Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 835 & 836, March/April 2011

The Jury Box by Jon L. Breen

Short story collections have always been considered a dubious commercial proposition. Even when magazine markets were numerous and lucrative, single-author mystery collections were relatively rare. Ironically, today, with the number of major markets shrinking and mainstream publishing offering fewer slots of any kind for non- blockbuster writers, the rise of independent publishers and print-on-demand self-publishing has delight- fully increased the availability of single-author collections. Note that not one of the volumes considered below is from a major New York publisher.

**** Clayton Emery: Mandrake and Murder: The Robin and Marian Mysteries, Merry Man, $12.95. Eight of these dozen adventures for Robin Hood and the former Maid Marian first appeared in EQMM, the rest in original anthologies. A density of historical lore remarkable in such brief tales is combined with picturesque prose, well-described physical action, and sound detection. The sense of period authenticity is greater than in most historical detective fiction; wise though they are, the married sleuths respect and often share the attitudes and superstitions of their time. “Shriving the Scarecrow” is a fine example of the series.

**** Ed Gorman, Noir 13, Perfect Crime, $14.95. Of these 13 tales by a short-story master, over half are previously uncollected and apparently new to print. Especially chilling are “The Baby Store,” science fictional crime about designer children, and “Flying Solo,” about two cancer patients turned vigilante do-gooders. “A Little Something to Believe In,” written with Larry Segriff, examines religious belief through urban fantasy. Gorman goes for the gut and always hits his target.

**** Jonathan Woods: Bad Juju and Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem, New Pulp, $15. These 19 tales of erotic or absurdist noir are lively, imaginative, sometimes parodic, often darkly funny, accurately likened on the back-cover blurb to opium dreams and Quentin Tarantino. The final novella, “No Way, José,” is especially reminiscent in style and mood of Pulp Fiction. Exotic backgrounds abound, with “Incident in the Tropics,” equally damning of the Ugly American and the unscrupulous local, a strong example. Not my usual cup of tea, but it’s all executed with enormous skill by a writer of formidable talent.

*** Ennis Willie: Sand’s Game, Ramble House, $32 hardcover, $20 trade paper. Two novellas and three stories about ex-mobster turned avenging detective Sand, written for the 1960s sleaze market, represent an unfairly obscure writer highly regarded by crime-fiction pros like Max Allan Collins, who contributes an introduction; editors Lynn F. Myers, Jr., and Stephen Mertz; and introducers of individual stories Wayne D. Dundee, Bill Crider, Bill Pronzini, James Reasoner, and Gary Lovisi. Willie is most often compared to Mickey Spillane. For me at least, he’s better.

*** Arthur Porges: The Curious Cases of Cyriack Skinner Grey, Richard Simms, $20.95. Paraplegic scientist Grey plays wheelchair detective on a variety of bizarre cases, usually of the locked-room or impossible-crime variety. The fourteen (six from EQMM in the 1960s, five from AHMM in the 1970s, three new to print) are mostly very brief, with few developed characters apart from Grey, his genius teenage son, and police detective Trask, but they are full of ingenuity, humor, and learned allusions to science, literature, and music.

*** L. Ron Hubbard: The Trail of the Red Diamonds, Galaxy, $9.95 for book or dramatized CD set. Two novella-length adventure cum mystery stories based in 1930s China offer further evidence of Hubbard’s pulp-action mastery. The title tale recounts the search for Kubla Khan’s treasure, while “Hurricane’s Roar” concerns the unconventional and mysterious flying peacemaker known as Wind-Gone-Mad, met in an earlier collection.

*** Stephen D. Rogers: Shot to Death: 31 Stories of Nefarious New England, Mainly Murder, $14.95. The sometime EQMM poet is so smoothly readable, explores such a variety of inventive situations, and is so ambitious in structure and theme, even the stories that don’t quite hit the mark make enjoyable reading. Especially good ones include “A Dog Named Mule,” “A Friendly Game,” “Discharged,” and “Last Call.” Offbeat pure crime stories appear alongside unconventional private eye tales like “Sidewalk,” with its black-comedy punch line.

** William F. Nolan: Dark Dimensions, Darkwood, $17.99. The latest from one of the great masters of popular fiction, all previously uncollected and first published between 1995 and 2010, is a mixed bag. Making up for some minor items are the lead novella, “Horror at Winchester House,” an occult detective story about a real San Jose tourist attraction; a Hollywood private eye tale, “Vampire Dollars”; and a moving non-criminous autobiographical piece on loss and aging, “Getting Along Just Fine.” Nolan completists will want this; others should try earlier collections first.

** Gary Lovisi: Ultra-Boiled: Hard-Hitting Crime Fiction, Ramble House, $19.99 trade paper, $35 hardcover. Small-press publisher Lovisi’s tough crime stories are highly variable in quality. Good examples of his inventive plotting are “Love Kills” and “Not Much Joy in Prison,” while “Political Year” is a deeply cynical account of American politics that may be more accurate than we would hope. Seven of these 23 have been previously collected; five are new; the others appeared in various print and online publications.

Francis M. Nevins’s Night Forms (Perfect Crime, $16.95), includes everything in his earlier collections Night of Silken Snow (2001) and Leap Day (2003) plus four previously uncollected, among them his brilliant Ellery Queen pastiche “Open Letter to Survivors” and the Harry Stephen Keeler parody “The Skull of the Stuttering Gunfighter.” An extensive introduction and story afterwords add to the interest.

The title novella of Philip Wylie’s Ten Thousand Blunt Instruments and Other Tales of Mystery (Crippen & Landru, $29 hardcover, $19 trade paper) is a good 1944 American Magazine whodunit notable for its specialized background (the American Museum of Natural History) and its World War II period. Bill Pronzini’s introduction summarizes the author’s remarkably prolific and versatile literary career... Loren D. Estleman’s Amos Walker: The Complete Story Collection (Tyrus, $32.95) brings together 32 cases of the Detroit private eye, most previously uncollected and one new, plus an introduction by the author about his famous character... An obscurely-published and excellent 1959 short story, “Hard Case Redhead,” is included along with a novel and novella previously unpublished in the latest Peter Rabe omnibus, The Silent Wall/The Return of Marvin Palaver (Stark House, $19.95), introduced by Rick Ollerman... A mixed collection of Arthur Upfield’s fiction, Up and Down Australia (Lulu, $24.96), edited by Kees de Hoog, includes “Wisp of Wool and Disk of Silver,” the only short story about Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, originally published in EQMM in 1979 after being lost for decades, plus the first chapter of an unfinished Bony novel featuring the half-Aborigine sleuth’s wife, an off-stage presence in most of his cases.

The advent of the e-book reader has made easily accessible many old books expensive and scarce in their original editions, including some classic short-story collections. Anna Katharine Green’s 1915 volume about a young woman detective from the ranks of New York high society, The Golden Slipper and Other Problems for Violet Strange, contains delightful period detail, agreeably old-fashioned prose and dialogue, and some offbeat and cunningly plotted mysteries, including the bizarre classic “The Second Bullet.” It’s available from Amazon’s Kindle store for free.

Copyright © 2011 by Jon L. Breen