12/7/1996 The strange death of Eugene Izzi

December 7, 1996.  Eugene Izzi, a Chicago native, wrote more than a dozen crime novels, but he is best remembered for the strange circumstances of his death.

On this date his body was found hanging by the neck outside the window of his fourteenth-story office in Chicago.  He was wearing a bulletproof vest and had in his pockets, brass knuckles, a can of pepper spray, and a disc with an unfinished manuscript.

The coroner called it suicide but, not surprisingly, his family had doubts.

11/13/2003 The Pillowman premieres

November 13, 2003.  The Pillowman premiered on this date at the Cottlesloe Theatre in London.  The play by Martin McDonagh was about Katurian, a murder suspect because his short stories resemble the deaths of several children.  It ran on Broadway for five months in 2005.  It won the Olivier Award and two Tonys.

10/13/1989 Crimes and Misdemeanors revealed

October 13, 1989.  Woody Allen is not generally thought of as a director of crime movies, but there are Take The Money and Run, Manhattan Murder Mystery, and Small Time Crooks, among others.  And there is Crimes and Misdemeanors, released on this day.

Allen and Martin Landau star as two men in bad marriages, at least one of whom is considering murder as a solution.

The movie was nominated for three Oscars, and the Edgar.

10/7/2014 Shanks on Crime on time

October 7, 2014.  On this day Shanks on Crime was published.  Leopold Longshanks is a curmudgeonly mystery writer who just wants to create his books in peace, but true crimes keep interfering...  Most of these stories appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, but four are new.

10/1/1923 The Continental Op arrives

October 1, 1923.  "Arson Plus," by Peter Collinson appeared in the issue of Black Mask with this cover date.  Peter Collinson was really Dashiell Hammett and this was the first appearance by one of his greatest characters, the nameless, cynical, overweight, private eye known as the Continental Op.

9/19/1936 The False-Face Murders

September 19, 1936.  On this day Detective Fiction Weekly served up the first third of "The False-Face Murders" by Judson Phillips.   You can read it here.  Phillips was better known for the mysteries he wrote later under the name Hugh Pentecost.  He scored more than 100 books in all. 

8/15/1888 Waxwork begins

August 15, 1888.  The action began on this date in Waxwork, Peter Lovesey's last novel about Victorian police detective Sergeant Cribb.  The wife of a photographer is convicted of murder.  While she is awaiting execution a photo is anonymously sent to the government that seems to prove she could not have done it.  Cribb is ordered to settle the question, quietly, and before the execution date.

One of my favorite mystery novels, period.

8/12/1876 Had she but known

August 12 1876.  Mary Roberts Rinehart was born this day in Pennsylvania.  In 1907 she wrote The Circular Staircase, a mystery novel that sold more than a million copies.  She was a prolific and highly successful writer but is perhaps best known today as a creator of  the "Had I But Known" school of suspense.  She is also credited/blamed for the cliche "the butler did it," although that phrase does not appear in her novel in which the butler, in fact, did.

8/7/1951 The Pedestrian appears

August 7, 1951.  The issue of The Reporter bearing this date featured a short story by Ray Bradbury called "The Pedestrian."  It was science fiction.  It was also crime fiction.  Briefly, in the year 2131 a man is arrested for walking down a city street.  (I feel obliged to say that in this case his race had nothing to do with it.)  Bradbury wrote it after being stopped (but not arrested) by cops in southern California for the same offense.  You can read the story here or in his collection The Golden Apples of the Sun.

7/23/1956 First murder in the 87th Precinct

July 23, 1956.  The first recorded murder in the 87th Precinct took place on this date.  It appeared in Ed McBain's novel Cop Hater.  Over the next half century McBain went on to write more than sixty of these police procedurals, killing hundreds of fictional souls.  His series included romances, a ghost story, a political satire... and a great demonstration of how far the genre can stretch.

Mystery writer William DeAndrea once noted with surprise that he had never included McBain when asked for a list of his favorite mystery writers.  He concluded that McBain was like the Beatles in the 1960s.  You didn't bother to list them as one of your favorite bands; they were a given.

7/17/2015 Greenfellas arrive

July 17, 2015.  Today was the official publication date for Greenfellas, a novel by Robert Lopresti.  And here is the first review:

**** Robert Lopresti, GREENFELLAS, Oak Tree Press, $17.95. If Carl Hiassen and Al Gore had collaborated on RESERVOIR DOGS, it might have come out something like GREENFELLAS. Then again, it probably wouldn't. Robert Lopresti, whose stories have appeared in EQMM, AHMM, and THE STRAND, among others, has penned a comic crime novel in which a New Jersey mobster with a bad comb-over decides to use his resources to save the environment for future generations. The dialogue is crisp and the situations darkly funny. - Steve Steinbock, "The Jury Box," ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE, August, 2015.

Kings River Life Magazine named it one of the best mysteries of the year.

7/12/2002 The Road to Perdition is opened

July 12, 2002.  This day saw the premiere of the movie based on Max Allan Collins' graphic novel The Road to Perdition.  Tom Hanks plays a 1930s hitman whose wife and son are killed by his beloved boss's son.  He goes on the road with his remaining son, who he wants to keep safe.  But we know about the road paved with good intentions...

The movie was nominated for six Oscars and won for Best Cinematography (inspired by Richard Piers Rayner's graphic work).

7/1/2005 Such A Killing Crime

July 1, 2005.  Robert Lopresti's novel of murder during the folk music revival in Greenwich Village, 1963, is published, by Kearney Street Books.

Folksinger Tom Paxton said of the book: "Spooky. If I'd known he was watching us all so carefully,. I'd have behaved much better."

6/21/1996 Lone Star launches

June 21, 1996.  Today saw the release of Lone Star, written and directed by John Sayles.  It was a terrific movie entangling half a dozen stories in a  small border town in Texas next to an army base.  One of them is a long-unsolved murder.

It starred Chris Cooper, Kris Kristofferson, Elizabeth Peña, Matthew McConaughey, and Joe Morton.  It was nominated for both an Oscar and an Edgar.

Cliff: You're gonna get married?
Mickey: Maybe.
Cliff: You met her family? Think her family's gonna be okay that you're a white guy?
Mickey: They think any woman over 30 who isn't married is a lesbian. She figures, they'll be so relieved that I'm a man...
Cliff: Yeah, it's always heartwarming to see a prejudice defeated by a deeper prejudice.

6/13/2005 The Closer opens

June 13, 2005.  Today saw the premiere of TNT's hit cop show, The Closer. Kyra Sedgwick starred as a deputy police chief in LA who specialized in getting confessions.  From the guilty people we help.  It ran for six years.

6/2/2012 Ferris wins the Bony Blithe

June 2, 2012. The Bloody Words Conference in Canada decided to give out a prize for the best traditional mystery of the year, "books that make us smile."  The first Bony Blithe Award was announced on this day and it went to Gloria Ferris for Cheat The Hangman.

5/29/1937 Flash!

May 29, 1937.  The issue of Detective Fiction Weekly with this cover date featured a new story by Richard Sale.  It was the first that included both of his most popular characters.  Daffy Dill was a reporter and Candid Jones was a photographer and insurance investigator.

Award-winning mystery writer Evan Lewis selected this story for the Mystery Classics section of the May 2015 issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.  He said that "'Flash!', told entirely through letters, telegrams,news reports, radio bulletins and one-sided phone calls, was one of the most unusual stories in the magazine's long history.  And it's a great introduction to the wild world of Richard Sale."

If you want to read it you had better get your hands on the May 2015 issue of AHMM.  Easier to find than a 1937 DFW.

5/20/1939 And Then There Were None...

May 20, 1939.  Agatha Christie seemed determined to try every possible variation of the murderer-suspects-victim-detective combination.  This date saw the publication in the Saturday Evening Post of the first episode of the American edition of And Then There Were None, one of her most audacious explorations of her chosen field.

Ten people, all with shady pasts, are guests on an island.  There is no way off.  And somebody is killing them all, one by one...  The climax is breathtaking.

The New York Times Book Review: "The whole thing is utterly impossible and utterly fascinating. It is the most baffling mystery that Agatha Christie has ever written, and if any other writer has ever surpassed it for sheer puzzlement the name escapes our memory. We are referring, of course, to mysteries that have logical explanations, as this one has. It is a tall story, to be sure, but it could have happened."

5/5/2014 Shanks Holds The Line.

May 5. 2014.  Trace Evidence, the Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine blog, puts up a free short story.  Robert Lopresti offered "Shanks Holds The Line" as a public service, to warn people about a certain scam.

4/28/1962 The Defenders courts controversy

April 28, 1962.  Perhaps I should not be including this here, because the producers of the The Defenders proudly proclaimed that this was the first TV law show that was not a mystery.  They meant that it was not a whodunit.  Instead the question was usually: was it really a crime, or did the person deserve to go to jail?  And the father-and-son law partners (E.G. Marshall and Rex Reed) argued with each other as much as they did with the prosecutors.  In short, The Defenders was the first modern lawyer series.

And it was not afraid of controversy.  The episode that appeared on this night was "The Benefactor," and it was about a physician who admitted performing 1,500 illegal abortions (while turning down 8,000 women whose reasons he considered insufficient).

Not surprisingly, sponsors ran away from this subject.  But Speidel Watches jumped in where Kimberley-Clark, Lever Brothers, and Brown & Williamson fled, and the show went on, to an audience of 28 million.

Fortunately the Supreme Court settled the abortion issue in 1973 and we have never had to worry about it again. 

4/22/2001 Nero Wolfe comes to A&E

April 22, 2001.  On this date A&E premiered Nero Wolfe, arguably the best media version of Rex Stout's classic private eye tales.  Tim Hutton is a great fan of the books and he organized the series and played Archie Goodwin.  Murray Chaykin played the big man.  In two seasons they faithfully reproduced about one-quarter of the novels and novellas. 

Two odd things about the show: they had an ensemble cast, so an actor playing a suspect in one episode might be a victim in the next.  Second, they generally set the show in whatever decade the book was written, so stories bounced between the forties, fifties, and  sixties.  

4/13/1979 A Mysterious Bookstop opens its doors

April 13, 1979.  On this date Otto Penzler opened the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City.  It is still going, the oldest crime book store surviving in the U.S.A> and the only one in the Big Apple.

4/2/2012 Greenfellas starts

April 2, 2012.  On this date Sal Caetano orders the killing of a member of his mob family who had made a big mistake.  But Sal's life really gets interesting a few days later when he becomes a grandfather - and discovers that climate change might make his little granddaughter's future unlivable.  So Sal decides to use all his Mafia skills to save the environment.  Hey, how hard can it be?

4/1/1959 The Deaf Man arrives

April 1, 1959.  One of the great villains of crime fiction makes his first appearance on April Fool's Day, appropriately enough, when Ed McBain's The Heckler opens.  The Deaf Man (he uses a hearing aid and always uses pseudonyms that relate to deafness) is brilliant, dangerous, and sexy.  We never learn anything about his background, true identity, or why he takes great glee in harassing the cops of the 87th Precinct.  Like a Batman villain, he will send the cops clues as to his intentions, but his goal is to use their investigations as part of his own elaborate plots. He is usually foiled by accidents and coincidence, not by the actions of our heroes, and then slinks off to rob another day. He appears in six of the novels, making his last escape in Hark! (2004). 

3/17/2007 Sister Fidelma is the Grand Marshal

March 17, 2007.  Happy St. Patrick's Day to you!

Nine years ago the town of Cashel in County Tipperary, Ireland had a rather special Grand Marshal for their annual St. Paddy's Day parade.  Special because she is a brilliant detective.  Special because she was born in the seventh century.  And special because she is fictional.

Sister Fidelma was created by Peter Tremayne who has written more than twenty novels about her.  She was a nun, then a lawyer, and in the great tradition of the field, she keeps finding dead bodies and puzzles to solve.

You can see some pictures of the festivities here.

3/16/1996 Dalziel and Pascoe premieres

March 16, 1996.  Today saw the premiere of the TV series Dalziel and Pascoe on BBC One.  The cop show was based on the novels of Reginald Hill.  It starred Warren Clarke as Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel and Colin Buchanan as Detective Inspector Peter Pascoe.  There were 46 episodes, one of which won the Edgar Award for best television episode.

3/7/1922 Sara Woods is born

March 7, 1922.  Lana Hutton Bowen-Judd was born this day in Yorkshire, England.  Under the name Sara Woods she was the author of almost fifty mysteries starring a solicitor named Anthony Maitland. 

3/1/2016 TiMH takes a break

March 1, 2016. I have logged on this site every day for fourteen months, but it is time to take a hiatus.  (Hopefully not "suspending my campaign" as the candidates say.)  I have a deadline for a book and I need to concentrate on that.  Things will show up here occasionally, mostly ones that I set up long in advance for one reason or another.  If you have the site on your RSS feed it will show up there.

I will still be doing my thing at SleuthSayers and Little Big Crimes.

Otherwise, see ya around.  Thanks for reading.

2/29/1924 Hashknife and the Phantom Riders

February 29, 1924.  W.C. Tuttle wrote more than 1,000 stories, plus some novels.  Most of them were westerns.

His most popular character was Hashknife Harley, cowboy and amateur detective.  Accompanied by his friend and sometimes narrator, Sleepy Stevens, he wandered the west ropin' cattle and solvin' crimes.

The Leap Day 1924 edition of Adventure Magazine featured "Hashknife and the Phantom Riders," about which I know nothing.

2/28/1945. MWA files its birth certificate

February 28, 1945.  On this date, the Mystery Writers of America filed its articles of incorporation in Albany, New York, beginning a long and distinguished career as one of the country's greatest organizations for writers (or so says a man with a membership card in his wallet).

Among the organizers were Dorothy B. Hughes, Rex Stout, Ellery Queen, Erle Stanley Gardner, Helen McCloy, and Howard Haycraft.  Clayton Rawson offered the slogan that still remains: "Crime Does Not Pay - Enough."

Source: Barry T. Nevin and Angela Nevin, "Mystery Writers of America, Inc." The Armchair Detective.  26 (2)  1993.

2/27/19?? V.I. Warshawski is born

February 27, 19??.  Happy birthday to Chicago private eye V.I Warshawski.  Sara Paretsky created her in Indemnity Only, published in 1982.   Since then there has been amovie and eighteen more novels, mostly bestsellers.  

2/26/1974 The Dreadful Lemon Sky

February 26, 1974.  John D. MacDonald's The Dreadful Lemon Sky was published on this date.  It was his sixteenth novel about salvage consultant Travis McGee.  It was his second in hardcover.

Am I the only one who thinks he was getting a little desperate for color-involved titles at this point?  Give the man credit for courage, though: Using a title with the word "dreadful" and the word "lemon" is offering critics two temptations they would find it  hard to resist.

2/25/2016 Left Coast Crime starts today

February 25, 2016.  At this very moment a lot of suspicious types are skulking into Phoenix, Arizona, for Left Coast Crime, Guests of honor include Gregg Hurwitz, Catriona McPherson, Ann Cleeves, and Chantelle Aimée Osman.  Four days of panels.  Wish I was there.

2/24/1909 August Derleth arrives

February 24, 1909.  August Derleth was born on this day in Sauk City, Wisconsin.  He is probably best remembered today as H.P. Lovecraft's number one fanboy, being the first to publish the horror master's works in books, and also the first to carry on the Cthulu Mythos.  He founded Arkham House (named after the fictional city where much of Lovecraft's horrors took place), which became the major publisher opf horror.

But our main interest in him is through the creation of Solar Pons, a consulting detective who lived in London with a physician friend who narrated his cases.   In short, the Pons stories were pastiches of Sherlock Holmes  - as close as Derleth could get to writing about the Master without incurring the rather of Arthur Conan Doyle's estate.  (In 1946 the family tried to stop him anyway.  They failed.)

Derleth's stories were considered by many, including Ellery Queen, to be among the best of pseudo-Sherlock.

2/23/1966 Harper hits the screen

February 23, 1966.  One of the best-loved private eye movies opened today.  Harper was written by William Goldman, based on Ross Macdonald's The Moving Target.  His series character Lew Archer became Lew Harper, either because Paul Newman had had two hit movies with names beginning with H, or - more likely - because the producers didn't buy the rights to the whole series of novels.  Jack Smight directed.

It was a big hit - in spite of that terrible poster - and won the Edgar for Best Motion Picture.

2/22/1930 Edward D. Hoch arrives

February 22, 1930.  On this date Edward D. Hoch was born in Rochester, New York.  He wrote more than 950 stories.  This included at least one tale in every issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine for an incredible 34 years.

Thirty years ago I attended an Edgars Symposium sponsored by the Mystery Writers of America.  The moderator of one panel bragged that everyone on his panel was an MWA Grand Master.  Ed Hoch immediately and politely corrected him; he had received an Edgar for Best Short Story but he had not been made a Grand Master.

I could hear astonished murmurs from the audience.  Even back then his published output was unbelievable.  In 2001 the MWA fixed their oversight.

He died, still in Rochester, in 2008.

2/21/1997 Lost Highway opens

February 21, 1997.  This date saw the release of Lost Highway, a typically strange David Lynch flick.  Bill Pullman plays a saxophone player who gets framed for his wife's murder.  After that things get strange...

2/20/1992 Black Market opens

February 20, 1992.  This day saw the publication of Black Market, a thriller by Robert Tine.  A New York art dealer is asked to evaluate a painting passed down through the family.  Turns out to be a 400-year-old Italian old master.  Cut to flashbacks of the African-American quartermaster corps in occupied Rome...

Publishers Weekly said: "Tine blends impoverished Italian nobility, Army bureaucrats, South African bigots, eccentric Brits and Holt, with his demand for dignity and justice, to yield a rich palette. A genius at characterization, he indelibly etches the personalities of this wildly diverse cast of players."

2/19/1951 Murder By The Book begins

February 19, 1951.  This date sees the beginning of Murder By The Book, Rex Stout's fourteenth novel about the fat orchid-hoarding genius private eye, Nero Wolfe.  Technically there is one earlier scene, set in January, but we all know the real action doesn't start until somebody offers Wolfe a fee.  That someone is John Wellman, a Peoria businessman whose daughter was run over and killed.

The solution depends in part on Wolfe's phenomenal memory, both for names and for books.  It is the only book in which Archie Goodwin, Wolfe's trusty assistant, leaves New York for Los Angeles.  Naturally, it rains the entire time he is there.

2/18/1993 Hard Evidence appears

February 18, 1993.  This day saw the publication of Hard Evidence.  It was John Lescroat's third novel about California D.A. Dismas Hardy.  Kirkus Review said: "As in Presumed Innocent, the courtroom battles, once they're joined, are so keen that you almost forget there's a mystery too. But Lescroart's laid-back, soft-shoe approach to legal intrigue is all his own."

2/17/1924 Cornell Woolrich in a hotel room

February 17, 1924.  Cornell Woolrich wrote a novel called Hotel Room, published in 1958.  Each chapter was a separate story taking place in Room 923 of the Hotel St. Anselm  in New York.  The story set us on this day involved a gangster in big trouble.

2/16/1965 Baker Street on Broadway

February 16, 1965.  On this date Sherlock Holmes arrived on Broadway in the form of Baker Street,  a musical.  It was written by Jerome Coopersmith, with most songs by Marian Grudeff and Raymond Jessell, and ran for over 300 performances.

Fritz Weaver played you-know-who.  Tommy Tune and Christopher Walken made their Broadway debuts.

2/15/1980 That Sinking Feeling rises

February 15, 1980.  Today saw the release of a strange, but very funny caper movie.  That Sinking Feeling is set in Glasgow, Scotland.  There's a recession and four young men are desperately unemployed.  Their plan is to commit one big crime that will set them up for life.   And so they plan to rob ... a warehouse full of kitchen sinks.

Come to think of it, maybe these guys would be unemployable even in a good economy.

This was supposedly the most low-budget feature film in British history, and it shows.  But it is hilarious.  

2/14/1930 The Maltese Falcon rises

February 14, 1930.  A lot of great event choices for Valentine's Day, but let's go with the publication on this date of one of the classic mystery novels of all time.

Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon first appeared in Black Mask Magazine  in five installments. There are about 2,000 differences between the two texts, about one-third of them being more than just copyediting.  Six editions sold out that year.

If by any chance you are one of those people who saw the John Huston/Humphrey Bogart flick (the third movie based on the novel)  but haven't read the book, let me urge you to do it.  For one thing, you will learn who searched Brigid O'Shaughnessy's apartment while she was sleeping with Sam Spade.  (It's mentioned in the movie but never explained.)  You'll be surprised.

And then there is the Flitcraft Parable, as it is known.  This little tale that Spade tells Brigid was left out of the movie but it may have led to more critical discussion than any other four pages in Hammett's works.  Don't you want to read it for yourself?

2/14/1930 The Maltese Falcon takes flight

February 14, 1930.  A lot of great event choices for Valentine's Day, but let's go with the publication on this date of one of the classic mystery novels of all time.

Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon first appeared in Black Mask Magazine  in five installments. There are about 2,000 differences between the two texts, about one-third of them being more than just copyediting.  Six editions sold out that year.

If by any chance you are one of those people who saw the John Huston/Humphrey Bogart flick (the third movie based on the novel)  but haven't read the book, let me urge you to do it.  For one thing, you will learn who searched Brigid O'Shaughnessy's apartment while she was sleeping with Sam Spade.  (It's mentioned in the movie but never explained.)  You'll be surprised.

And then there is the Flitcraft Parable, as it is known.  This little tale that Spade tells Brigid was left out of the movie but it may have led to more critical discussion than any other four pages in Hammett's works.  Don't you want to read it for yourself?

2/13/2013 The Gray Ghost Murders

February 13, 2013. This day saw the publication of The Gray Ghost Murders, Keith McCafferty's second novel about former Boston private eye Sean Stranahan. He now lives in Montana where he would rather be fly-fishing than crime-solving, but you know how that goes.

Kirkus Reviews said: "Though the felonious details this time are muddled and often hard to swallow, the central concept behind the complicated pair of cases is irresistible."

2/12/198? Ice forms

February 12, 198?.  On this date the plot of Ice begins.  Ice was the 36th book in Ed McBain's excellent 87th Precinct series, police procedurals set in a nameless city that resembled but wasn't quite New York.

As with most of his one-word titles (a subset that included Bread, Calypso, Ghosts, Heat, etc.) "Ice" has several meanings in the book.  There is the weather, a drug, jewelry, and a reference to a theatre custom.

The New Yorker called it " a real stunner."

2/11/1949 Jim Thompson gets the bird

February 11, 1949.  Like any proper noir writer Jim Thompson had a life full of bad luck and weirdness.  But extra points for style, as they say.

On this day he was fired from his job as a reporter at the Los Angeles Mirror.  According to the gossip in the newsroom, he was sent down to the San Diego Zoo to interview a mynah bird, and while he was gone the boss called his wife and told her he was not to come back to the paper.


By happy coincidence, the same date saw the publication of his novel Nothing More Than Murder.

Source: Polito, Robert.  Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson.

2/10/1861 Frederick Van Rensselaer Dey Day

February 10, 1861.  Frederick Van Rensselaer Dey was born this day in Watkins Glen, NY.  He was an attorney but started young writing fiction as well.  In 1891 he took over writing the Nick Carter novellettes, cranking out more than a thousand of them. 

Under the pseudonym Varick Vanardy he created a character called the Night Wind. THese stories have been republished by Wildside Press.

Dey shot himself to death in 1922.

2/9/1993 I'll Be Leaving You arrives

February 9, 1993.  Today saw the publication of Sandra Scottoline's second novel about P.I. Lauren Laurano.  I'll Be Leaving You Always is about Lauren's friend being robbed,  and then murdered in Greenwich Village.  Publishers Weekly called it "substantial and satisfying."