12/31/2008 Donald E. Westlake dies

December 31, 2008.  Donald E. Westlake died in Mexico after a New Year's Eve dinner with his wife.  Westlake was an MWA Grand Master, and one of only three people to win the Edgar Award in three different categories.  He is the only author I know of who achieved his greatest fame by self-parody: his comic classics about thief John Dortmunder were a funhouse mirror reflection of the grim books about thief Parker, which he wrote under the name Richard Stark.

I once attended a conference where he was speaking and snuck into the dining room to rearrange place cards so I could sit at his table.  Dortmunder would have  approved. 

12/30/1956 Miss Marple meets the media

December 30, 1956.  Agatha Christie's elderly amateur sleuth, Jane Marple, has shown up in several movies and TV series, but her first appearance was on NBC's Goodyear TV Playhouse, showing on this night.  Gracie Fields starred in A Murder is Announced.  Roger Moore and Jessica Tandy also performed.

12/29/1881 A Tragic Mystery occurs

December 29, 1881.  On the evening of this day four members of a New York City gang called the Whyos entered a bar in Hell's Kitchen.  A few hours later the bar closed, the owner Louis Hanier, went down to investigate a noise and was shot dead.  Famous policeman Thomas F. Byrnes led the investigation that led to convictions of three men.  The leader of the Whyos, Mike McGloin, was hanged for the crime.

Connection to crime fiction?  Julian Hawthorne, son of Nathaniel and a very popular author in his own right at the time, wrote A Tragic Mystery, based on the events.  It was one of five books he co-authored with Byrnes, who supplied the plots.

Interestingly enough, Hawthorne  got to experience another side of the justice system in 1913 when he was sent to prison for selling three million shares in a mine that, alas, did not actually exist. 

12/28/195? Run Man Run begins

December 28, 195?.  The plot of Chester Himes' novel, Run Man Run  begins on this day when a drunken New York City cop strolls into a restaurant and kills two Black workers because, why not?  All the surviving witness has to do is stay away from the killer and convince the authorities to believe a Black man over a white cop.  How hard can that be?

Published in 1960, the book seems depressingly relevant for today's world.

12/27/1895 Staggerlee shot Billy

December 27, 1895.  According to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, on this day a pimp named "Stag" Lee Shelton killed William Lyons in a bar in St. Louis.  Apparently Lyon had stolen his Stetson hat.


A barroom killing may not sound like big news.  But the song that came from the event, "Staggerlee," has been recorded more than 400 times.  Apparently the first recording was in 1923  by... Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians????

In the most common version of the song Staggerlee dies in the electric chair and winds up taking over hell.  (He was  a bad man, that Staggerlee.)  In real life there was a hung jury.  On the second trial he was sentenced to twenty-five years in jail.  Later he was pardoned, for some strange reason, and killed another William during a burglary.  And he was pardoned again but died prior to release.

There is a fascinating website about the story/song.  Its creator says: No other song has so transcended its humble beginnings and been re-invented in so many genres, in so many media and by so many artists.

12/26/1917 Patricia McGerr is born

December 26, 1917.  Patricia McGerr, born on this day, was the author of more than 15 mystery novels, but she is best remembered for the ingenious concept of her first book, Pick Your Victim.

One member of a group of bored American soldiers at a base in the Arctic gets a package from home.  Among the wrappings is a scrap of his hometown newspaper, announcing that someone he knows has been convicted of murder - but the identity of the victim is not included.  So the soldiers pass the time by learning all that the recipient knows about the "suspects," trying to figure out who was killed.

Source of the date: Bill Malloy's Mystery Book of Days.

12/25/1960 The Innocents arrive in time for Christmas

December 25, 1960.  You might think it would be hard to find something mystery-related on Christmas day.  Not a big publishing date.  Ah, but tons of movies are released then.

The Innocents was an adaptation of Henry James' classic novella The Turn of the Screw, about a governess who becomes convinced her two young charges are being tormented by very nasty ghosts. Talk about a war on Christmas, huh?

Deborah Kerr starred.  The flick won the Edgar for best Mystery Motion Picture.