FFB: Robert Arthur, editor: ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS: A MONTH OF MYSTERY (Random House 1969) (and paperback variants such as AHP: DATES WITH DEATH, Dell 1972)

Robert Arthur's 1969 Alfred Hitchcock Presents: anthology was his last book in the biannual adult anthology series; he died that year, and Harold Q. Masur would be tapped to continue the adult anthology series for Random house for another decade, until Hitchcock's death (while Henry Veit would assemble two more YA anthologies for the Random House Alfred Hitchcock's anthology line; Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and the anthologies drawn from it published by Dell and apparently edited by Scott Meredith or subordinates at the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, and then by AHMM editor Eleanor Sullivan after the magazine was purchased by Davis Publications in 1975, proceeded apace, as did Peter Haining's short series mostly for British publishers). This one hadn't been offered during my brief membership in the Doubleday Book Club, nor did I find it in the Enfield, CT, library which was my earliest source of anthology fixes, but I did read the first of the two Dell paperback volumes that reprinted from in in the summer of 1976, not too long after I finished The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn...and about the time I was reading a few other classics, such as Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy, while visiting, with my parents and brother, my grandmother and other relations in West Virginia. A busy summer, also devoted to moving house from Enfield to Londonderry, NH. 

But AHP: Dates with Death, as the first Dell paperback was retitled, was a memorable reading experience, as were all the Random House "Hitchcock" volumes; Spider Robinson, writing in Galaxy magazine in the '70s, referred to them as "utterly reliable" and I'd agree. I'm only sorry it took me some decades to get around to the entire book. (Never did run across the second Dell volume drawn from Month.)

Contents of the hardcover original:

ix · If, Indeed, It Is Evening-- · Robert Arthur (attributed by implication to Hitchcock) · in

A Week of Crime
3 · The Dusty Drawer · Harry Muheim · ss Collier’s May 3 1952 
18 ·Drum Beat by Stephen Marlowe (ss) Ed McBain’s Mystery Book #2 1960
22 · South of Market by Joe Gores, first published as "Down and Out" (ss) Manhunt Jun 1959
38 · The Uses of Intelligence by "Matthew Gant" (Arnold Hano); 1952 (reprint: Sleuth Mystery Magazine Oct 1958)
50 · Love Will Find a Way by David Alexander (ss) 1960 
59 · Retribution by Michael Zuroy (ss) Manhunt Apr 1961
63 · The Queen's Jewel by James Holding, 1964

A Week of Suspense
75 · Pool Party by "Andrew Benedict" (Robert Arthur) (ss) Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine Oct 1969
88 · That Touch of Genius by William Sambrot (ss) Escapade Jan 1967
97 · The Crooked Road by Alex Gaby (ss) Argosy Jan 1958
112 · A Taste for Murder by Jack Ritchie (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Jan 1963
116 · The Twelve-Hour Caper by Mike Marmer (ss) Cosmopolitan May 1961
126 · The Amateur by Michael Gilbert [Insp. (Supt.) Hazlerigg series], (ss) John Bull Nov 19 1949, as “Amateur in Violence”
137 · Death Wish by Lawrence Block (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Mar 1967

A Week of Detection
149 · The Singing Pigeon by "Ross Macdonald" (Kenneth Millar) (ss) 1953, reprinted in Manhunt May 1964 (as by John Ross Macdonald) 
180 · Justice Magnifique by Lawrence Treat  (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Jan 1958
193 · The White Hat by Sax Rohmer [Paul Harley series], (nv) The Story-teller Jun 1920 (Arthur had reprinted it in The Mysterious Traveler Magazine Mar 1952)
213 · Hard Sell by "Craig Rice" [ghost written by Lawrence Block; John J. Malone series], (ss) Ed McBain’s Mystery Book #1 1960
221 · Greedy Night by E. C. Bentley (ss) Parody Party, edited by Leonard Russell, Hutchinson 1936
232 · A Twilight Adventure by Melville Davisson Post [Uncle Abner series], (ss) Metropolitan Magazine Apr 1914
243 · Murder Matinee by Harold Q. Masur, ss 1946

A Week of the Macabre
261 · A Humanist by Romain Gary (ss) The Saturday Evening Post Oct 26 1963
266 · The Oblong Room by Edward D. Hoch [Captain Leopold series], (ss) The Saint Magazine Jul 1967
276 · Love Me, Love Me, Love Me by M.S. Waddell (aka Martin Waddell), (ss) The Sixth Pan Book of Horror Stories edited by Herbert van Thal, Pan 1965
283 · Special Handling by John Keefauver, (ss) 1969 (possibly a story original to this anthology) 
288 · Dead Man's Story by Howard Rigsby (ss) Argosy Aug 27 1938, as “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead” (reprinted by Arthur in The Mysterious Traveler Magazine Nov 1951 under new title)
299 · The Legend of Joe Lee by John D. MacDonald (ss) Cosmopolitan Oct 1964
310 · Crooked Bone by Gerald Kersh (nv) The Saturday Evening Post Aug 10 1968

A Short Week of Long Ones
335 · The Janissaries of Emilion by Basil Copper (nv) The Eighth Pan Book of Horror Stories edited by Herbert van Thal (Pan 1967)
354 · Chinoiserie by Helen McCloy (nv) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Jul 1946
377 · Soldier Key by Sterling E. Lanier [Brigadier Ffellowes series], (nv) The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Aug 1968

The delightful conceit of 31 stories, a menu for four weeks and the extra three days, was about as high-concept as Arthur had chosen to go with with his anthologies ghosted for Hitchcock, and unfortunately the paperbacks, theoretically out of necessity, had to abandon that schtick. 

The story rundowns for the two Dell volumes:
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Dates with Death (Stories from A Month of Mystery Volume 1 as subtitle on the 1972 edition but dropped from the 1976)

ix · If, Indeed, It Is Evening-- · Robert Arthur ("signed" by Hitchcock) · in
1 · The Dusty Drawer · Harry Muheim · ss Collier’s May 3 1952 
17 ·Drum Beat by Stephen Marlowe (ss) Ed McBain’s Mystery Book #2 1960
21 · The Uses of Intelligence by "Matthew Gant" (Arnold Hano); 1952 (reprint: Sleuth Mystery Magazine Oct 1958)
33 · The Queen's Jewel by James Holding, 1964
44 · That Touch of Genius by William Sambrot (ss) Escapade Jan 1967
53 · The Crooked Road by Alex Gaby (ss) Argosy Jan 1958
69 · The Amateur by Michael Gilbert [Insp. (Supt.) Hazlerigg series], (ss) John Bull Nov 19 1949, as “Amateur in Violence”
80 · The Singing Pigeon by "Ross Macdonald" (Kenneth Millar) (ss) 1953, reprinted in Manhunt May 1964 (as by John Ross Macdonald) 
114 · Justice Magnifique by Lawrence Treat  (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Jan 1958
129 · Greedy Night by E. C. Bentley (ss) Parody Party, edited by Leonard Russell, Hutchinson 1936
141 · A Humanist by Romain Gary (ss) The Saturday Evening Post Oct 26 1963
147 · The Oblong Room by Edward D. Hoch [Captain Leopold series], (ss) The Saint Magazine Jul 1967
157 · Dead Man's Story by Howard Rigsby (ss) Argosy Aug 27 1938, as “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead” (reprinted by Arthur in The Mysterious Traveler Magazine Nov 1951 under new title)
169 · The Janissaries of Emilion by Basil Copper (nv) The Eighth Pan Book of Horror Stories edited by Herbert van Thal (Pan 1967)
190 · Chinoiserie by Helen McCloy (nv) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Jul 1946







































AHP: Terror Time (Dell 1972) [can't find any page numbers for this one; I'm not sure, but would be surprised if the introduction wasn't reprinted here as well. TM]

South of Market by Joe Gores, first published as "Down and Out" (ss) Manhunt Jun 1959
Love Will Find a Way by David Alexander (ss) 1960 
Retribution by Michael Zuroy (ss) Manhunt Apr 1961
Pool Party by "Andrew Benedict" (Robert Arthur) (ss) Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine Oct 1969
A Taste for Murder by Jack Ritchie (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Jan 1963
The Twelve-Hour Caper by Mike Marmer (ss) Cosmopolitan May 1961
Death Wish by Lawrence Block (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Mar 1967
The White Hat by Sax Rohmer [Paul Harley series], (nv) The Story-teller Jun 1920 (Arthur had reprinted it in The Mysterious Traveler Magazine Mar 1952)
Hard Sell by "Craig Rice" [ghost written by Lawrence Block; John J. Malone series], (ss) Ed McBain’s Mystery Book #1 1960
A Twilight Adventure by Melville Davisson Post [Uncle Abner series], (ss) Metropolitan Magazine Apr 1914
Murder Matinee by Harold Q. Masur, ss 1946
Love Me, Love Me, Love Me by M.S. Waddell (aka Martin Waddell), (ss) The Sixth Pan Book of Horror Stories edited by Herbert van Thal, Pan 1965
Special Handling by John Keefauver (ss) 1969 (possibly a story originally in the hardcover edition) 
The Legend of Joe Lee by John D. MacDonald (ss) Cosmopolitan Oct 1964
Crooked Bone by Gerald Kersh (nv) The Saturday Evening Post Aug 10 1968
Soldier Key by Sterling E. Lanier [Brigadier Ffellowes series], (nv) The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Aug 1968

Yes, yes, but what of the stories? Well, the Howard Rigsby is very good indeed, and I can see why it went to Argosy rather than Weird Tales (Argosy could pay at least five times as much if they were of a mind to do so), involving a dogged agent of law enforcement who isn't going let decedence impede execution of his duty. Arnold Hano's story is another I've written about here before, due to its inclusion in a horrible-children anthology; it managed to be both anti-intellectual and anti-youth at the same time, and (perhaps unsurprisingly) presuming that a high IQ score allows for improbable hands-on supervillainy. I chose to be mildly offended on both counts, but apparently not only Arthur but the MWA representatives who edited and co-published Sleuth magazine were chuckling. 

"The Dusty Drawer" is one of those stories where an overlooked drawer in a bank allows for hideaway larceny; the AHP: television series  dramatized another story rather similar to this one, and I've read a half-dozen others over the years...this one is reasonably deft. I was reading "Greedy Night" before I'd actually heard of, much less read, Sayers or "Gaudy Night", but nonetheless enjoyed it, and the Basil Copper story was a fine introduction to his work, resolutely old-fashioned but not stuffy horror-fiction. "The Oblong Room" is almost certainly the most-reprinted of Edward Hoch's stories, or at very least was at one time, and one can see why...it runs relentlessly to its conclusion, verging on horror and getting at the root of horror, and perverse tragedy. John Keefauver and even more Mike Marmer were professional humorists (though perhaps Marmer's Lancelot Link tv series was less indicative of that than most of his work in literary and audio/visual matters), and there is no lack of gallows humor in this and other Arthur (and Masur) books, none of it more indicative of Avram Davidson's "the laugh with a little bubble of blood in it" than the Romain Gary story, one of those gathered shortly after magazine publication in the volume Hissing Tales. And, as you probably have noted by now, this, like the other AHP: volumes  feature no lack of fantasy and horror, even a little sf, mixed in with the suspense and mystery fiction, and even a merely shadowy character study on occasion...since I didn't have half the book until recently, the not altogether dissimilar Judith Merril The Year's Best S-F annual for 1965, featuring 1964 stories for the most part, was my source for another Romain Gary and for this volume's John D. MacDonald fantasy, "The Legend of Joe Lee", a couple of years after I read the Dates with Death paperback...Dell, who were the primary force behind the Merril books except for several volumes where Simon & Schuster intrusively edited over Merril's shoulder, clearly liked eclectic anthologies. Sorry I missed the Joe Gores and Lawrence Block stories (both the latter) for so long...and there's very little in this book and its variations that isn't a good example of what the authors could do. 






































The British hardcover edition, above (possibly only offered through a book club). Below, the first UK paperback from A Month (not sure if they divided the stories as Dell did, or for that matter who at Dell was doing the splitting of the baby, or if they let Robert Arthur and Harold Masur do it themselves...that certainly would explain why presumably Arthur would replace the novels from some of te Random House hardcovers with stories from Arthur's YA anthologies for Random House, such as Alfred Hitchcock's Monster Museum, in some of the Dell paperback editions. 

Image above, and some index assistance, from The Hitchcock Zone, as well as from ISFDB and particularly the FictionMags Index. The image below the back cover of AHP: Dates with Death. Frank Babics's Casual Debris (with some gaps and errors amid a very impressive lot of work) and the Internet Archive are always good to look at, as well.

And thanks as always to Patti Abbott for hosting FFB. Check here for more of today's books.

FFB: TIME BOMB AND OTHER STORIES OF MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE edited by Peggy Doherty (Scholastic 1971)

Time Bomb and Other Stories of Mystery and Suspense edited by Peggy Doherty, Scholastic Book Services; first (only?) printing, April 1971; 95pp; 50c. TK 1821 (cover uncredited)

5 · Time Bomb · William Bankier · (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Aug 1968

13 · The Options of Timothy Merkle · A. H. Z. Carr · (nv) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Jul 1969

42 · A Hundred Times · Syd Hoff · (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Jul 1966

47 · The Bargain Hunter April Aarons (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Sep 1968

54 · Wide O- · Elsin Ann Gardner · (vi); in EQMM’s “Department of First Stories” Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Sep 1968

56 · The Affair at 7, Rue de M— · John Steinbeck · (ss) Harper’s Bazaar Apr 1955; 

—also reprinted in:
   Magazine of Horror Win 1965/’66
   Knight Sep 1966
   Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Mar 1969
   ...and many anthologies, including Bennett Cerf's Houseful of Laughter...

67 · Mr. Strang Pulls a Switch [Leonard Strang] · William Brittain · (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Jun 1969

85 · The Man Who Loved Baseball · Jerome L. Johnson · (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Apr 1969

This is a curious anthology, even among the sometimes very curious selections made for publication and sale through the classroom-distributed catalogs of Scholastic Book Services, the book publishing arm of Scholastic Magazines. In this case, essentially a couple of years-worth of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine was pored over, 1968 and 1969 issues, with an eye to subject matter or characters that might appeal to teens and older pre-teens ("tweens" a term not yet in use in 1971), matched with Syd Hoff's short 1966 Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine elementary-school revenge story. (It would be a half-decade after this book's publication before EQMM publisher Davis Publications bought AHMM from the folding HSD Publications.) The result is a pleasant, minor collection of stories presumably deemed interesting enough to minors. Perhaps the idea was to build an anthology around the Syd Hoff story, Hoff being a major author/illustrator of beginning readers' books and cartoonist as well as an occasional crime-fiction writer. Even the one chestnut in this box, the Steinbeck story, had been reprinted in EQMM, one might say finally, as it's pretty rare for a reprint from a Big Name to have appeared in the Magazine of Horror before Queen's...if Frederic Dannay was likely to be interested in reprinting the story (and you might gather from the above I first read it in the Bennett Cerf humor anthology when I was about 8y0)(certainly the first citation of a mews I'd encountered).

The Bankier story has a dash of wit, but is a relatively unsurprising story of revenge against a radio dj/call-in chat show host with an abrupt manner, apparently a nastier version of someone like NYC's Long John Nebel...who paved the way for Larry King's first national series. But it you're of the age or inexperience with twist endings to be flabbergasted by Rod Serling, this story might be more effective for you. 

The Carr story is a bit heftier, if flawed by it being primarily a story about the interactions of teenagers...Carr seems to have patterned his teen conversation of the late '60s after characters in Dragnet episodes of the latter '50s , a bit stiff and awkward even when the slang employed wasn't dated for the time...one can almost see 28yo actors reciting the lines as 17yo characters. However, the story itself mixes somewhat drawn-out though not Too unlikely classic detection on the part of a teen journalist, looking into the possible bad act of a classmate, and facing a very tough choice when he discovers what he feared he might. Carr does seem to forget that traffic signals have been putting the red/stop light on top of a three-lamp array for quite a few decades now, though he almost manages to work around that eventually...though not before the reader isn't distracted by asking the absent writer and the characters why they don't realize this.

The Hoff story is pretty cute, and slight, and told reasonably well, while not covering too much surprising ground. Since it is the AHMM story in this bunch, it is the most hardboiled, if not quite the over-the-top junior delinquent sociopath story it could've been in Manhunt or its imitators.

April Aarons's story is a mostly funny bit of ugly business, as a self-righteously stingy husband, shop-owner and customer/tag sale bargainer gets his. Biter bit where he never quite gets how he might've been bitten, rather than simply wronged.

The Gardner debut vignette is effective in its focus, pretty good at misdirection at what amounts to a suspense anecdote.

The Steinbeck revels in the language to a rococo extent, in its tale of an improbably sentient wad of bubble gum which will let no obstacle keep it from finding its way back into the fictionalized Steinbeck's young son's mouth. A horror story with the most remarkable hand-waving quasi-rationalization of the phenomenon, it is grotesquely funny. Steinbeck also refers to paramecia when he means amoebae. I'm pretty sure I was annoyed by that at 8, too.  (Almost certainly a lot more so, I'm increasingly sure.)

The Brittain is part of a series he wrote for EQMM, about a high school science teacher who solves, if this example is an indication, the kind of "impossible" crimes and locked-room mysteries which might arise in a high school context. This one is reasonably well-worked-out, but Strang takes his sweet time, at about 5c/word in those years I think, in explaining how he realized one of his students has faked his disappearance, much to the eventual relief and lesson learned by his parents.

And the Johnson is a neatly bloodless tale of an assassin for hire who has relatively few other skills or passions aside from, as the title suggests, baseball...and how he manages to (rather easily) flummox his bosses when they send him on a contract against the best pitcher on his favorite major league team. 

So, again, a pleasantly readable anthology, not nearly as full of good chestnuts and a few eccentric choices as the other Scholastic anthologies I would read as a youth, and this one unusual as amounting to a kind of "hidden" EQMM anthology for young readers, with the one exception. (The one other review I've found for this book online, at Goodreads, manages to mistake all the stories except the Steinbeck as from EQMM...but since that magazine from inception was about showcasing reprints in a mix with new fiction...)

At least under this name, this seems to be the only book attributed to this Peggy Doherty.

first publication of the Steinbeck

FFM: KEYHOLE MYSTERY MAGAZINE and SHOCK in 1960 (edited by Dan Roberts and anonymously, from Winston Publications)

A slightly corrected redux post, with new links and images:

Second issue; cover by Ed Emshwiller

1960 was an odd year in fiction-magazine publishing, and a tough one. A number of interesting projects were launched--too often only to stumble and fall, or fold, after only a few issues; a number of venerable titles and publishing groups changed hands, settled in with new owners, or went out of business, or all three.  Three was often a magic number for the good new magazines of 1960, though Saul Bellow and partners' The Noble Savage got as far as five issues in two years, while New World Writing got a new publisher and slightly different format, and the major little magazine Accent ended its 20-year run; Pocket Books' adventure in magazine publishing, Ed McBain's Mystery Book, was among the three-issue titles, while one of the new TV-related fiction titles offered by Great American Publishing, Tightrope, saw four, with another, 77 Sunset Strip,  getting out a single issue and their horror companion, Fear!, two. While The Saint Mystery Magazine was continued by another publisher, most of Great American's fiction magazines, including their newly-purchased Fantastic Universe (with a last issue featuring Robert Bloch, Fredric Brown and Jorge Luis Borges), were folded by the end of 1960, as were Columbia Publications' last titles: Double Action Western, Future Science Fiction, Double Action Detective (which had at the end featured a Edward Hoch "Simon Ark" story in every issue) and Science Fiction Stories (the last issue offering new work by Kate Wilhelm, Murray Leinster, Donald Westlake, A. Bertram Chandler and Donald Wollheim). And two interesting new magazines from a small publisher, Keyhole Mystery Magazine and Shock: The Magazine of Terrifying Tales, had their three-issue runs.

A battered copy of the first issue; cover by Emsh

Keyhole was a literate crime-fiction magazine in a period when the flood of cf titles, inspired in large part by the mid-1950s success of Mickey Spillane-flavored Manhunt, had started to recede; Manhunt itself had lost much of its audience (though claiming on its increasingly cheap-looking covers to still be the most popular cf magazine in the world, almost certainly fraudulently). Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine had recently been purchased to help found Davis Publications, and (back at EQMM's original home, Mercury Press), though long-running companion Mercury Mystery had just folded, Bestseller Mystery Magazine continued. Aside from the magazines mentioned above, and the then relatively-new Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine and the somewhat eccentric Mystery Digest (and a brief attempt to import the British John Creasey Mystery Magazine in 1959), most of the US cf titles were leaning cheap and sleazy, often having as much in common with "men's sweat" "true story" sex-and-adventure magazines as they did with the better crime-fiction titles.  Keyhole was doing a lot better than the likes of Web Detective or even the somewhat more professional Trapped: 

Keyhole Mystery Magazine [v1 #1, April 1960] ed. Dan Roberts (35¢, 130pp, digest, cover by Ed Emsh)
Details supplied by Tom Lesser.
• 4 · The Great Elvis Presley Mystery · Will Folke & Dick Ashbaugh · ss
• 17 · Full Circle · Miriam Allen deFord · ss
• 28 · Mr. Lupescu · Anthony Boucher · ss Weird Tales Sep 1945; Author’s Choice.
• 33 · Cinderella and the Mob · Cornell Woolrich · nv Argosy Jun 22 1940
• 59 · Swan Song · Ken Murray · ss
• 66 · The Mugger · Harold Straubing · ss
• 68 · Mother Knows Best · Avram Davidson · ss
• 80 · The North Star Caper · Norman Katkov · ss
• 93 · Peeping Tom’s Scrapbook · Charles Boeckman · ss
• 98 · Murder on El Capitan · Hayden Howard · ss
• 114 · The Dog That Wouldn’t Talk · Lawrence G. Blochman · ss 1941; For Love or Money, Mystery Writers of America, Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1957

Rather good choices in reprints, mixed with some solid, if not groundbreaking, original fiction, and a bit of attempted pop-culture hipness in invoking Elvis in the cover story--coauthored by Robert Bloch as "Will Folke"...

Keyhole Mystery Magazine [v1 #2, June 1960] ed. Dan Roberts (Winston Publications, Inc., 35¢, 130pp, digest) (see Emshwiller cover above)
Details supplied by Douglas Greene.
• ifc. · Dear Mystery Fans · [The Editor] · ed
• 4 · Letters to the Editor · [The Readers] · lc
• 6 · The Trap · Norman Daniels · ss
• 16 · Night Ride · Theodore Sturgeon · ss
• 28 · The Concealed Path [Uncle Abner] · Melville Davisson Post · ss Uncle Abner: Master of Mysteries, D. Appleton 1918
• 39 · The Diamonds [Uncle Abner] · Frank Atterholt · ss
• 45 · A Case of Homicide · Rog Phillips · ss
• 55 · The Deadliest Game · Joseph Whitehill · ss 1955
• 68 · Wife Killer · Rod Reed · ss
• 70 · Author’s Choice · Cornell Woolrich · is
• 71 · I.O.U. · Cornell Woolrich · ss Double Detective Nov 1938, as “I.O.U.—One Life”
• 84 · A Matter of Life · Robert Bloch · ss
• 90 · Born for Murder · John Collier · ss
• 105 · Rest in Peace · Avram Davidson · ss
• 110 · A Christian Burial · Mary Thayer Muller · ss
• 115 · A Kiss for Belinda [Dr. Daniel Webster Coffee] · Lawrence G. Blochman · nv Collier’s Feb 17 1951, as “Kiss of Kandahar”; given as by Laurence G. Blochman.

If anything, an even better issue...at least in adding Bloch, Sturgeon and Collier originals along with another Davidson in the mix. 

Keyhole Mystery Magazine [v1 #3, August 1960] (35¢, digest)
• The Hit-Run Homicide [Fabian] · Bill Boltin · ss
• Murder in Africa · Roald Dahl · ss
• Ambition · Charles Boeckman · ss
• Fat Chance · Robert Bloch · ss
• Case of the Clumsy Cadaver · Will Folke · ss
• That Night · George Kauffman · ss
• Long Teeth · R. A. Lafferty · ss
• The Careful Murderer · Miriam Allen deFord · ss
• Straight and Narrow · John Collier · ss
• Triangle · William T. Harrel · ss
• Broker’s Special · Stanley Ellin · ss Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Jan 1956
• The Zarapore Beat [Terrence O’Reilly] · Lawrence G. Blochman · nv Argosy Oct 24 1936, as “O’Reilly Sahib”

And with the third and final Winston issue, deFord's back, and she and Bloch and Collier are joined by Roald Dahl, the busy Charles Boeckman, and then-new writer R. A. Lafferty--one has to wonder how new a George Kauffman item could be. A four year old Ellin reprint from EQMM seems a bit recent, but EQMM would do similar things...and it was Ellin (today is the anniversary of his death, oddly enough). Note also, still pinning hopes to a pop-music crossover appeal, with Fabian Forte, of all people, as a detective. 

Meanwhile, and for no obvious reason edited anonymously (with radio/comics-style "editorial hosts" who are a Beast and a spider), Shock showed some signs of being aimed a bit younger, while still offering a lot of first-rate work...albeit even more of it reprinted and not a little of that set chestnuts from the horror and suspense literature.  EC Comics legend Jack Davis did all three covers, much in the style of their horror comics or Mad...while some of the fiction was a bit grim even for the more receptive kids:

Shock—The Magazine of Terrifying Tales [v1 #1, May 1960] (Winston Publications, Inc., 35¢, 132pp, digest)
• 4 · Feast Day · Matthew Lynge · ss
• 14 · Bianca’s Hands · Theodore Sturgeon · ss Argosy (UK) May 1947
• 23 · The Band Played On · Gene Dilmore · ss
• 28 · Graveyard Rats · Henry Kuttner · ss Weird Tales Mar 1936
• 35 · The Crowd · Ray Bradbury · ss Weird Tales May 1943
• 44 · Parlor Game · Reginald Rose · ss
• 51 · The Monkey’s Paw · W. W. Jacobs · ss Harper’s Monthly Magazine Sep 1902
• 61 · Forever After · Jim Thompson · ss
• 68 · The Empty Man · Anthony Boucher · ss F&SF Apr 1952, as “The Anomaly of the Empty Man”
• 83 · Crickets · Richard Matheson · ss
• 89 · Specialty of the House · Stanley Ellin · nv Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine May 1948
• 106 · Green Thoughts · John Collier · ss Harper’s Magazine May 1931
• 122 · The Tenant · Avram Davidson · ss

But, then again, there are worse things for young minds to be warped by than "Bianca's Hands"...the Davidson story was reprinted in F&SF a decade later, and a decade+ after that in Dennis Etchison's anthology Masters of Darkness III.  Originals by Richard Matheson, Jim Thompson, Reginald Rose (12 Angry Men), and Davidson are nothing to dismiss out of hand, even if the Davidson is probably the closest to major work by its author. A young Lenny Kaye, a decade+ before starting to play with Patti Smith Group and putting together the Nuggets anthology albums of garage-rock and protopunk, wrote a published fan letter about this issue.

Shock—The Magazine of Terrifying Tales [v1 #2, July 1960] (Winston Publications Inc., 35¢, 130pp+, digest)
Details supplied by Darren Heil.
• ifc. · Dear Reader: Here’s Wishing You a Shudderful Time · [The Editor] · ed
• 4 · Letters to the Editor · [The Readers] · lc
• 7 · Bright Segment · Theodore Sturgeon · nv Caviar, Ballantine 1955
• 30 · Mean Mr. Murray · Avram Davidson · ss
• 37 · The House Party · Stanley Ellin · ss Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine May 1954
• 54 · Pin-Up Girl · Will Folke · ss
• 62 · 9-Finger Jack · Anthony Boucher · ss Esquire May 1951
• 68 · The Emissary · Ray Bradbury · ss Dark Carnival, Arkham House: Sauk City, WI 1947
• 75 · Baby Picture · Mort Golding · ss
• 79 · Laughing Moths · Miriam Allen deFord · ss
• 87 · Sredni Vashtar · Saki · ss The Westminster Gazette May 28 1910
• 92 · The Frog Prince · John Collier · ss Presenting Moonshine, New York: Viking 1941
• 99 · Our Feathered Friends · Philip MacDonald · ss When Churchyards Yawn, ed. Cynthia Asquith, London: Hutchinson 1931
• 109 · The Doll · Pat Gibbons · ss
• 114 · Yours Truly—Jack the Ripper · Robert Bloch · ss Weird Tales Jul 1943

Originals by Davidson again, deFord, and Bloch again as "Will Folke"...one does get the sense that Dan Roberts, whoever he? was, definitely edited both Winston titles.

Shock—The Magazine of Terrifying Tales [v1 #3, September 1960] (35¢, 132pp, digest)
• 6 · Final Performance · Robert Bloch · ss
• 18 · The Witch · Ralph E. Hayes · ss
• 25 · Open House · Charles Beaumont · ss The Hunger and Other Stories, Putnam 1957
• 35 · The Man Who Knew Everything · Edward D. Hoch · ss
• 41 · Skeleton · Ray Bradbury · vi Rob Wagner’s Script Apr 28 1945
• 57 · Cold Case · Ed Ritter · ss
• 62 · Skin · Roald Dahl · ss The New Yorker May 17 1952
• 78 · Chanceyville · John Anthony West · ss
• 85 · Johnson Looked Back · Thomas Burke · ss Night-Pieces, London: Constable 1935
• 90 · Beautiful Dreamer · R. A. Lafferty · ss
• 97 · A Bottomless Grave · Ambrose Bierce · ss San Francisco Examiner Feb 26 1888
• 104 · Moon-Face · Jack London · ss The Argonaut Jul 21 1902
• 110 · The Kennel · Maurice Level · ss Hearst’s Magazine Aug 1920; translated from the French (“Le Chenil”, Le Journal, 1906).
• 116 · Prison Ball · John Rublowsky · ss
• 124 · Cat Killers · Donald E. Westlake · ss

And the third and last Winston issue features originals by Edward Hoch, Lafferty, Westlake, and journeyman John Anthony West, among others...including one of the best stories of Bloch's career, "Final Performance," a story that is in more ways than one a hardboiled punch in the gut. 

It's a real pity that these magazines didn't do better in the suddenly crowded, then thinned out, marketplace of 1960...and even more a pity that Winston apparently sold the title rights and unpublished inventory, if any, to Pontiac Publishing, already responsible for some of the bottom of the barrel sleaze titles, of which their 1961/62 continuations of Keyhole and particularly Shock were prime examples.  Don't confuse the originals with these decomposing revenants...

And see the indices at Phil Stephenson-Payne's The Crime, Mystery, & Gangster Fiction Magazine Index, the source of the indices above and several of the cover images.  For a sense of how these magazines went, try Peter Enfantino's reviews of the archetypal Web Detective.

For more of today's titles, please see Evan Lewis's blog (filling in this week for Patti Abbott, on assignment in Traverse City).  [Original post info there: please see Patti's blog for today's list.]

The third, and last!, issue...

And given that I've posted about Shock (this one rather than the several other magazines of that title, not even counting its shudder-magazine continuation) and Fear! and the Magazine of Horror and its stablemates, (and the various revivals of Weird Tales starting after the turn of the next decade),  I suppose doing a take on the Other horror magazines of note in the 1960s, such as Macabre, The Arkham Collector, Bizarre! Mystery, and even the all-reprint Strange Fantasy might well follow...along with such early '70s colleagues as Coven 13/Witchcraft and Sorcery, The Haunt of Horror (the fiction magazine from Marvel, before they turned it into a large-format comic), Whispers, Weirdbook and others...

...And the comments on the original post:

16 comments:

Bill Crider said...

I wish I'd seen some of these on the stands. Any magazine featuring Fabian as a detective would have been a must-buy. 

July 31, 2015 at 12:35 PM 

Todd Mason said...

He reportedly was very good as a psychopath in the episode of BUS STOP, one based on a Tom Wicker story, that got the series pulled off the air...

July 31, 2015 at 12:39 PM 

Juri Nummelin said...

Is Dan Roberts the same guy who wrote lots of western and romance paperbacks in the sixties and seventies? If so, his real name was William Edward Daniel Ross and he lived 1912-1995, writing lots of short stories for different mags. 

July 31, 2015 at 2:43 PM 

Yvette said...

Oh Todd, I wish I had something of interest to say about your well researched and comprehensive post but I have never read any of this sort of thing in magazine form. I know, I know, you probably consider this a shortcoming in my literary education - so be it. :) But all is not lost: I did recognize 11 of the authors listed. I am not completely beyond the pale.

July 31, 2015 at 2:47 PM 

Todd Mason said...

Well, Juri, is this the guy who was most probably best known in the 1960s for the DARK SHADOWS novels as by Marilyn Ross, and a GUINNESS BOOK record-holder for prolificacy? Probably. Have to wonder if he was faster than Barry Malzberg or more productive than Robert Silverberg or Lester Dent, but these magazines seem like a likely job for him to take on.

Yvette, there is no lack of people who've never read a fiction magazine, nor even picked up one to check out some excellent illustration or see what a favorite writer was up to. You might enjoy the experience more than you think (you sure you haven't?)...and just don't tell Walker Martin, fellow northern Jerseyite, who might have to come by with several hundred examples for you to try...you can tell they fascinate me, but this FFMagazine post is perhaps the least popular, so far, that I've posted in a while, so perhaps I tax the readership.

July 31, 2015 at 5:27 PM 

Walker Martin said...

I discovered the crime digests about the same time I discovered the SF digests(1956). But as a teenager living on my small allowance, I could not afford all the SF magazines plus the crime magazines like MANHUNT, etc. But many years later, I did start collecting MANHUNT and the many imitators. Then when I retired a few years ago, I figured I was finished with the crime stuff and sold them at Pulpcon.

Turned out I was wrong and I started collecting them again! I picked up a set of MANHUNT which I've written about and at Windy City in April 2015 I bought over a hundred crime digests like TWO FISTED, OFF BEAT, SURE FIRE, etc. Then I bought another hundred when they were delivered at my home. Titles like GUILTY, TRAPPED, and PURSUIT.

I have KEYHOLE and SHOCK (again!) and will hang on to these until the bitter end.

July 31, 2015 at 6:37 PM 

Casual Debris said...

Good article. I like Davidson's "The Tenant." Interesting to note that its inclusion in the Etchison anthology was Davidson's own doing (the idea for the Masters of Darkness series is that the authors themselves select one of their own, lesser known yet personally liked stories). Had Davidson not been invited to the series, the story would until today remain un-printed outside its two magazine appearances.

July 31, 2015 at 8:24 PM 

Todd Mason said...

Frank: Yup (plus at least French translation in Fiction, the French correspondent to F&SF)...though perhaps that will change soon.

Walker...have you made initial efforts toward placing your collection with a library or archive? And have you found much worth reading in,say, Off Beat?

July 31, 2015 at 8:45 PM 

Todd Mason said...

And, thanks!

July 31, 2015 at 8:45 PM 

Walker Martin said...

I'm still busy collecting and reading, so I haven't given much thought to placing it with a library or archive. My feelings now are more in line with placing the magazines and art with other collectors.

MANHUNT is quite readable in the early and mid fifties and some of the other hardboiled crime digests are of interest also. But OFF BEAT, TWO FISTED, and some of the others are just about unreadable. They are collectible mainly because of the bizarre cover art. I've found this applies to many of the men's adventure magazines also. The Nazis and damsels in distress covers are outrageous and crazy but the fiction, or so called "articles", are hopeless.

July 31, 2015 at 11:50 PM 

George said...

KEYHOLE and SHOCK didn't show up around here. I've never seen these covers before but I really like them!

August 1, 2015 at 8:04 AM 

Jack Seabrook said...

Walker, let me know when you want to start placing magazines and art with other collectors. I'm just a short drive away.

August 1, 2015 at 11:08 AM 

Todd Mason said...

George, you can do worse than Emshwiller and Davis on their worst days...I wonder if Forte posed for the photo cover, or it was an image already at hand.

Jack, many of us live in NJ, after all, or nearby...my worry about trying to place my collection, as George did his, with a university or similar, is if some idiot comes in and decides it's a lot of waste paper...much as might happen to a collector with unsympathetic or overwhelmed survivors. Or the kind of optimist who hopes against hope for a $150+ eBay sale on a single copy, if rare, of a Myron Fass issue, full of half-Fass fiction. At least the last might wise up.

August 1, 2015 at 12:49 PM 

R.T. said...

This is amazing stuff! What a great lineup of names! I am especially intrigued by the Saul Bellow connection, and I'll be digging further into that one. 

August 3, 2015 at 10:31 AM 

Todd Mason said...

THE NOBLE SAVAGE published a best-of that is harder to find than issues of the magazine itself, RT...if you hit the link above, you'll see part of the reason the enterprise had some potholes on its road...and how those led pretty directly to Bellow's HERZOG.

August 3, 2015 at 11:58 AM 

Todd Mason said...

Well, actually, I take that back: the best-of volume Bellow and Keith Botsford put together from four of their magazine projects can be had inexpensively online, and is also still in print at full price from its publisher, all 1100 pages of it: Editors, edited by Saul Bellow and Keith Botsford

August 3, 2015 at 4:22 PM