The Complete Guide to Manhunt Part 16

Vol. 2 No. 9   November 1954

144 pages, 35 cents

Pistol by Hal Ellson

(4000 words) ***   illo: Lee

            To impress his fellow gang members, Dusty must come up with a gun to rumble with. Written much like a diary, “Pistol” is an impressive debut for Hal Ellson, who would contribute a total of 23 stories throughout the run of Manhunt. According to Ellson’s bio, his stories are “based on his experience with these teen-age gangs and have gained the praise of critics and readers not only for their excitement and realistic pace and tone, but for their obvious authenticity.” Ellson’s other contributions to gang-related fiction included his million-seller Duke, about a gang of Harlem youth.

Replacement by Jack Ritchie

(3000 words) **   illo: Tom O’Sullivan

            Max Warren wants to move up fast in  the chain of command in the local organization. Once he gets there, he decides he wants all that goes with the job, including the boss’ woman. Interesting story marred by a bad last line.

Shy Guy by Robert Turner

(3000 words) ***   illo: Lee

            Della, now employed and feeling free, tries to push her husband Aryie into her new-found world of alcohol and business parties. When the parties turn to wife-swapping, Artie’s had enough and cracks under the strain. Years before this fiction became famous in the hands of Jacqueline Susann and her ilk, “Shy Guy” was a daring little story. It’s lost a lot of its punch, of course, but it’s still fairly effective.

Man from Yesterday by Jonathan Craig

(5000 words) ***   illo: Ray Houlihan

            Detectives Lew Keller and Burt Ogden must solve the intriguing case of a man found in a car, murdered. Their trail leads to a married woman the man had been seeing. Though “The Man From Yesterday” can be very dry at times (Craig has that Dragnet-style dialog down pat), I still found it an enjoyable read. Halfway through the story, Ed Seibert,  a PI makes a brief appearance. This reminded me of the crossover shows that populated such seventies shows as Cannon and Barnaby Jones. A nice touch, and Seibert seems to be a character that Craig would have spun off.

A Bull to Kill by Richard Marsten

(4000 words) ***   illo: Tom O’Sullivan

            Reardon, a rare American bullfighter has had everything taken away from him: his beloved Juanita, lost to fellow toreador Gomez; his nerve, to a recent goring; and the crowd that once cheered his name and now favors the upstart Gomez. Driven to madness, Reardon decides he will fight one more bull and then kill Gomez. Marsden (McBain) again proves he can’t be pigeonholed. “A Bull to Kill” is as far removed from an 87th Precinct mystery as you can get.

The Stalkers by Grant Colby

(1000 words) *   illo: Lee

            Ben is released from the sanitarium and presumed sane. He acts sane until he imagines his parakeet and puppy are stalking him.

The Wet Brain by David Alexander

(7500 words) * ½   illo: Ray Houlihan

            A “wet brain” is a derogatory term for an alcoholic so far gone that he oses all sense of reality and place. This particular “wet brain” is convinced he’s killed someone but can’t convince anyone of that. He’s wandering the Bowery with a pocket full of money and attracting the attention of fellow booze hounds.

            David Alexander, according to his Manhunt bio, “insures the accuracy of his stories through study of actual police procedure, and graduated at the head of a recent class in Criminology given by a former New York police inspector. Alexander was the author of several crime novels, among them:  Murder Points a Finger (1953), Murder in Black and White (1951), Paint the Town Black (1956) Die, Little Goose (1956) and the b/side of Robert Bloch’s Spiderweb (Ace Double, 1954), The Corpse in My Bed (a retitling of his first novel, Most Men Don’t Kill, 1951). 

The Man who Had Too Much to Lose by Hampton Stone

(23,500 words) ** ½   illo: Ray Houlihan

            Assistant District Attorney Jeremiah X. Gibson happens to be in the right place at the right time when he witnesses portly Jason Gracie fall ill from what appears to be poisoning. Gracie, a belligerent and pompous individual, refuses to believe this theory until his chef is found dead, poisoned. It’s up to Jeremiah to sort through the motives and alibis of the cast of characters that surround Jason Gracie. Very much in the Perry Mason tradition, “The Man Who Had Too Much to Lose” is not a bad read, despite its length and its “cozy” atmosphere, which I usually find detrimental to a story published in Manhunt.

            Published in hardcover by Simon and Schuster in 1955 and reprinted by Dell in paperback in 1957. 18 novels featuring DA Jeremiah X. “Gibby” Gibson and his helper, Mac, were published between 1948 and 1972. More interesting is the reprinting that took place in 1972 as part of the “Hampton Stone Mystery” series of paperbacks published by Paperback Library. 17 of the novels were reprinted in the series (“The Man Who Had Too Much to Lose” was #16). Strangely enough, the 18^th, published in 1972, was never reprinted in paperback (in the series or otherwise). Hampton Stone was the pseudonym of prolific author Aaron Marc Stein (1906-1985), who wrote over a hundred novels under his own name, as Stone, and also as George Bagby. “The Man Who Had Too Much to Lose” would be Gibby Gibson’s only appearance in Manhunt but Gibson would later pop up in  “The Mourners at the Bedside”, a short story in Ed McBain's Mystery Book #3 (1961).

Mugged and Printed features Hampton Stone, David Alexander, Robert Turner, and Hal Ellson. 

Also appearing in this issue are: What’s Your Verdict? #4: The Anxious Friend by Sam Ross; Vincent H. Gaddis’ Crime Cavalcade; and Portrait of a Killer #15: Joseph McElroy by Dan Sontup.

The Complete Guide to Manhunt Part 15

by Peter Enfantino

Vol. 2 No. 8 October 1954

144 pages, 35 cents

The Beatings by Evan Hunter

(3500 words) **** illo: Ray Houlihan

“Men can become good neighbors when their common mortar is despair.” Another visit to the hell populated by Ex-PI, current drunk Matt Cordell. This time, Matt’s helping out his fellow winos, who find themselves under attack by a pack of violence hungry teenagers. Interestingly enough, “The Beatings” starts off with one of Ed McBain’s patented soliloquies of the city: “the city wore August like a soiled flannel shirt.” Eighth and final Matt Cordell story is also the best of the bunch.

The Bargain by Charles Beckman, Jr.

(3000 words) *** illo: Tom O’Sullivan

Frank and his wife Mavis re vacationing at their mountain cabin when a murderer, hiding from the police, takes them hostage. To win their freedom, Mavis must give the man what he wants. Nice twist when we find that Mavis might have other reasons for going along with this killer’s demands.

Clean Getaway by William Vance

(5500 words) ***

Police chief Mark Nadine closes in on a couple of murderers at a roadside inn. The pair make a getaway but not before Mark makes a startling discovery: the woman of the pair is his wife, long gone but not forgotten. A well-written noir, very much cut from the cloth of Jim Thompson, but a few too many questions left unanswered for my tastes. Second and final Manhunt story for Vance (although this story would be retitled “Lust or Honor” for the December 1966 issue). William Vance wrote westerns, under his name as well as the pseudonym George Cassidy, for such pulps as Star Western, 2-Gun Western, Dime Western, and Best Western, as well as crime stories for Trapped, Terror Detective, and Mike Shayne. His novel, Homicide Lost, was published by Graphic in 1956.

Laura and the Deep, Deep Woods by W. B. Hartley

(2000 words) ** illo: Tom O’Sullivan

Teenaged Eddie gets his first glimpse of “what sex really is” when he happens upon cute little Laura in the deep, deep woods. By no stretch of the imagination, a Manhunt story. Reads more like an excerpt from a Twain novel. This was the only story Hartley wrote for Manhunt.

Second Cousin by Erskine Caldwell

(2000 words) * ½ illo: Tom O’Sullivan

Pete Ellrod comes home to find his wife’s second cousin, once removed, has moved into his house and the wife is being a bit stubborn about the situation. Pete doesn’t want the cousin around as second cousins, once removed historically have a tendency to want favors granted. Second story by Erskine Caldwell to see print in Manhunt (with three to follow) has the same problem I had with its predecessor: it doesn’t belong in a “Detective Story Monthly.” It would be better served in The Saturday Evening Post or one of the other slicks of the 1950s.

Love Affair by Richard Deming

(2000 words) * illo: Ray Houlihan

This homophobic tale of two cops and the “woman” they pick up in a sleazy bar is about as subtle as the bar’s name: The Purple Dragon. You can see the “twist” coming at you two pages in. Deming is so much better than this would lead one to believe.

Lady Killer by Richard Marsten

(2500 words) ** illo: Francis

Charlie Rawlings is the best hit man money can buy. Now George Manelli, mob boss, needs Rawlings to silence an old moll of George’s. She’s about to sing to the cops about his organization and she knows enough to bring his comfy world crashing around him. No relation to the 87th Precinct novel McBain (Marsten) would write in 1958.

The Dead Darling by Jonathan Craig

(5000 words) **1/2 illo: James Sentz

Detectives Rayder and Selby are called in to investigate what appears at first to be a suicide (a girl with her head in the oven) but it quickly becomes apparent that what they’re actually dealing with is a murder. This girl spent a lot of her free time bedding married men.

Though Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novels became world famous and sold in the millions, Jonathan Craig’s Pete Selby and Stan Rayder stories (aka The 18th Precinct) actually pre-dated the 87th by two years. “The Dead Darling” was expanded into the first Pete Selby novel of the same name in 1955. Craig wrote 3 18th Precinct stories for Manhunt before turning his attention to the novels. The series morphed in a way into a second set of procedurals Craig wrote for Manhunt (the Police Files) but more on that in a future installment.

There were ten Pete Selby novels in all: The Dead Darling (1955); Morgue for Venus (1956); The Case of the Cold Coquette (1957); The Case of the Beautiful Body (1957); The Case of the Petticoat Murder (1958); The Case of the Nervous Nude (1959); The Case of the Village Tramp (1959); The Case of the Laughing Virgin (1960);The Case of the Silent Stranger (1964); and The Case of the Brazen Beauty (1966). The original Gold Medal paperbacks had typically gorgeous covers by George Mayers, George Gross, and Stanley Zuckerberg. When Belmont/Tower reprinted the series in 1973, the publishers opted to grace the covers (with one exception - The Dead Darling - a sharp painting that could have come from the Gold Medal art gallery) with generic, ugly men’s adventure leftovers. The casual newsstand browser would not have been able to tell the difference between SELBY and THE SHARPSHOOTER or THE MARKSMAN, two very bad 1970s Belmont adventure series. Belmont also chose to number both Morgue for Venus and Laughing Virgin as #6 in the series, ostensibly to confuse the reader or because they just didn’t care enough to check the number of the previous book.

That Stranger, My Son by C. B. Gilford

(3000 words) * illo: Ray Houlihan

Paul and his father are grieving the drowning death of Paul’s brother. The boy’s father is convinced that Paul could have saved his brother’s life. There’s something to those suspicions, of course. The first appearance by prolific short story writer C. B. Gilford in Manhunt (he would contribute a total of 12 stories throughout the run). Gilford became a staple of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (seeing 80 stories published between the July 1957 issue and his last appearance in October 1980 ) as well as most of the other crime digests of the 1950s and 1960s. 5 of his stories were dramatized on Alfred Hitchcock Presents/Hour.

One of a Kind by Ben Smith

(1000 words) * illo: Ray Houlihan

Sordid short-short about rape and the degrees of evil.

The Famous Actress by Harry Roskelenko

(1500 words) * illo: Lee

Wandering the streets of Paris, a man picks up a woman he later fiinds is a well-known actress, researching a role. Unfortunately for the lady, the man is a bit of an “actor” himself.

Candlestick by Henry Kane

(16,500 words) ** illo: James Sentz

Peter Chambers is enlisted by police lieutenant Louis Parker to help solve the murder of publicity mega-agent Max Keith. The agent has been clobbered with a gold candlestick and the lieutenant is up to his neck in suspects. One of the suspects is the victim’s sister, who stands to inherit a big chunk of the family inheritance once her brother is dead. Chambers knows the girl is innocent (well, innocent in Manhunt is a relative term) since, in a laugh out loud coincidence, he was bedding her when he got the call! Not really as grating as the other Chambers novellas but still about double the length it needs to be.

Mugged and Printed features Henry Kane, Erskine Caldwell, Richard Deming and Evan Hunter (in Hunter’s bio, it’s revealed that his novel The Blackboard Jungle, had just been sold to MGM for a record $95,000—good coin in that day).

This issue also features What’s Your Verdict? #3: The Drinking Man by Sam Ross; Crime Cavalcade by Vincent H. Gaddis; and Portrait of a Killer #14: Albert Van Dyke by Dan Sontup.

The Health Knowledge Genre Magazines Part Four: Startling Mystery Stories

Startling Mystery Stories Part 1 (of 3)

By Peter Enfantino

Note: Originally this section of the Health Knowledge overview was to run in two installments. Other work necessitated I break it into three parts instead, which works well since each “volume” is six issues. As a bonus, I’ve included a complete list of the Jules de Grandin stories following our look at the first six issues.

“The big news this time,” began Robert A. W. Lowndes in the letters page of Magazine of Horror #13, “is the inauguration of our companion magazine, Startling Mystery Stories. While this publication is restricted to mystery tales, we are stressing the eerie, bizarre, and strange type of mystery, rather than the mundane crime story (however excellent) to be found in other magazines of this caliber. Thus you will find not a few authors and types of story quite in line with some of the content of Magazine of Horror.”

No. 1 Summer, 1966

130 pages, 50 cents

cover: Hubert Carter

(4) Village of the Dead – Edward D. Hoch

(7500 words; from Famous Detective Stories, December 1955)

(3) House of the Hatchet – Robert Bloch

(7000 words; from Weird Tales, January 1941)

(5) *The Off-Season – Gerald W. Page (3100 words)

(6) The Tell-Tale Heart – Edgar Allan Poe

(2500 words; uncredited source)

(2) The Lurking Fear – H. P. Lovecraft

(9750 words; from Home Brew, January 1923)

(7) The Awful Injustice – S. B. H. Hurst

(4500 words; from Strange Tales, September 1931)

(8) *Ferguson’s Capsules – August Derleth (4000 words)

(1) The Mansion of Unholy Magic – Seabury Quinn

(16,000 words; from Weird Tales, October 1933)

There is no “Editor’s Page” as in Magazine of Horror. There’s simply an introduction and in that introduction, editor Robert A. W. Lowndes tells us a little bit about each story that appears in the first issue and lets us know what we can expect in SMS. “Village of the Dead” was not only the first story in the long-running Simon Ark series, it was also the first published Edward D. Hoch story. Way back in The Scream Factory #18 (Autumn 1996), Ed Hoch was nice enough to write a piece for us on the history of Simon (including a complete bibliography of Ark appearances which we'll reprint in our next installment). RAWL mentions that the Derleth story will appear in an upcoming hardcover titled Harrigan’s Files. That book didn’t appear until 1975 (published by Arkham House). “The Mansion of Unholy Magic” is a Jules de Grandin story. Strangely, RAWL picks a story years into the series (it began in WT in 1925) rather one of the first. Hubert Carter designed the logo for SMS and Famous Science Fiction and did the cover for SMS 1.

No. 2 Fall, 1966

130 pages, 50 cents

cover: Carl Kidwell

(1) The House of Horror – Seabury Quinn

(9250 words; from Weird Tales, July 1926)

(5) *The Men in Black – John Brunner (4250 words)

(7) The Strange Case of Pascal – Roger Eugene Ulmer

(2500 words; from Weird Tales, June 1926)

(6) The Witch is Dead – Edward D. Hoch

(8500 words; from Famous Detective Stories, April 1956)

(2) Doctor Satan – Paul Ernst

(11,250 words; from Weird Tales, August 1935)

(3) *The Secret of the City – Terry Carr and Ted White (3500 words)

(4) The Scourge of B’Moth – Bertram Russell

(13,750 words; from Weird Tales, May 1929)

In his intro, RAWL reveals that ten of Quinn’s de Grandin tales are “off-limits” as they appear in a then new hardcover collection, The Phantom Fighter (Mycroft & Moran), which is reviewed in the Books section. Also reviewed is the science fiction anthology, Strange Signposts, edited by Roger Elwood and Sam Moscowitz. For some reason, RAWL skips the second Simon Ark story, “The Hoofs of Satan” (Famous Detective Stories, February 1956), and instead publishes the third in the chronology. The first in a series of eight stories starring the titular bad guy, “Doctor Satan” was Paul Ernst’s (and Weird Tales’) attempt to create a popular pulp character ala Doc Savage or The Spider. The difference in this case, of course, was that the Doc was a villain. RAWL got around to reprinting six of the eight stories. Bob Weinberg reprinted 5 of the stories (including the two RAWL didn’t get to) in Pulp Classics #6 (1974). Terry Carr and Ted White were both respected editors and anthologists. White wrote one of my favorite comic book novels, The Great Gold Steal (Bantam, 1968), starring Captain America. He also edited F&SF, Amazing and Fantastic in the 1960s and 70s. Carr edited The Best Science Fiction of the Year anthology from 1972 through 1987 and 17 volumes of Universe, an annual anthology of new sf. Carr and White were the co-authors of Invasion from 2500 (Monarch, 1964) a pulpish sf novel with a fabulous cover. The first installment of “The Cauldron,” Startling Mystery’s answer to It Is Written. In the inaugural, RAWL gives bios of each of the authors that appear in this issue. Letter writers include Robert Silverberg and Edward D. Hoch.

No. 3 Winter 1966/67

130 pages, 50 cents

cover: Virgil Finlay

(1) The Inn of Terror – Gaston Leroux

(10,250 words; from Weird Tales, August, 1929)

(5) The Other – Robert A. W. Lowndes

(1750 words; from Stirring Science Stories, April 1941)

(4) The Door of Doom – Hugh B. Cave

(11,750 words; from Strange Tales, January 1932)

(3) *A Matter of Breeding – Ralph E. Hayes (4000 words)

(6) *Esmerelda – Rama Wells (4250 words)

(7) The Trial for Murder – Charles Collins & Charles Dickens

(5000 words; uncredited source)

(2) The Blood-Flower – Seabury Quinn

(10,750 words; from Weird Tales, March 1927)

Notes: Finally establishing an Editor’s Page, RAWL debates the merits of updating outdated stories (he’s pretty much against it). Gaston Leroux, of course, is best known for his novel, The Phantom of the Opera. In his author bios, Lowndes mistakenly credits Lon Chaney with two versions of The Phantom. He claims he saw a “talking” version of the 1925 classic (save Chaney speaking himself). I suspect this was either a misremembrance or some kind of revival. Probably the former. In the book section, RAWL reviews Colonel Markesan and Less Pleasant People by August Derleth. “The Door of Doom” is illustrated by H. W. Wesso. I could find only one other story written by Ralph E. Hayes (“Yesterday’s 7000 Years” in Adam, September 1963), even though RAWL mentions, in the author bio, that Hayes is a mystery and detective story writer. Lowndes mentions that Hayes would have appeared in the fourth issue of Chase had it been published. I wonder if this is the same Ralph Hayes who would go on to author several novels in the 1970s, including The Hunter series (5 novels) for Leisure. In his bio, RAWL claims that Rama Wells “is well known for non-fiction under a different name, which we are constrained not to divulge; this is his first appearance with us, but he is reticent about saying whether it is also his first fiction sale.” Well, evidently “Rama” is still reticent or maybe still relatively unknown under his real name as I can find no trace of Rama after this issue. It was his only Health Knowledge appearance. The Quinn story is a Jules de Grandin (the 11th of the 93 to be published in Weird Tales) adventure. Letter writers in The Cauldron include Ed Wood and Mike Ashley.

No. 4 Spring 1967

130 pages, 50 cents

cover: Virgil Finlay

(4) The Adventure of the Tottenham Werewolf – August Derleth

(9250 words; from The Memoirs of Solar Pons)

(2) *The Secret of Lost Valley – Robert E. Howard (9750 words)

(3) Medium for Justice – Victor Rousseau

(8250 words; from Ghost Stories, July 1928, originally as “The Blackest Magic of All.”)

(5) Si Urag of the Tail – Oscar Cook

(7000 words; from Weird Tales, July 1926)

(6) The Temptation of Harringay – H. G. Wells

(2500 words; from The Stolen Bacillus and Others)

(1) The Tenants of Broussac – Seabury Quinn

(14,500 words; from Weird Tales, December 1925)

Notes: In The Editor’s Page, RAWL responds to a reader who requests a new department for stories by “budding writers of today.” In keeping with stuffing SMS with series characters, Lowndes adds August Derleth’s poor-man’s Sherlock Holmes, Solar Pons to his roster. For more info on the weird and potholed history of the Robert E. Howard story, see my notes for MOH #13. In the body of the story, RAWL reprints Harry Bates’ letter to Robert E. Howard explaining the cancellation of Strange Tales and thus the return of the story to Howard (dated October 4, 1932). Also reprinted is the first page of the returned manuscript including Bates’ notes and corrections. A fascinating bit of history. Black Medicine by Arthur J. Burks is reviewed in Books. In The Cauldron, a fan meeting with August Derleth (who spoke on Solar Pons) is detailed. Writing in is Ted White and Glenn Lord. Author bios are also included.

No. 5 Summer 1967

130 pages, 50 cents

cover: Virgil Finlay

(3) The Gods of East and West – Seabury Quinn

(13,500 words; from Weird Tales, January 1928)

(5) The Council / The House (verse) – Robert A. W. Lowndes

(6) *Behind the Curtain – Leslie Jones (2000 words)

(1) A Game of Chess – Robert Barr

(5500 words; from Pearson’s Magazine, March 1900

(4) The Man From Nowhere – Edward D. Hoch

(6750 words; from Famous Detective Stories, June 1956)

(2) The Darkness on Fifth Avenue – Murray Leinster

(23,250 words; from Argosy, November 30, 1929)

Notes: On The Editor’s Page, RAWL continues the debate over a “new writer’s” department. “A Game of Chess” comes with an introduction by Sam Moskowitz. The Quinn story (another de Grandin) is illustrated twice (once is by Rankin, the other is not identified). In his intro to the story, RAWL informs us that "Behind the Curtain” would have run in Chase. The story is illustrated but the illo is not credited. “The Man from Nowhere” is a Simon Ark story. Another uncredited illo for “The Darkness on Fifth Avenue.” Deep Waters by William Hope Hodgson is reviewed in the Books section. In “The Cauldron,” RAWL discusses Robert E. Howard’s enduring popularity and Solar Pons’ non-horrific elements (which have raised eyebrows among readers who want only “weird fiction.” Marvin Jones writes in from Los Angeles to beat down RAWL for the Phantom of the Opera inaccuracies in the last issue. Thanks for backing me up, Marv. Also writing in is Mike Ashley.

No. 6 Fall 1967

130 pages, 50 cents

cover: Virgil Finlay

(2) My Lady of the Tunnel – Arthur J. Burks

(7250 words; from Astounding, November 1933)

(5) *The Glass Floor – Stephen King (3250 words)

Death from Within – Sterling S. Cramer

(10,750 words; from Wonder Stories, June 1935)

(6) *A Vision (verse) – Robert E. Howard

(7) *Aim for Perfection – Beverly Haaf (2500 words)

(3) The Dark Castle – Marion Brandon

(5500 words; from Strange Tales, September 1931)

(4) *Dona Diabla – Anna Hunger (5000 words)

(1) The Druid’s Shadow – Seabury Quinn

(14,500 words; from Weird Tales, October 1930)

Notes: This is, of course, one of the two Holy Grails for collectors looking to complete their set of Startling Mystery (or their collection of Stephen King first appearances, for that matter). Currently there are several copies of the issue on sale on abebooks.com with prices ranging from $750-1500. It’s Stephen King’s first pro sale, which is why the bounty is so high. King actually had one other story appear before this (“I Was a Teenage Grave-Robber” in Comics Review, which was reprinted as “In a Half-World of Terror” in Marv Wolfman’s fanzine, Stories of Suspense #2, 1965) but good luck finding a copy of that. SMS #6 is around but you’ll pay a lot of money for it. For history’s sake, here’s RAWL’s intro to “The Glass Floor”: 

“Stephen King has been sending us stories for some time, and we returned one of them most reluctantly, since it would be far too long before we could use it, due to its length. But patience may yet bring him his due reward on that tale; meanwhile, here is a chiller whose length allowed us to get it into print much sooner.” 

Readers were indifferent to the future superstar though as they voted "The Glass Floor" 5th out of 7 stories in The Reckoning the following issue. King would have been about 20 years old at this time. I’m not sure if it’s laziness on his part, but there seems to be a plethora of uncredited illustrations lately. Another one appears with “My Lady of the Tunnel.” However, a badly reproduced illustration credited to Hugh Rankin appears for “The Druid’s Shadow.” In The Cauldron, RAWL relates that he has won the Praed Penny Award from the Praed Street Irregulars for reprinting “The Adventure of the Tottenham Werewolf” back in SMS #4. The award was accepted at the “Annual PSI dinner” by Forrest J. Ackerman. Others in attendance were Vincent Starrett and Robert Bloch. An Index to Volume One also appears.

The 93 Jules de Grandin Stories (All stories appeared in Weird Tales):

1. The Horror On The Links (Oct 1925, reprinted May 1937)

2. The Tenants Of Broussac (Dec 1925)

3. The Isle Of Missing Ships (Feb 1926)

4. The Vengeance Of India (April 1926)

5. The Dead Hand (May 1926)

6. The House Of Horror (July 1926)

7. Ancient Fires (Sept 1926)

8. The Great God Pan (Oct 1926)

9. The Grinning Mummy (Nov 1926)

10. The Man Who Cast No Shadow (Feb 1927)

11. The Blood-Flower (March 1927)

12. The Veiled Prophetess (May 1927)

13. The Curse Of Everard Maundy (July 1927)

14. Creeping Shadows (Aug 1927)

15. The White Lady Of The Orphanage (Sept 1927)

16. The Poltergeist (Oct 1927)

17. The Gods Of East And West (Jan 1928)

18. Mephistopholes & Co., ltd. (Feb 1928)

19. The Jewel Of Seven Stones (April 1928)

20. The Serpent Woman (June 1928)

21. Body And Soul (Sept 1928)

22. Restless Souls (Oct 1928)

23. The Chapel Of Mystic Horror (Dec 1928, reprinted Nov 1952)

24. The Black Master (Jan 1929)

25. The Devil-People (Feb 1929)

26. The Devil's Rosary (April 1929)

27. The House Of Golden Masks (June 1929)

28. The Corpse-Master (July 1929)

29. Trespassing Souls (Sept 1929)

30. The Silver Countess (Oct 1929)

31. The House Without A Mirror (Nov 1929)

32. Children Of Ubasti (Dec 1929)

33. The Curse Of The House Of Phipps (Jan 1930)

34. The Drums Of Damballah (March 1930)

35. The Dust Of Egypt (April 1930)

36. The Brain-Thief (May 1930)

37. The Priestess Of The Ivory Feet (June 1930)

38. The Bride Of Dewer (July 1930)

39. Daughter Of The Moonlight (Aug 1930)

40. The Druid's Shadow (Oct 1930)

41. Stealthy Death (Nov 1930)

42. The Wolf Of St. Bonot (Dec 1930)

43. The Lost Lady (Jan 1931)

44. The Ghost-Helper (Feb-March 1931)

45. Satan's Stepson (Sept 1931)

46. The Devil's Bride (Feb-July 1932)

47. The Dark Angel (Aug 1932)

48. The Heart Of Siva (Oct 1932)

49. The Bleeding Mummy (Nov 1932)

50. The Door To Yesterday (Dec 1932)

51. A Gamble In Souls (Jan 1933)

52. The Thing In The Fog (March 1933)

53. The Hand Of Glory (July 1933)

54. The Chosen Of Vishnu (Aug 1933)

55. Malay Horror (Sept 1933)

56. The Mansion Of Unholy Magic (Oct 1933)

57. Red Gauntlets Of Czerni (Dec 1933)

58. The Red Knife Of Hassan (Jan 1934)

59. The Jest Of Warburg Tantavul (Sept 1934)

60. Hands Of The Dead (Jan 1935)

61. The Black Orchid (Aug 1935)

62. The Dead-Alive Mummy (Oct 1935)

63. A Rival From The Grave (Jan 1936)

64. Witch-House (Nov 1936)

65. Children Of The Bat (Jan 1937)

66. Satan's Palimpsest (Sept 1937)

67. Pledged To The Dead (Oct 1937)

68. Living Buddhess (Nov 1937)

69. Flames Of Vengeance (Dec 1937)

70. Frozen Beauty (Feb 1938)

71. Incense Of Abomination (March 1938)

72. Suicide Chapel (June 1938)

73. The Venomed Breath Of Vengeance (Aug 1938)

74. Black Moon (Oct 1938)

75. The Poltergeist Of Swan Upping (Feb 1939)

76. The House Where Time Stood Still (March 1939)

77. Mansions In The Sky (June-July 1939)

78. The House Of The Three Corpses (Aug 1939)

79. Stoneman's Memorial (May 1942)

80. Death's Bookkeeper (July 1944)

81. The Green God's Ring (Jan 1945)

82. Lords Of The Ghostlands (March 1945)

83. Kurban (Jan 1946)

84. The Man In Crescent Terrace (March 1946)

85. Three In Chains (May 1946)

86. Catspaws (July 1946)

87. Lotte (Sept 1946)

88. Eyes In The Dark (Nov 1946)

89. Claire De Lune (Nov 1947)

90. Vampire Kith And Kin (May 1949)

91. Conscience Maketh Cowards (Nov 1949)

92. The Body Snatchers (Nov 1950)

93. The Ring Of Bastet (Sept 1951)

(source: posted by “demonik” on The Vault of Evil: British Horror Anthology Hell)

Also, thanks once again to Galactic Central for the cover repros. I've got these zines in my collection but I'm too lazy sometimes to break out the digital camera!

Fredric Brown: Night of the Psycho

by Jack Seabrook

In the decade that followed the 1949 publication of The Screaming Mimi, Fredric Brown published 15 mystery novels, two science fiction novels, a "straight" novel, and many short stories. The practice of serializing the novels continued, with varying results.

Night of the Jabberwock (1950) was expanded from two short stories—"The Gibbering Night" and "The Jabberwocky Murders." The Deep End was expanded from "Obit for Obie," a short story written in 1945 and published in the October 1946 Mystery Book Magazine, where "The Deadly Weekend" would appear three years later. The Wench is Dead was expanded from the brilliant novelette of the same title that had been written for Manhunt's July 1953 issue.

Compliments of a Fiend (1950) was never serialized, nor was the experimental Here Comes a Candle (1950). Death Has Many Doors (1951) failed to appear in magazine form; in fact, many of Brown's 1950s novels did not sell as serialized versions. The market was changing, as the pulps were replaced by digests. In addition to "The Wench is Dead," novels such as Martians, Go Home (Astounding Science Fiction September 1954) and One for the Road (The Saint Detective Magazine February 1958, as "The Amy Waggoner Murder Case") were published in the digests.

At the same time the digests were replacing the pulps, the market also saw the rise of men's magazines, both Playboy-style and men's adventure magazines. Fredric Brown's first appearance in a men's magazine was in the December 1958 issue of Swank, which featured "Who Was That Blonde I Saw You Kill Last Night?" the serialized version of the 1954 novel, His Name Was Death.

Short stories followed in 1959 in Playboy and Adam, before the June 1959 issue of High Adventure marked Brown's first appearance in a men's adventure magazine with "Night of the Psycho," the shortened version of that year's novel, Knock Three-One-Two. Although many Brown stories would appear over the next several years in men's magazines such as Dude and Gent, "Night of the Psycho" was the only time his fiction would appear in a magazine falling squarely in the men's adventure category.

High Adventure is one of the more scarce men's adventure magazines. Only three issues appear to have been published, in April, June, and October 1959. The June 1959 table of contents page says that it is a Friendly Publication, with Walter J. Fultz as editorial director. Bessie Little is listed as publisher.

This issue of High Adventure has long been a mystery for fans of Fredric Brown. I spent 20 years looking for it until a copy turned up on eBay on New Year's Day 2010. Fans long speculated that the magazine did not exist; several years ago, a scan of the cover began to circulate online, but actual copies of the magazine itself have been very hard to come by.

The cover is a very good painting by John Leone, a well-known artist whose career began in the adventure magazines. The painting portrays a lone G.I. battling three Japanese soldiers and is a scene from "Slaughter on Maggot Beach," one of the stories contained in this issue. A green box in the top right-hand corner trumpets: "EXCLUSIVE BOOKLENGTH Night of the Psycho," which is not a very accurate description of what is found inside. The magazine's title has the subtitle, "For Men Who Dare"; this is not part of the title, but it may come in handy when searching online to distinguish this magazine from the currently-published magazine, also titled High Adventure, which replaced Pulp Review in late 1995.

    

The June 1959 High Adventure is 100 pages long, measuring 8" x 10 ¾", with perfect binding. Its contents are a mix of fiction, including:

• "Night of the Psycho" by Fredric Brown
• "Slaughter on Maggot Beach" by George B. Walters
• "Rice and Milk and High Heeled Shoes" by Leonard Bishop
• "Take One Drunk Baboon" by John Stuyvesant

and non-fiction, including:

• "City of 5000 Spies" by B.W. von Block
• "Is the U.S. Expecting Invaders From Space?" by Ray Palmer
• "This Grave for Rent" by James Collier

There are also features, such as "Girl of the Month," "On the Liquor Front," and "Sportsman's Vacation of the Month," as well as many jokes, cartoons, and wonderfully dated advertisements.

"Night of the Psycho" spans 16 pages in the middle of the magazine (44-59), hardly "BOOKLENGTH" as the cover promises. Reading it is a very different experience than is reading the novel, Knock Three-One-Two, and it is clear that the story was considerably cut for serialization using a hatchet rather than a scalpel.

The cover date of June 1959 suggests that this second adventure of High Adventure hit the newsstands in early spring of that year; the novel was published in hardcover by Dutton in August 1959. Only two illustrations accompany the story—a two-page spread on pp. 44-45 and a small one on p. 47. They are credited to Barney Etengoff and can charitably be described as "modern" or "expressionistic," as seen here. The second illustration depicts Benny Knox strangling Ray Fleck in their jail cell near the end of the story. After the first four pages, the last twelve are unbroken columns of type, three columns to a page. The editors of High Adventure spent little time or money laying out this story, much as they expended little effort into making sure that it read well in its shortened version.

 

Knock Three-One-Two is not a long novel by any means, but an enormous amount had to be cut to make it fit onto 16 magazine pages. For example, in the chapter headed "5:20 p.m.," the magazine's editors deleted the first two and a half pages from the book, including: "George Mikos surveyed his domain, his restaurant, and found it good" (314), a wry biblical allusion. The long first section of George's letter to his college friend Perry has been removed, deleting his background as a student of psychology and his continuing interest in the subject. The serialized version adds a new paragraph on page 48, where George writes that he had hired a private detective to investigate Ray Fleck and Dolly Mason. This paragraph allows much of the exposition about Ray and Dolly to be cut; the style of the paragraph is in keeping with Fredric Brown's voice, suggesting that he may have had a hand in preparing the condensed version of his novel.

The chapter headed "7:25 p.m." also suffers from considerable cutting and condensing. Descriptive passages are removed, Ruth's interaction with a customer and the cook is gone, and most of her conversation with George is nowhere to be found.

The most troubling deletions in the magazine version have to do with the backgrounds of the various characters. This is not done at random—virtually every time the book goes into detail about a character's history, it is taken out of the magazine. In addition to the cuts regarding George Mikos in "5:20 p.m.," the story of Dolly Mason's younger years is cut (342) depriving the reader of her entertaining past as a nymphomaniac. Worst of all is the loss of Brown's psychological study of Benny Knox, the mentally challenged newsstand owner whose childhood was warped by the teachings of his fire-and-brimstone preacher/father. Benny's confusion between his "Heavenly Father" and his "father in Heaven," as well as his confused belief in a literal Heaven and Hell, lead him to murder Ray Fleck at the conclusion of the novel. Without the details of Benny's psychological profile, his actions carry much less weight and are less easy to understand.

 

Other characters whose backgrounds are deleted are Mack Irby, the sleazy private investigator and boyfriend of Dolly Mason (373-79), and Ray Fleck, the novel's main character (366-68). The cutting of virtually all of the book's psychological insights harms the story, making it a much more "bare bones," plot-driven, and sketchy affair.

The chapter headed "9:32 P.M." is entirely cut, as is the wonderful "11:16 P.M." chapter, which begins:

This is the transcript of a conversation that might possibly have happened. If you believe in such things you'll come to see that it could have happened. If you do not believe, it doesn't matter. (400)

The rest of this one-page chapter consists of a dialogue between the devil and one of his minions as they discuss Ray Fleck's preparation for murder: "he has committed every other sin . . ." This fantasy sequence broadens the scope of the novel, making Ray's plight more universal and soul-damaging than the simple crime story that is the shortened version.

One odd section of the book involves a conversation between Ray Fleck and Sam, a black waiter (324-27). While the book was published in 1959, years after the Civil Rights movement had begun, Fredric Brown's dialect choices seem stuck in a prior decade. One example of Sam's speech is enough:

"Yes, suh, Mist' Fleck. Medjum rare, like allus. An' Ah'll tell th' chef to pick out a nice big one." (324)

Even Will Eisner, whose character Ebony in The Spirit spoke like this throughout the 1940s, had abandoned such dialect for the most part by the time the strip's run had ended in the early 1950s.

 

Last to be eliminated are the repeated references to a Guy de Maupassant short story where a man's mistress sells her jewels to aid her lover. Ray Fleck recalls the story with hope, imagining that Dolly will do the same for him. Apparently, this reference to a well-known tale from France was considered too highbrow for the readers of High Adventure and was excised.

Sadly, there are also some unintentional errors in the magazine version. The novel eschews chapter titles in favor of times; the first chapter is titled "5:00 P.M.," and subsequent chapters trace the events of one evening, ending at "2:45 A.M." Keeping track of these times seems to have been difficult for the magazine's editors, however, and the magazine version shows some changes. "6:15 P.M." in the book is split into two sections in the magazine, with "6:40 p.m." added as the heading of the second part. "8:03 P.M." disappears, but its events are folded into "8:17 p.m." Things get really confusing as "8:17 P.M." becomes "8:24 p.m.," and is followed by "8:03 p.m.," which corresponds to the book's "8:24 P.M." "9:32 P.M." is cut entirely, and "9:59 P.M." becomes "9:56 p.m." "11:16 P.M." is cut as well. There is no good reason for these changes, and the mixing up of the times makes a very clear story a bit more confusing.

Worst of all is the layout problem on pp. 54 and 55 of the magazine. About three column inches switch places, making the beginning and end of this chapter rather hard to follow.

Location, which had been such a central part of Brown's earlier novels, is not specified in either the long or the short version of Knock Three-One-Two. The story takes place in a city, a suburb, or both, and the various street names used are generic. There is a reference to Aqueduct Racetrack (325), when Ray gives a tip on the next day's race to Sam, the waiter. This reference places the story somewhere in or near New York City. Fredric Brown had been living in Tucson, Arizona, for many years at the time he wrote this book, so presumably he was unaware that Aqueduct had been closed for renovations since 1956 and would not reopen until mid-September 1959, after both "Night of the Psycho" and Knock Three-One-Two had been published!

Based on its June 1959 issue, High Adventure was a relatively tame men's magazine. There is a three-page pictorial featuring "Girl-of-the-Month" Lynn Wittmann, "the jauntiest gunslinger New York's Greenwich Village has seen since Prohibition gurgled down the drain" (41). Other than loosening the top button of her white shirt, she remains staunchly clothed. Her upbringing in Munich, Germany, surely led to the tone of her quotations: "'You hokay, hey honey?'" and "'American drinker, he crazy but nice. Says he haff one fast beer, then sit down and haff eleven or twelve. Crazy. But I like—American man good fun.'" These coquettish remarks were surely like catnip to the male reader of 1959.

 

In a similar vein, "racy" scenes were revised for magazine publication. Most involved Dolly Mason and descriptions of her body; apparently, the loosening censorship in novels did not extend to this publication.

Most fun of all are the advertisements in High Adventure. Tired husbands could write away for Vitasafe, so their wives would not complain that "He Didn't Even Kiss Me Goodnight" (2). Auto repair, crime detection, and operating heavy equipment were all within the reader's grasp as valuable careers. While some of the ads recall those that might have been in a comic book, overall they are aimed at adult male readers.

 

One interesting aspect of Knock Three-One-Two is its use of a psychotic serial strangler of women and Brown's efforts to investigate the psychological background not only of this man, but also of Benny Knox, who becomes a killer himself at the end of the novel. In some ways, the situation echoes that found in Fritz Lang's 1956 film, While the City Sleeps, where John Drew Barrymore plays a psychiatric serial strangler who reads comic books and still lives with his mother. The film is well worth tracking down, especially for the scene where the killer sits watching TV and clutching a comic book, dropping it in horror when the newscaster announces that the unknown killer undoubtedly reads those vile periodicals! (I hope my memory of this scene is accurate.)

 

Knock Three-One-Two was adapted twice—once for the small screen and once for the big. The December 13, 1960 episode of Thriller featured a pretty faithful adaptation, starring Joe Maross as Ray Kinton (not Fleck) and Beverly Garland as Ruth. The general plot points have been retained from the novel, and the film has a nice, cheap noir look to it. The book was also adapted as the French film L'Ibis Rouge, released in 1975. I have not seen it, but descriptions I've read make it sound like a satirical black comedy.

    

"Night of the Psycho" is a sloppy, heavily edited, condensed version of Knock Three-One-Two. The June 1959 High Adventure is a very rare magazine, and I can say that the years I spent searching for it were more fun than the time I spent reading it.

This was the last Fredric Brown story that I had never read, in a pleasurable journey that began in the 1970s when I bought the paperback, The Best of Fredric Brown. Or was it the last? Stay tuned!

Sources:
"Aqueduct Racetrack." Wikipedia. Web. 29 Dec. 2010.
Brown, Fredric. Knock Three-One-Two. Black Box Thrillers: 4 Novels By Fredric Brown. London: Zomba, 1983. 303-427.
Brown, Fredric. "Night of the Psycho." High Adventure June 1959. 44-59.
Eisner, Will. "Back to School." Comic strip. The Spirit Apr. 1985: 35-41.
Galactic Central. Web. 31 Dec. 2010. .
Gunning, Tom. The Films of Fritz Lang. London: British Film Institute, 2000.
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 30 Dec. 2010. .
"Knock Three-One-Two." Thriller. 13 Dec. 1960. Television.
"Merry Christmas--Men's Adventure Magazine Style." 21 Dec. 2010. Web. 31 Dec. 2010. http://www.menspulpmags.com.
Seabrook, Jack. Martians and Misplaced Clues: The Life & Work of Fredric Brown. Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1993.