I wrote this column a month ago but I have been overtaken by events (as you can tell if you look at the subject of my last few entries). So I am discussing a magazine that is off the newsstands, but since all the stories I mention are part of series, you will be able to read them in the future. Don’t despair. –RP

FOUR SERIES THE WRITERS STRIKE CAN’T HURT

by Robert Lopresti

I want to tell you about four very good stories in the January/February 2008 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Since no one seems to be using this website’s story review space — the most recent entry is one I wrote over the summer — I might as well get a column out of this. Each of these stories is from a series with its own special qualities, which is what I will try to emphasize. So, in no particular order…

Pandora’s Ghost Town

Gilbert M. Stack is one of several writers who are creating western mysteries for AHMM. His series (beginning with “Pandora’s Box”) features a professional bare-fist boxer named Corey Callaghan, his trainer Patrick O’Sullivan, and their mysterious acquaintance, professional gambler Pandora Parsons. Corey is tough and resourceful, Pandora is smart, and Patrick – well, he’s a brave old man but he mostly gets them into trouble, rather than out.

The unique thing about this series is how tightly the stories are tied together. In this one the trio travels on a stage coach leaving Fort Bridger, a month after the events in “Pandora’s Fort,” and Corey’s ribs are still sore from a beating he took a few stories back. You don’t need to have read all the stories to appreciate the new ones, but Stack puts in enough details to reward his regular readers.

This story begins with a stage coach accident – or is it an accident? Corey and Pandora have to pull together
an increasingly squabbling bunch of passengers to get them to a deserted mining town and then save themselves from a mysterious visitor. As always the strength of these stories is the sometimes fractious relationships between the three heroes.

Panic on Portage Path

The ransom note was delivered to the mansion on Portage Path on the postman’s Monday morning round, the first of two on his schedule for the day.”

That’s a good opening sentence, isn’t it? We know it’s a kidnapping story, we know something of the tone, and we certainly know it’s a historical. (At least, they don’t deliver the mail twice a day around here.).

Dick Stodghill is probably the only author writing a series set in Akron, Ohio — in the 1930s, yet. His narrator is reporter Bram Geary, but most of the detective work is done by Jack Eddy, who lives in the same boarding house as Bram, and is the manager of the Akron branch of the Wellington Detective Agency.

In this story a millionaire’s toddler son has been kidnapped and, while the ransom is delivered, the child is not recovered. Bram convinces the parents to hire Eddy and the result is a desperate night’s work in the hills of West Virginia. These stories are strong on period detail — you feel like you can see the thirties cars and clothes. Stodghill gives you the impression he really knows his stuff – and since he fought in World War II and worked for the Pinkertons, I guess he does..

A Killing in Midtown

G. Miki Hayden has an amazing series going about Miriam Obadah, an African woman who lives in Harlem. She is the older of two wives of a man named Kofi. (Kofi is too old to be much interested in women and the younger co-wife, Nana, is treated more like a daughter than anything else.)

In this story Nana has gotten a job as a lady’s room attendant in a fancy hotel. Someone is murdered there and Miriam goes to work (literally) in order to find out what happened.

The unique thing about this series is the world view. Miriam has been living in New York for several years but it is still a foreign place to her. She is not quite sure whether she is in the country legally, or permitted to work — which makes her a prime target for exploiters — and riding the subway is a terrifying new experience. But somehow Miriam will solve the crime and hold her little family together.

Numbskullduggery

John H. Dirckx writes about Detective Sergeant Cyrus Auburn, who works homicide in an anonymous city. These stories are about police procedure, not great leaps of intuition. They are occasionally witty, but never flashy.

In this story a controversial dealer in waste material gets killed, just as he is gearing up to run for political office. Auburn interviews suspects, examines physical evidence, and brings in an unlikely consultant – his high school Spanish teacher. Not surprisingly (in this series) the solution lies in a bit of material evidence, which Auburn is smart enough to locate.

While Auburn is essentially a one-man-show each story features brief appearances by a continuing supporting cast (coroner’s man, evidence guy, the boss), each of whom has his own personality and gets a few moments of air-time so to speak.

My favorite moment comes when Auburn tries to chastise his teacher for misbehavior:

“All the same, I can’t help thinking I made a mistake by bringing you into this case.”

“Well then, cheer up! It’s a good sign when you discover that you’ve made a mistake. It means you’re smarter now than you were when you made it!”

Auburn was quickly remembering how very exasperating Mr. Quick had been, and why Spanish hadn’t been his favorite subject.

Another thread from the web

The website for AHMM is The Mystery Place, one of the many useful links provided on the right side of this page. Enjoy.