Sad News for the Mystery Community

by Steven Steinbock

I was just putting finishing touches on the following column, when I received a phone call from Doug Greene informing me that Ed Hoch has passed away. I always thought that Ed, like his fictional creation “Simon Ark,” was immortal. In a writing career that spanned more than half a century, he gave the world almost a thousand mystery short stories, with a story in every issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine since May 1973. You can read about his achievements on Wikipedia. Jiro Kimura, also a close friend of the Hoch’s, made an announcement on his Gumshoe Site. Our hearts go out to Patricia. We love you, Ed. And we’ll miss you.

Last week I listed five of my favorite Mystery reference works. In no particular order, they were:

1. Chris Steinbrunner and Otto Penzler, eds., Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection;

2. William L. DeAndrea, ed., Encyclopedia Mysteriosa;

3. Kate Stine, ed., The Armchair Detective Book of Lists;

4. Ellery Queen, Queen’s Quorum;

5. Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor, A Catalog of Crime .

Great suggestions were made by Jon Breen, Jeff Baker, and Martin Edwards. One of Jon’s suggestions was already on the second half of the list. The others titles listed by Jon, Jeff, and Martin all deserve attention. When I decided to limit myself to ten titles, I knew it was an almost impossible task. As Jon pointed out in his comment last week, I didn’t “leave much room in the other five available slots.”

(I already have a growing list of honorable mentions that I’ll name at the end of this article).

Martin Edwards mentioned Julian Symons’ Bloody Murder
(which was published in the US under the title Mortal Consequences in 1972, and subsequently reprinted in the US under it’s original title in 1985). This book wasn’t on my list, but probably should have been. It’s a history of the genre “from the detective story to the crime novel.” The subtitle is misleading. It implies that crime novels arrived on the scene, trumping short fiction, like homo-sapiens rendering Neanderthal man obsolete. But Symons does give fair play to the short story, including a chapter on its revival.

But now, on to the second half of my list:

6. Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller, 1001 Midnights (New York: Arbor House, 1986). This “Aficianado’s Guide” includes 1001 reviews, arranged alphabetically by author. Pronzini and Muller pulled in two dozen experts to contribute reviews.

7. Allen J. Hubin, The Bibliography of Crime Fiction (Del Mar, California: Publisher’s Inc., 1979). This is indispensible. Hubin is a mystery scholar and fan par excellence, and among other things, was the founder of The Armchair Detective. Among mystery collectors, this bibliography is so well known that it’s simply referred to as “Hubin.” In it, he has listed “all mystery, detective, suspense, police, and gothic fiction in book form published in the English language” from 1749 to 1975. Books are catalogued by author, title, and series. In 1999 Locus Press published a CD-ROM version of the bibliography with updates and corrections through 1995. (Locus also publishes CD-ROM versions of Walter Albert’s Detective and Mystery Fiction: An International Bibliography of Secondary Sources and William G. Contento’s Mystery Short Fiction Miscellany).

8. Howard Haycraft, Murder for Pleasure (New York: D. Appleton-Century Co., 1941). Jon mentioned this one, along with Haycraft’s The Art of the Mystery Story (which is a collection of critical essays by mystery writers and critics, and includes everything from Knox’s “Detective Story Decalogue” and Chandler’s “Simple Art of Murder” to Edmund Wilson’s insulting “Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?”). Murder for Pleasure is Haycraft’s comprehensive history of the genre and includes his “Detective Story Bookshelf” which formed the basis for the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstones list.

9. Ellen Nehr, Doubleday Crime Club Compendium (Martinez, California: Offspring Press, 1992). Crime Club was a special line or imprint published in the US by Doubleday from 1928 to 1991. It includes some of the greatest detective fiction published during that time, from Edgar Wallace to Ian Rankin. (In Great Britain, the Collins Crime Club published a similarly classy line of books from 1930 until 1994). Nehr gathered jacket information, artwork, and publication data on the entire series (around 2,700 books).

10. I’m weaseling out on this one. For the number ten position, I’m selecting two magazine indices The Armchair Detective and C.A.D.S. (both edited by Bill Deeck, with Steve Stilwell alongside with the TAD index, and Christine Simpson with CADS). CADS and TAD represent the two best sources of mystery scholarship for the fan. TAD ceased publication in 1997, but CADS, published several times a year by Geoff Bradley in Essex, UK. If I want to find information about a particular author or book, these indices are the second place (after DeAndrea’s encyclopedia) I check.

Ed: Our friend Steve at MysteryFile.com published a comprehensive article on Bill Deeck and The Armchair Detective.

Honorable Mentions

Kevin Hancer, Hancer’s Price Guide to Paperback Books

is a perpetually outdated source of pricing information, but an invaluable index of vintage paperback publication information.

Marv Lachman, American Regional Mystery is a great source of information if you want to find every mystery set in coastal Maine, or East L.A., or the south side of Chicago, with intelligent discussions of the types of themes and motifs that these regions elicit.

Hidetoshi Mori, Mystery Art Gallery. Okay, it’s in Japanese, but it’s beautiful. If anyone knows a nicer album of cover art, please tell me.