadlines: The Impossible Files of Senator Brooks U. Banner (14 stories) -- Senator Banner ('Bub') is a gigantic, sloppy man, US Senator from New York, who specializes in solving impossible crimes (while apparently not doing much 'senatoring'). All of these stories feature 'locked-room' murders, generally based on magical tricks of the professional magician sort -- more reminiscent of Clayton Rawson's Great Merlini than of John Dickson Carr. But given that, this is a long overdue collection of impossible crime stories that, save for a couple, have never appeared in a book since their publication in obscure detective magazines from 1947-1968 (and a few later). This book belongs on every aficionado's shelf.

• * William DeAndrea (1952-1996): Murder -- All Kinds (11 stories) -- This book contains all the mystery short stories written by this Edgar-award-winning author. Apart from Matt Cobb, a TV executive and amateur sleuth, DeAndrea did not write series books, but one-offs -- and very good they are. There are two good Sherlock Holmes pastiches here (even if one of them is told as if from the point of view of Mickey Spillane!) Of the Matt Cobbs -- he is a troubleshooter for a large TV network -- there is one with an ingenious murder method, viz. dropping poison-ivy leaves down a chimney into a lighted fireplace! Good stories in this anthology and it is too bad there can be no more.

• Peter Godfrey (1917-1992): The Newtonian Egg, and Other Cases of Rolf le Roux (10 stories) -- 'Oom Rolf' (one is tempted to call him Oom-pah) is a South African lawyer who aids his nephew, a police lieutenant, in solving unusual crimes. Exotic only if you regard South Africans as 'foreign' (i.e., non-British) otherwise not much African about it except for some weird ways of talking English -- when's the last time you heard your Kaffir call you Baas? There is however, a classic story or two, the ingenious "Newtonian Egg", involving a salt cellar, with its great opening line 'The dying man ate a hearty wedding breakfast', and "The Flung-back Lid" (great title), involving one of those ski lifts, no, gondolas, cable cars, whatsis -- my mind is going, since these things scare me so much I don't have a word for them -- anyway the best story ever written about such a thing. There is a very touching introduction by his son, who obviously loved him very much, and the author got into a lot of trouble with his anti-apartheid views, not that you see much of this in the stories. But there is a bit too much of the 'I ate breakfast consisting of bacon and rotten eggs on that day when I wrote this story' in the cutesey prefaces to each entry.

• * Gerald Kersh (1911-1968): Karmesin: The World's Greatest Crook -- or Most Outrageous Liar (17 stories) -- Not mysteries, but stories that fall into the wonderful sub-category of fiction which I'll dub the 'Mulliner' (based on the P.G. Wodehouse character who told great tall tales in the pub). All amusing scam tales, all with a little lesson in humility, all with some ingenious twist. All light-weight amusement of the highest order.They are mercifully short, as such things should be elst you'd pick holes in them -- would that neat scam really work, well.... No selecting the best here -- this is like eating chocolates out of a Xmas box, they are all good, but you shouldn't eat them all at once.

• ** C. Daly King (1895-1963): The Complete Curious Mr. Tarrant (12 stories) -- Trevis Tarrant is a detective of the 'dilettante' class (like Philo Vance). All of the short stories about him are collected here, including four uncollected later ones (which I'm sad to say are not very good compared with the early output). The following are outstanding (all beginning with 'The Episode of'): "The Codex' Curse" (one of those museum objects with a curse on it that kills people), "The Nail and the Requiem" (a famous 'locked-room' mystery, often antholgized; not for the claustrophobic!), "'Torment IV'" (why would people jump overboard from a motorboat for no apparent reason?), "The Vanishing Harp" (a complicated 'locked room' extravaganza), "The Final Bargain" (why does Tarrant disappear for several years into the Himalayas like Sherlock Holmes?), and "The Perilous Talisman" (an ancient Egyptian box that is deadly to those who open it). I must say that Tarrant's Watson, Jerry Phelan, is something of a jerk (sports and adolescent sex -- Tarrant himself is an idiot in the latter way), but his butler Katoh, who doubles as a Japanese spy, is a marvellous 'throwaway' creation who plays a major role in TT's deductions but never gets any credit -- hell, he's on salary.

• Helen McCloy (1904-1993): The Pleasant Assassin and Other Cases of Dr. Basil Willing (10 stories) -- Dr. Willing is a psychiatrist, which is the basis of his detection methods. He is better known from the mystery novels, but this is a good collection of all the scant short-story output. I have to say up front that Willing is to my mind a pretty boring and uninteresting detective, his professionalism on the level of dentistry as far as its expertise intrigues the reader, but given that, there are some interesting cases that came into his purview, his pontifical explications notwithstanding. Not, however, the one about the flying saucers the editors made such a hype of, even putting it on the cover painting! Sorry, folks, but I'm not willing to admit Willing to the top rank of GAD, although McCloy is important historically.

• Gladys Mitchell (1901-1983): Sleuth's Alchemy, Cases of Mrs. Bradley and Others (31 stories) -- Mrs. Bradley, the author's prime detective, is hardly in a half dozen in this book, which consists of short-short stories published in the newspaper The Evening Standard in the early 1950s. Light anecdotal reads, with a twist at the end. Mitchell has a reputation among some critics as being on a par with Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers (I happen not to agree, having read two or three of the detective novels), but the stories in this collection are light-weight and for the most part disappointing, apart from the first three or four that are good Mrs. Bradleys.

Main List

• John Dickson Carr (1906-1977): Speak of the Devil -- This long radio play aired by the BBC in 1941 by the master of the Locked Room mystery has one of his historical settings (1815, eve of Battle of Waterloo). Very nice indeed, even if it doesn't feature a typical impossible crime. Must admit, as with other productions of Carr's for the radio, I'd rather hear it performed than read it. Out of print almost as soon as it was issued, the book came into my possession through ABEbooks, and now completes my collection of every book ever published under that author's byline.

  See the MysteryList web page about John Dickson Carr, the most ingenious of the GAD group. Note: C&L are coming out with a collection of his stage plays next year to mark the author's centennial.

• ** Michael Gilbert: The Man Who Hated Banks, and Other Mysteries -- Excellent collection of 18 stories containing his series detectives Chief Inspector Hazlerigg, lawyer Henry Bohun, Chief Inspector Mercer, and the policeman Patrick Petrella. Outstanding are: "Back in Five Years", "Balloons Will Be Released", "The Awkward Customer", "Follow the Leader", "An Appealing Pair of Legs", "Money Is Honey", "The Craven Case", and "The Man Who Hated Banks." The stories tend to be 'procedurals' for the most part, but usually end with a nice twist.
• Michael Gilbert: The Curious Conspiracy, and Other Crimes -- Nice collection of 20 stories (including one Hazlerigg and three Petrellas), all from magazines and newspapers. One wishes this book also contained stories about his other series characters, Calder and Behrens -- but none exist uncollected that I'm aware of. This is a book for completists.

  See the MysteryList web page about Michael Gilbert, the greatest surviving member of the GAD group.

• ** Edward D. Hoch: Diagnosis: Impossible, the Problems of Dr. Sam Hawthorne -- Mysteries solved by Dr. Hawthorne, a new England practicioner with a bent for solving 'impossible crimes' (12 of some 50 collected here). [more to come...]
• Edward D. Hoch: The Ripper of Storyville, and Other Ben Snow Tales -- Stories set in the Wild West in the late 19th Century, starring Ben Snow the Gunman (14 out of some 35 collected here). [more to come...]
• Edward D. Hoch: The Velvet Touch -- Stories about the odd crook Nick Velvet, who only steals worthless things for a fee; eight also contain his rival Sandra Paris. (14 out of some 77 collected here.) [more to come...]
• * Edward D. Hoch: The Old Spies Club, and Other Intrigues of Rand -- Stories about the retired spy Jeffery Rand (15 out of some 79 collected here). [more to come...]
• Edward D. Hoch: The Iron Angel, and Other Tales of the Gypsy Sleuth -- Stories about the Romanian Gypsy King Michael Vlado (15 out of some 27 collected here). [more to come...]

  A note about Hoch: His detection output has been exclusively in short-story form, mostly published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, involving a number of separate series characters in God knows how many hundreds of stories. Obviously, he is one of my favorite writers in this form, hence all the titles in my library (including a now rare EQMM pulp anthology The Spy and The Thief -- Rand and Velvet). It is time for me to do some rereading to finish reviewing these books; it has been several years since I first read them.

• * Peter Lovesey: Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose (15 stories, including 2 Diamonds and 2 Berties) -- The title refers to the fact that these complex little stories should be read in small doses, "One or two at a sitting ought to be enough -- which explains the title I chose." Of course, being a compulsive, I gulped them all down in a day and perhaps OD'd, not appreciating them to their full extent. But my favorites are "Bertie and the Fire Brigade," "Disposing of Mrs Cronk," "The Mighty Hunter," "Murder in Store," "Never a Cross Word," "A Parrot Is Forever," and "Wayzgoose," an Inspector Diamond story.
• * Peter Lovesey: The Sedgemoor Strangler (16 stories) -- The author is an adept short-story writer of the generally brief sort, and as he says here, "...a satisfying story will intrigue the reader with a crime that aspires to perfection and almost succeeds," meaning that the emphasis is on cleverly devised plots. Some real people appear here -- Hare, of Burke and Hare the body-snatchers, Jacques Futrelle of Thinking Machine fame ("The Problem of Stateroom 10"), and Holmes and Watson ("The Four Wise Men"). The Holmes story is an excellent and witty pastiche, and the Futrelle of course has the writer going down with the Titanic without being able to reveal his detection of a 'perfect crime'.

• * Bill Pronzini: Carpenter and Quincannon: Professional Detective Services (9 stories) -- Set in late 19th-Century California and Nevada, John Quincannon is an ex-Secret-Service agent and his partner Sabina Carpenter the widow of a Pinkerton detective. (Don't confuse this Quincannon with Lou Quincannon, an 1830s New York lawyer/sleuth whose excellent cases were chronicled by Raymond Paul.) Good period pieces that capture the times and are generally concerned with various cons and criminal sleaze popular then as well as now -- gambling, fake spiritualists, Chinese tong gangs, etc. -- and a few odd-ball things peculiar to the period -- rainmaking, old-fashioned trains, and river boats (ferries).
• Bill Pronzini and Barry Malzberg: Problems Solved (22 stories) -- Very short stories, with usually a nice twist ending, written in collaboration between the hard-boiled detective novelist Pronzini and the science fiction writer Malzberg. Light-weight but very entertaining twist-in-tails. It's a matter of taste which are the best, but my favorites were "I Ought to Kill You," "A Matter of Life and Death," and "Vanishing Point" (featuring a Lunar immigration inspector). Note: the book was dedicated to the late Clyde Taylor, who was a fine literary agent at Curtis Brown, my wife's colleague and friend.

• Ellery Queen: The Tragedy of Errors, and Others -- Mostly essays (22) about Ellery Queen, six rather humdrum uncollected short stories, and the outline of a novel (the title) that was never completed. It is interesting to read the outline, to get an idea how the authors composed their stories; it would have made a good novel, although not the best of the EQ's, which tended to be the earlier ones. You have to be an EQ fan to want this book -- if you are, you MUST have it. If you aren't, well I don't like tofu either.
• * Ellery Queen: The Adventure of the Murdered Moths and Other Radio Mysteries -- The Adventures of Ellery Queen radio show on CBS (1939-1948) had some 350 plays; here are 14 of them. Very nice stuff when you turn your reading into auditory mode (which means you have to hear the settings and character descriptions rather than have them presented as text). Many are hokey, as EQ's work often tends to be, but at least five of them are classics, and all of them feature a Challenge to the Listener section ("you have all the clues, now try to solve it"), reminiscent of the early EQ books. There are a couple of funny interludes, where the host Bert Parks plugs Gulf No-Nox gasoline (probably as full of lead as a gangster's gat) to the studio jury panel. No doubt, I hope, there will be more of these collections. In fact, one should encourage Crippen & Landru to publish more period radio plays by various authors -- this is an untapped resource for Golden Age Mystery fans.