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."

2/8/1930 The Documents in the Case are closed

February 8, 1930.  This date saw the completion of an unusual collaboration.  Mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers and physician/novelist Robert Eustace completed their epistolary novel The Documents in the Case.  

While the book consists mainly of letters, there is a packet of evidence for the reader to examine.  Eustace provided the main plot idea and the medical data.  Sayers did most of the writing.  It was her only mystery novel not to feature Lord Peter Wimsey.

2/7/1860 J.S. Fletcher is born

February 7, 1860.  J.S. Fletcher was born this day in Halifax, England.  He wrote more than 200 novels.  His first mystery was published in 1914.  Many of them featured P.I. Ronald Camberwell.

2/6/1932 Charles Addams breaks in

February 6, 1932.  The issue of The New Yorker with this cover date contained the first published cartoon of Charles Addams.  It was about a window washer, but I haven't found a copy of it, so I don't know if it had that morbid sense of humor for which he is known and loved.

Of course, it is that morbid streak that made him a favorite of mystery writers and fans.  The Mystery Writers of America gave him a Special Edgar Award.  And they probably didn't turn their backs on him.
. 

2/5/1999 Payback opens

February 5, 1999.  The movie Payback opened this day.  It was based on the novel The Hunter by Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake).  As I remember hearing the story from Westlake at a conference the producers bought the rights to the movie  Point Blank,  which was also based on the novel and were then surprised when Westlake's agent pointed out that they didn't have the right  to use the character's name.  The producers of the first movie had not paid the extra amount for the series character.  So Parker in the books became Porter in Payback..  Westlake complained that that name made the character sound fat.

So, whatever the dude's name is, he is a nasty armed robber who is almost killed by his wife and best friend.  This makes him a bit testy and he decides to go after them.  And, oh yes, somebody owes him some money.

 "I think all those stories about you being dead are true.  You're just too thick-headed to admit it."

2/4/1994 Ace Ventura, Pet Detective

February 4, 1994.  This date saw the release of Jim Carrey's Ace Ventura, Pet Detective.  Hey, not every crime-related movie can be The Maltese Falcon.

2/3/1948 Henning Mankell is born

February 3, 1948.  Henning Mankell was born on this day in Stockholm, Sweden.  He is best remembered for his twelve novels about police inspector Kurt Wallender.  He received awards including Best Swedish Crime Novel, the Glass Key Award, the Gumshoe Award, and the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger.  Wallender has served as the basis for two Swedish TV series, and one in Britain.

2/2/1980 Early Autumn arrives in February

February 2, 1980.  This day saw the publication of Early Autumn,  Robert B. Parker's seventh novel about Boston private eye Spenser.  In the series it is most notable for introducing the character Paul Giacoman, a teenager Spenser is hired to protect.  Paul appears in several more books, essentially as a surrogate son for our hero.  Parker won the Maltese Falcon Award in Japan for the book.

2/1/1929 Red Harvest is born

February 1, 1929.  On this date Dashiell Hammett's first novel, Red Harvest, was published by Knopf.  It had previously appeared in Black Mask Magazine as several stories.  It featured one of his great characters, the overweight, over-cynical, anonymous P.I. known as the Continental Op.