FFB: THE INVESTIGATIONS OF AVRAM DAVIDSON: Collected Mysteries, edited by Grania Davis and Richard A. Lupoff (St Martin's Press, 1999)

My default choice for my favorite writer, and yet I've only done up a few of his books so far, even given the excellence of the knot of Davidson collections his old friend and collaborator (in life as ex-wife as well as in literature) Grania Davis was responsible for, often in partnership with another admirer of Davidson and his work, at the turn of the last century. So, let's start to remedy that...

Davidson was a brilliant fantasist and a brilliant writer in nearly any field he turned his hand to, and crime fiction seems to have been at worst his second love among literary modes, whether it was in the sleek, pointedly effective historical fiction "The Necessity of His Condition" (where the rationalizations for chattel slavery catch up with a slaveholder), or the discursive, just this side of surreal contemporary fiction "The Lord of Central Park" (about the conduct of river pirates in modern-day Manhattan, and much else); "'Thou Still Unravished Bride'" is anticipatory of the likes of Gone Girl in its short focus, while also drawing in poetic allusion to a deft procedural approach--this was one of two stories by Davidson adapted for episodes of Alfred Hitchcock's television series; the other (and Davidson's first story in a crime-fiction magazine) "The Ikon of Elijah" had also previously been the source of an episode of the CBC-TV anthology The Unforeseen. This book is by no means a comprehensive collection of Davidson's best crime fiction (perhaps more's the pity) so much as a nice sampling of the range of what he wrote in the criminous field...most of the stories from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, where he was one of Frederic Dannay's great favorites (and, as a result, eventually ghost-writer of two "Ellery Queen" novels), augmented by one each from Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, The Saint Mystery Magazine and the 1980s horror-fiction digest Night Cry, all among the many receptive markets for Davidson's work; he is one of the few to

"Ellery Queen" novels by Davidson
from Dannay outlines.

have received the Hugo Award (from the World SF Convention), the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award and also the soon to be renamed Howard Award from the World Fantasy Convention, among other honors. It's difficult for me not to simply rattle off a string of superlatives when considering Davidson's short fiction, which almost always has an energy to match the imagination and erudition, the elegance and wit on display that his novels, usually written under less than the best financial circumstances, can lack; as ambitious as the short work can be, as well, it also has a certain completeness that the same insecure circumstances denied some of his best work in novel form (where sequels that were clearly planned were either never written or didn't quite reach finished form by the time of Davidson's death); such books as Masters of the Maze, Marco Polo and the Sleeping Beauty (in collaboration with Davis), or 
Joyleg (with Ward Moore) are everything they should be, and wonderful, while others, such as The Phoenix and the Mirror, are perhaps even more impressive in their ambition, and not quite as thoroughly realized.  Davis and collaborators are readying another knot of collections and completed works for publication now, and you should watch out for them, and you could do worse than to dip into this, with its excellent introduction by Dick Lupoff and good story-note introductions by Lupoff and Davis, or the broad-spectrum The Avram Davidson Treasury, the collection of his stories published in the Jewish press, his explorations of myth and historical legend in "unhistory", or the collections devoted to such recurrent characters as Doctor Eszterhazy (my own favorites among his work) and Jack Limekiller, or others while waiting for the new books to appear; an e-book edition of this volume was published by Minotaur in 2015.

The contents, courtesy ISFDB:

• 1 • Foreword: Avram Davidson, My Friend, This Stranger • essay by Richard A. Lupoff
• 13 • The Necessity of His Condition • (1957) • shortstory by Avram Davidson
• 27 • "Thou Still Unravished Bride" • (1958) • shortstory by Avram Davidson
• 43 • The Cost of Kent Castwell • (1961) • shortstory by Avram Davidson
• 55 • The Ikon of Elijah • (1956) • shortstory by Avram Davidson
• 71 • The Cobblestones of Saratoga Street • (1964) • shortstory by Avram Davidson
• 83 • Captain Pasharooney • (1967) • shortstory by Avram Davidson
• 97 • The Third Sacred Well of the Temple • (1965) • shortstory by Avram Davidson
• 117 • The Lord of Central Park • (1970) • novelette by Avram Davidson
• 159 • Murder Is Murder • (1973) • shortstory by Avram Davidson
• 165 • The Deed of the Deft-Footed Dragon • (1986) • shortstory by Avram Davidson
• 173 • A Quiet Room with a View • (1964) • shortstory by Avram Davidson
• 189 • Mr. Folsom Feels Fine • (1986) • shortstory by Avram Davidson
• 199 • The Importance of Trifles • (1969) • novella by Avram Davidson

For more of today's books, with a special emphasis on Ruth Rendell this week, please see Patti Abbott's blog.