FORGOTTEN BOOK: TWELVE AMERICAN DETECTIVE STORIES

 Twelve American Detective Stories, edited by Edward D. Hoch  (1997)

A dozen detective stories that actually involve detection...a rarity for this day and age.  The American mystery story has evolved greatly since the days of Edgar Allan Poe, moving into all directions and sub-genres, but we should not forget that the American mystery got its start as a well-clued tale of detection.  Here are twelve stories, dating from 1844 to 1962, that highlight and/or pay homage to that humble beginning.  

"Murder, kidnapping, and theft are the principal crimes committed in these twelve American detective stories.  The victim may be an innocent baby or a double-crossing mobster, the setting a department store or death cell at the state prison, but the detective's intellectual powers must be unfailing, whether the important clue is a single bullet or a tiny splinter of wood."

If you are lucky enough to read this book, you will encounter some of the premiere detectives of the past and will have a chance to match wits with The Thinking Machine, Uncle Abner, John J. Malone, Sir Henry Merrivale, and others.  Good luck!

The stories:

• Edgar Allan Poe, " 'Thou Art the Man' "  (first published in Godey's Lady Book [as " 'Thou Art the Man!' " by Edgar A. Poe], November 1844; reprinted too many times to count)   An early experiment in detection, narrated by the detective himself, making the structure of the tale unusual.  The tale, although effective, is minor and can be considered a satire on Poe's own style.
• Jacques Futrelle, "The Stolen Reubens"  (a Thinking Machine story; first published in Associated Sunday Magazine, February 17, 1907; Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusan is known as The Thinking Machine because of his powers of logic, and was the focal point of many of Futrelle's short stories; in this case, he solves an impossible crime, the theft of a valuable Reubens painting, from what can be virtually considered a locked room; Futrelle died a a week after his 37th birthday in the sinking of the Titanic after making sure that his wife was safely on a lifeboat)
• Anna Katharine Green, "The Second Bullet" (a Violet Strange story first published in The Golden Slipper and Other Problems for Violet Strange, 1915; I covered this story earlier this week in my Short Story Wednesday post, which see)
• Melville Davissison Post, "The Age of Miracles" (an Uncle Abner story, first published in Pictorial Revue, February 1916;  Abner was a deeply religious man with an unshaking sense of justice who lived in pre-Civil War Virginia; the twenty-two stories about the character were narrated by his young nephew; in this tale. Abner takes umbrage at an old miser who has tricked a young woman out of her inheritance; the Uncle Abner stories were a major contribution to the American detective story)
• T. S. Stribling, "The Shadow" (a Henry Poggioli story first published in Redbook Magazine, February 1934; Stribling was a popular novelist who won the Pulitzer prize for his novel The Store (only one other Alabama author ever received the Pulitzer prize for a novel -- Harper Lee for To Kill a Mockingbird); in the 1920s and the 1930s Stribling was perhaps the most popular author in America -- he sold more books between the two world wars than any other writer; Stribling wrote over 35 stories about Poggioli, a psychologist and professor who used his knowledge of human behavior to solve complicated riddles; in this tale, a young bank clerk turns to Poggioli to help him find a missing woman, with little to go on but the clerk's ever-changing story)
• C. Daly King, "The Episode of the Nail and the Requiem"  (a Trevis Tarrant story first published in Mystery, March 1935, as "The Affair on the Roof;" also published as "The Nail and the Requiem;" King was a psychologist who published seven detective novels and one collection of short stories; his eighth novel was announced in the mid-1940s but was never published -- an example, according to Mike Grost, "of the deliberte suppression of the traditional detective story after 1945 by publishers;"  Trevis Tarrant's cases often involved horror motifs, bizarre events, and locked rooms; early tales were collected in 1935's The Curious Mr. Tarrant; an additional four Tarrant stories were written at the urging of Ellery Queen; Tarrant's cases tend to get "curiouser and curiouser;" "The Episode of the Nail and Requiem," has been considered a major contribution to the locked room mystery, in which a woman is killed in an artist's studio and the artist himself has vanished from a locked and sealed room; apropos of  nothing, it should be noted that in these tales Tarrant has a houseboy who is a Japanese spy)
• "Craig Rice" (Georgiana Ann Randolph), "His Heart Could Break"  (a John J. Malone story first published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, March, 1943; also published as "Hanged Him in the Mornin';" Rice once rivaled Agatha Christie in sales but is all but forgotten today; her blending of the hardboiled mystery with the screwball mystery has been hard to equal; her series character John J. Malone has a fondness for drink and for not losing a case not matter what (this last fondness brings to mind Lawrence Block's lawyer character Martin Ehrengraf -- no wonder,  Block ghost-wrote a John J. Malone story in 1960);  in "His Heart Could Break," Malone's client is on Death Row, but Malone managed to get a new trail for the man because Malone had some dirt on the judge -- he'd have to find a way to manufacture new evidence for the upcoming trial; while on his way to visit his client, the man hung himself in a locked prison cell; at least. that was what everyone assumed; this minor classic may be Rice's most reprinted short story)
• "Carter Dickson" (John Dickson Carr), "The House in Goblin Wood"  (a Sir Henry Merrivale story that first appeared in The Stand Magazine, November 1947, as by Carr;  HM was the main detective in the "Carter Dickson" novels; his physical appearance was based on Winston Churchill, just as Carr's Gideon Fell was based on G. K. Chesterton; HM was an ideosyncratic character who [for his sins] was both an accredited doctor and lawyer; in this story, Vicki Adams, who had disappeared from a locked room twenty years before and, on returning a week later, told her parents that she had been visiting the fairies, returns to the isolated house and again disappears from a locked room; is this a trick, or has something sinister happened?; Merrivale solves the case and gives the reader a classic last line in this fabulous tale)
• "Ellery Queen" (Frederick Dannay & Manfred B. Lee), "The Dauphin's Doll"  (an Ellery Queen short story, first published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, December 1948; the modern mystery owes much to the Queen name, both as authors and editors; in this story, elderly Cytherea Ypson has left her extensive doll collection to be auctioned to benefit orphaned children; the only doll in the collection really worth anything is an 18th century doll with a diamond attached to it that had belonged to the French royal family; the doll attracts the attention of a noted thief named Comus and Ellery and his father are called in to hopefully stop the theft; the doll is stolen and a substitute left and it is up to Ellery to solve the mystery; this was a Christmas tale of sorts which has Inspector Queen spending 22 hours making his turkey stuffing and Ellery discovering the pitfalls of wrapping presents; alas, on Christmas day the characters have to dine on pastrami, but not crow, luckily)
• Mary Roberts Rinehart "The Splinter" (first appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, September 1955; seven-year-old orphan Johnny Watson has been missing for three days and the entire town has been searching for him; on the night he disappesred his dog was found lame and exhausted; Johnny's guardian did not want the dog and refused to have him treated, so young Harold Johnson stole the dog and brought him to Doctor Mitchell to be treated; the dog's lameness was due to a splinter in his paw -- the only clue that Mitchell had to find young Johnny.  In addition to her mysteries, Rinehart wrote many best-selling books and created a series of populat stories featuring Letisha "Tish" Carberry, as well as founding a well-known Rinehart publishing house)
• Raymond Chandler, "The Pencil" (a Philip Marlowe story first published in The Daily Mail, April 6, 1959, as "Marlowe Takes on the Syndicate;" Ikky Rossen, a former mob figure, is being targeted to be "penciled" by mob hitmen and he goes to Philip Marlowe for help; blood, bullets, and betrayal follow.  I never understood the Hammett versus Chandler (versus Ross Macdonald versus Spillane) arguments -- they were all darned good writers; this story showcases Chandler at near the top of his form)
• Cornell Woolrich, "One Drop of Blood"  (first appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, April 1962; an unnamed man murders his lover and cleans up the crime scene so that no one could accuse him of the murder; an unnamed police detective continues to scour the scene, looking for "just one drop of blood" that would tie the murderer to the crime; not exactly a deus ex machina ending, but that important drop is discovered in the most logical place -- a place that the reader may have overlooked but surely one that an experienced police detective would consider; despite this weakness, the story is clever and well-written.  Woolrich was a master of suspense and desperation, although both are here only slightly)

My overall inpression?  A good, though not perfect, anthology that more than meets the premise of presenting the evolution of the detective story.  Recommended.