8/13/1899 The Master of Suspense is born

August 13, 1899. The last year of the nineteenth century saw the birth of one of the greatest film directors of the twentieth.  I don't imagine I need to tell you what Alfred Hitchcock contributed to the mystery field, but I'll mention a few.  He made masterpieces (Vertigo, Psycho). He experimented (Rope, The Wrong Man, Lifeboat). With The Birds he invented a genre that has seldom been done as well.   The Thirty-Nine Steps (based on John Buchan's novel) introduced the hero-chased-by-villains-AND-cops story which has been used thousands of times - including brilliant reworkings by the Master himself.

The plot of Vertigo  has more holes than a politician's alibi.  Don't care.  It's still my favorite movie.

8/8/1891 Nick Carter Library opens

August 8, 1891.  This was the cover date of the first Nick Carter Library, the dime novel series featuring America's most popular detective, Nick Carter.  They were supposedly written by Nicholas Carter, a house name that covered Frederic Van Rensselaer Day, George Waldo Browne, and Edward Streetmayer (of Nancy Drew fame) among others.

Carter went on to movies, magazines, radio, and even became a spy-assassin in 1960s paperbacks.

7/6/1899 America's Agatha Christie is born

July 6, 1899.  Mignon G. Eberhart was born on this day in Lincoln, Nebraska.  Her career extended through seven decades.  Known as "America's Agatha Christie" she wrote almost sixty novels.  Most of her books are considered romantic suspense, and she was a pioneer in the use of female main characters.  The Mystery Writers of America declared her a Grand Master in 1971.

7/1/1892 The Baby not in the icebox

July 1, 1892.  Happy birthday to James M. Cain, one of the noiriest of the noir writers. He was greatly admired for The Postman  Always Rings Twice, Mildred Pierce, and Double Indemnity, among other grim stories of bad things happening to bad people.

Many of them were made into movies.  Supposedly when a friend tried to sympathize with him about what Hollywood had done to his books, Cain replied "They haven't done anything with them  They're right over there on the shelf."

5/27/1894 The Thin Man, Sam Spade, and the Continental Op welcome their father

May 27, 1894.  Dashiell Hammett was born this day in Maryland.  If I have to tell you who he was, why the hell are you reading this blog?

5/9/1897 The Conjure-Man arrives

May 9, 1897.  Rudolph Fisher was a part of the Harlem Renaissance.  He was a musician, a physician, and a playwright.  But narrowly-focused little rascals that we are, this page is primarily interested in him for one reason.

Fisher wrote The Conjure-Man Dies (1932), the first novel with a Black detective, and all Black characters.  When a Harvard-trained African fortuneteller is killed in his apartment in Harlem policeman Perry Dart has to investigate all of the man's customers....

5/4/1891 Meet me at the Reichenbach

May 4, 1891.  On this date there occurred the most famous event that never actually happened (well... there are more famous ones, if you agree that all religions can't be be true).  In Arthur Conan Doyle's story "The Final Problem" Sherlock Holmes grappled with Professor James Moriarty at the top of Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland.  Both fell to their death.
 
But one of those deaths was cancelled, due to popular demand.  How often does that happen?

Illustration by the great Sidney Paget.

4/14/1897 Horace McCoy is born

April 14, 1897.  The world gained a great hardboiled writer on this date when Horace McCoy made his appearance in Pegram, Tennessee.  He wrote for Black Mask among other magazines, and his novel Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye  was filmed with Jimmy Cagney.

But he is best remembered today for a different novel that was made into a famous flick: They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

3/30/1894 Ronald Adair dies before an empty house

March 30, 1894.  On this date the Honourable Ronald Adair was murdered by (spoiler alert) Colonel Sebastian Moran, formerly the right-hand-man of the evil Professor Moriarty.  This was the case that brought the supposedly dead Sherlock Holmes out of exile in "The Adventure of the Empty House."  And you thought he came back because Doyle needed the money.  Shame on you.

3/16/1897 Sherlock Holmes sees the Devil's Foot

March 16, 1897.  On this date, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, in Cornwall for Holmes's health, encounter a bizarre case of madness and murder.  "The Adventure of the Devils Foot" was one of Conan Doyle's favorite Sherlock Holmes stories.  One stand-out feature: Good old Watson saves Holmes' life.

2/28/1894 Stop the presses! Ben Hecht is born

February 28, 1894.  Ben Hecht was born on this date in New York City.  He was considered one of the greatest Hollywood screenwriters.  He actually won the first Oscar for screenwriting, with a crime movie called Underworld.  Looking back ninety years it seems like the most memorable thing about that flick is the nicknames of the characters: Weed, Rolls Royce, Feathers, Buck, and Slippy.  Four years later he wrote Scarface.

His greatest achievement related to the crime field may be The Front Page, a screwball comedy co-authored with Charles MacArthur, which was a Broadway hit and has been filmed three times, four if you count Switching Channels.  It is the story of Hildy Johnson, a reporter about to quit in favor or a respectable job, who meets an escaped convict, a man sentenced to be executed ondubious grounds.  Hildy needs help from his editor, a manipulator who will do anything to keep his star reporter on the job.

Hecht's many other credits include several Hitchcock movies.  Among the ones for which he received a screen credit: Notorious and Spellbound.

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1/14/1898 Hilary Saunders arrives

January 14, 1898.  Today is the birthday of Hilary St. George Saunders, an Englishman (as that name should have tipped you).  He won a medal for his service during World War I, and wrote a lot of military history books, but we are, as ever, more interested in his fiction.  Together with John Palmer, under the name Francis Beeding, he wrote many novels, including The House of Dr. Edwardes, which Alfred Hitchcock adapted into the movie Spellbound.

1/3/1893 A (Rufus) King is born

January 3, 1893,  Rufus King was born on this day.  Between 1927 and 1964 he published more than two dozen mystery novels.His best-known character was Lieutenent Valcour.

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.

12/10/1892 A visit to the Black Museum

December 10, 1892.  In the basement of New Scotland Yard in London sat the Black Museum, a collection of relics of true crimes.  It wasn't open to the general public, but on this day three members of a cricket club were permitted in.  One was the editor of The Idler magazine, Jerome K. Jerome, most famous for the comic masterpiece Three Men In A Boat, which inspired Peter Lovesey's mystery Swing, Swing, Together.  The others were friends of his, and  contributors to the magazine.  E.W. Hornung was the creator or Raffles, the first "gentleman cracksman" or hero jewel thief in crime fiction.  This visit led to Hornung's story "The Raffles Relics."

The third member of the party was Hornung's future brother-in-law, a doctor named Arthur Conan Doyle.  Oh yes, he wrote a bit too. 

Jonathan Goodman pointed this event out in The Armchair Detective, in the Fall 1996 issue.

12/5/1890 Fritz Lang is born

December 5, 1890.  Fritz Lang was born on this date in Vienna.  He was a great film director.  His classic M, made in Germany and starring Peter Lorre as a serial child murderer, was one of the first film noir movies. His other classics include Metropolis, The Big Heat, and The Testament pf Dr. Mabuse.  The last of these was banned in Nazi Germany, after which he got the hell out.

11/3/1890 Harry Stephen Keeler arrives

November 3, 1890.  Harry Stephen Keeler wrote weird novels.  They included sinister Asians, a Human Spider, dialogues that went on for hundreds of pages, cartoons, short stories written by his wife,  3-D color television (in the 1930s) and God knows what else.

A few of my favorite Keeler titles: The Mysterious Mr. I; The Case of the Barking Clock; The Gallows Waits, My Lord!; The Case of the Transparent Nude;  and Adventure in Milwaukee.


Years ago I was considering buying one of his novels while talking to one of the people at Ramble House, a publisher that republishes Keeler's books.  I said "Which Keeler book would you recommend for a fan of Donald Westlake?"  He thought for a moment and said "None."

For more information on this one-of-a-kind arteest  contact the Harry Stephen Keeler Society.

9/15/1890 Dame Agatha arrives

September 15, 1890.  The bestselling novelist of all time was born on this date 125 years ago, in Torquay, England.  What can I say about Agatha Christie that you don't already know?


How about this?  In her early books there were some anti-Semetic references.  Then, in the 1930s, she met an actual Nazi.  And that settled that for her.  Trust her to recognize a villain.

9/1/1890 Arthur Upfield is born. 'Strewth!

September 1, 1890.  Arthur Upfield was born on this day in Hampshire, England, but he is best known for the fruits of his later life in Australia.  To be specific, he wrote a series of novels about Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, half Aborigine, half European.

Among Upfield's biggest fans was Tony Hillerman, who acknowledged that his use of Navajo cops to explain their culture to readers was inspired by the example of the Bonaparte books. 

8/24/1899 Jorge Luis Borges enters the labyrinth

August 24, 1899.  Jorge Luis Borges was born on this day in Argentina.  He believed that an author of fiction should created his own world so many of his early "stories" consisted of reviews of books that were never published, biographies of people who never lived, and detailed descriptions of buildings that could never stand.

But around his fortieth birthday (midlife crisis?) in the course of a few months he created three masterpieces of mystery fiction: "Death and the Compass," "The Garden of Forking Paths," and "The Shape of the Sword."  In these he explored two of his favorite themes, the double and the labyrinth, while also discussing Chinese spies in England, murderous dwarfs in a mysterious unnamed city, and betrayal during the Irish Civil War.

He also co-wrote with his friend Adolfo Bioy-Casares Six Problems for Isidro Parodi about a man, falsely imprisoned, who passes the time solving mysteries for his visitors.  Parodi is a common surname in Argentina, but it also means just what it sounds like.

Borges went blind as he aged, and also was named the director of the national library of Argentina.  It is not coincidence that the blind librarian in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose was named Jorge of Burgos.