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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Jack Tracy’s ‘The Published Apocrypha’

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Jack Tracy’s ‘The Published Apocrypha’

I am bringing back The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes for a Doyle-centric run in April. Getting in the mood, here’s my review of Jack Tracy’s cornerstone book, Sherlock Holmes: The Published Apocrypha.

Sherlockians like to hold the Canon (Doyle’s sixty Holmes stories) in the same esteem that Christians hold the Bible. So it should come as no surprise that there are some works by Doyle that are comparable to apocrypha. The term refers to early Christian writings not included in the Bible.

Jack Tracy, author of the superb Encyclopedia Sherlockiana, collected some authentic and near-authentic Holmes works that are not part of the Canon. Few books made up of Holmes fiction can justifiably sit on your bookshelf next to Doyle’s short stories and novels about the wisest and finest man Dr. Watson ever knew. This book should be the very first one.

No one who has looked at Tracy’s Encyclopedia can doubt his Sherlockian scholarship. He utilizes his vast knowledge in an efficient and readable way in Sherlock Holmes: The Published Apocrypha. Each section begins with info about the writings that follow. Interesting and “must know” details set the stage for the pieces themselves.

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A Q&A With Holmes on the Range’s Steve Hockensmith

A Q&A With Holmes on the Range’s Steve Hockensmith

So, I’ve long been a fan of your  Holmes on the Range series. Two weeks ago over at BlackGate.com, I did a deep dive into it for my weekly Monday morning column. Last week, it was a spoiler-free, comprehensive chronology of the series. Along with a publication timeline. I think it’s the only all-inclusive, current one out there. Thanks for your input.

And you’ve agreed to a Q&A to wrap up our coverage of the series. Thanks again!

QUESTION – You wanted to sell more stories to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and you saw the annual Sherlock Holmes issue as a way to do that. But you didn’t want to ‘just’ write more standard Holmes. How did you hit on the idea of Gustav and Otto?

Before I start blathering on about myself, I want to pause to thank you for all the attention and positivity you’ve been lavishing on the Holmes on the Range books. It is much, much appreciated!

Now — on to me!

I love Sherlock Holmes, but when I was thinking about writing something Sherlockian for Ellery Queen I just couldn’t get comfortable with the idea of a Holmes pastiche. So many other writers do them so well. Did the world really need me to give it a try? Especially when what I think are my strong suits — my voice and humor — feel so very American. So I tried to think of American characters who’d be inspired by Dr. Watson’s stories about Holmes. And when you’re thinking about fun, interesting, late 19th century Americans, naturally cowboys come to mind sooner or later.

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Holmes on the Range: A Chronology

Holmes on the Range: A Chronology

There are a lot of ways to go about writing a Sherlock Holmes story. Some folks attempt to very carefully emulate Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s own style, and to turn out a tale that feels as if it might have been penned (or typed these days) by the creator of the great detective himself. No surprise that results vary. GREATLY. Hugh Ashton and Denis O. Smith are the best I’ve found in this regard. Last week, I took a deep dive into Steve Hockensmith’s Holmes on the Range series. You might want to click over and read that. Below, I present a complete chronology of the series (along with a list in publication order, following). Each entry comes with a non-spoiler summary – the kind of thing you’d find on a dust jacket or on a back cover. I think this is a useful reference to a terrific series. Steve himself reviewed and assisted, so it’s accurate. Come back next week for a Q&A with Steve, to wrap up our series.

A HOLMES ON THE RANGE CHRONOLOGY

ss – short story; nvlla – novella; nov – novel

 (ss) Dear Mr. Holmes (July 1892)

So begins the Holmes on the Range saga. Gustav (Old Red) and Otto (Big Red) Amlingmeyer travel to Brownsville, TX, to sign on for a cattle drive. They’re gonna help move three thousand Mexican longhorns all the way up to Billings, Montana. En route one night, there’s a stampede. As they get the herd back in place, two of the cowboys are found, stomachs slashed, eyes cut out, and scalped. Clearly, Indians had raided the drive and killed the men. Except, Gustav’s not quite so sure. For the first time, he gets to try out the Holmes methods he’d heard sitting around the campfire and listening to Otto read “The Red-Headed League.” A stranger shortly joins the group, a lawman shows up, fireworks ensue, and Big Red gets the detection’ bug.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Cass Blue

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Cass Blue

I’ve got another introduction out for Steeger Books. I got to jump in for Volume Two of John Lawrence’s tough PI, Cass Blue. Here’s that intro, to whet your appetite. If you like what you read, check out the two books. I hadn’t read Blue before writing this intro, and I enjoyed discovering these stories.

Cass Blue presented an unusual combination to the readers of Dime Detective when he arrived in November of 1932 in “The Bloodstone.” The settings of the first three stories were more akin to an Agatha Christie novel than to the pages of a hardboiled pulp magazine. The country manor; the island only reachable by boat; a houseful of suspects – and potential victims. But there were also those elements of the Weird Menace pulps. What’s a country house without a seance? Need a masked assailant? – Check. Murder by mad bomber? Of course!

In addition to the Christie-esque setting and the Weird Menace tone, Blue himself is a tough guy that Roger Torrey or Frederick Nebel might have written. It’s a different type of Pulp Stew than readers were used to in Dime Detective when Blue became a regular in 1934.

Story four – “Calling All Cars” – involved a big heist caper and a serial killer. It was different from the first three, but still not the usual private eye yarn. It had a pretty big scope. You can find those first four stories in Volume One, also from Steeger Books. It also includes an excellent intro by Ed Hulse, looking at the history of Dime Detective.

This second volume starts a little more traditionally with “Guilty Party” from the August 15, 1935 issue of Dime Detective. “Calling All Cars” had been in the prior issue, only two weeks before. Blue is walking home, pleased that his private detective business has lasted for eight years – with Blue still alive to enjoy it. A harmless-looking fellow is following him through a snowstorm, and Blue figures it’s a stool pigeon looking to sell some info.

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Ten Things I Think I Think: October 2023

Ten Things I Think I Think: October 2023

A (Black) Gat in the Hand takes a week off for a somewhat Robert E. Howard-centric installment of Ten Things I Think I Think. Books, television, movies, and even a computer RPG are in the mix today.

1) Jules De Grandin is a new favorite

Being a Robert E. Howard guy, I am familiar with Weird Tales – home to much of his best work, including Conan, Kull, historical fiction, and Solomon Kane, among much more. But not being into horror, I don’t really read anyone else from ‘The Unique Magazine.’

But I recently bought the audiobook for The Horror on the Links. It is Volume One of The Complete Tales of Jules De Grandin. A few stories have been a bit much for me in the macabre category, but Seabury Quinn’s doctor-former Surete policeman is an Occult Detective version of Hercule Poirot. I am absolutely loving the mix. I’m nearing the end of this collection, and I’ll be listening to Volume Two next.

De Grandin is a French transplant to fictional Harrisonville, New Jersey. His Watson is Dr. Trowbridge, and they investigate both cases that have natural, as well as supernatural, solutions. Each audiobook is about 25 hours long, which is a lot of entertainment. Paul Woodson does a great de Grandin. There are over 90  stories – including one serialized novel. As a Poirot fan, I’m totally in on these. I’ve been kicking around the idea of a de Grandin/Nero Wolfe crossover.

 

2) “The Horror from the Mound” is Quite a Story

Sticking with horror, I was hoping to have an essay ready today for Robert E. Howard’s “The Horror from the Mound.” It’s a (then) contemporary Weird Western which also appeared in Weird Tales. I’d read it before, and with one foot in ‘today’ and one firmly in the mid 1600s, may be my favorite REH horror story. Still working on the essay.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand Turns 100!: Erle Stanley Gardner’s ‘Getting Away With Murder’

A (Black) Gat in the Hand Turns 100!: Erle Stanley Gardner’s ‘Getting Away With Murder’

“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

And A (Black) Gat in the Hand turns 100 today. With help from some friends, this column has managed to offer a hundred essays on the fascinating world of Pulp. April 8, 1949 was the day the Pulps died (I think that American Pie is one of the greatest songs of all time – couldn’t pass up the reference – with a tip of the fedora to William Lampkin for the phrase). On that day, Street & Smith announced they were quitting the Pulps. My favorite, Dime Detective, straggled on into 1952. But the days of the Pulps were effectively over.

But the love of Pulps lived on. Back in May of 2018, I kicked off my weekly Black Gate column as follows:

“Working from Otto Penzler’s massive The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps, we’re going to be exploring some pulp era writers and stories from the twenties through the forties. There will also be many references to its companion book, The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories. I really received my education in the hardboiled genre from the Black Lizard/Vintage line. I discovered Chester Himes, Steve Fisher, Paul Cain, Thompson and more.

With first, the advent of small press imprints, then the explosion of digital publishing, Pulp-era fiction has undergone a renaissance. Authors from Frederick Nebel to Raoul Whitfield; from Carroll John Daly to Paul Cain (that’s 27 letters – we went all the way back around the alphabet – get it?) are accessible again. Out of print and difficult-to-find stories and novels have made their way back to avid readers.”

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand – The ‘Lost’ Mike & Trixie Intro

A (Black) Gat in the Hand – The ‘Lost’ Mike & Trixie Intro

“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

So… I agreed to write an introduction for The Complete Cases of Mike & Trixie: Volume One, from Steeger Books. That intro is below. It is not, however, in that particular book, as I missed the deadline in epic Douglas Adams fashion. It was entirely my fault, and I’m fortunate that Steeger didn’t drop me entirely. Since this essay has just been sitting around taking up space on my hard drive, I decided to run it in A (Black) Gat. It’s pretty self-explanatory and covers the first four stories in the series. I like T.T. Flynn, and maybe I could write an intro for Volume Two…

Most pulpsters earned less than a penny a word, with the legendary Black Mask offering a princely three cents! So it comes as no surprise that not only did writers produce at great volume, – some, like Erle Stanley Gardner, could crank out over one million words a year – but they also wrote for multiple magazines in different genres. Robert E. Howard, best known for Conan (Hollywood added ‘the Barbarian’), wrote boxing yarns, Westerns, spicy adventures, horror, historicals, and even mysteries; submitting stories to almost anyone who would pay, it seems. Like his contemporaries, he was just trying to make a living as a pulpster.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Evan Lewis on Cleve Adams – Black Knight, Cannibal and Forgotten Man

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Evan Lewis on Cleve Adams – Black Knight, Cannibal and Forgotten Man

“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

If you read Pulp, you know who Evan Lewis is. He’s an MLB MVP while I’m AAA on a good day. Hardboiled, Adventure, Doc Savage, Dick Tracy, Davy Crockett, Nero Wolfe – the guy knows it all. He and I message about our like interests, and I conned – I mean, convinced – him to join in the Black (Gat) parade, this year.  I know a little about Cleve Adams, but not nearly enough to write about the once popular but now mostly forgotten pulpster.

 

Chapter 1

OBSCURITY

Cleve F. Adams is the forgotten man among hardboiled pulp writers. Though he produced well over a hundred stories and more than a dozen novels, almost every word is now out of print.

Adams was an anomaly in that his characters were genuinely hardboiled, while his style was not. His detectives were sometimes harder and more brutal than their contemporaries, but remained likable due to his easy-going whimsical style. This blend of violence and humor made him one of the relatively few hardboiled pulp writers to successfully move his magazine characters into hardcover.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Will Murray and The Diamond Wager Caper – Not Dashiell Hammett?

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Will Murray and The Diamond Wager Caper – Not Dashiell Hammett?

“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

A (Black) Gat in the Hand makes its first-ever Friday appearance as Will Murray takes us down some Mean Streets never explored before. And he’s gonna need a blackjack and a roscoe in hand for this one. I’m not gonna spill the beans about Dashiell Hammett’s “The Diamond Wager”, but you’re definitely going to want to read on to find out the real truth behind that story. Take it away, Will!

____________________________________________

Recently, friend and fellow researcher Evan Lewis posted on Facebook the text of a story that first appeared in the October 19, 1929 issue of Detective Fiction Weekly entitled “The Diamond Wager.“ This was featured in a blogpost he originally posted in June, 2013.

The story ran under the byline of Samuel Dashiell. According to Evan, it is widely believed to be the work of Samuel Dashiell Hammett, and constitutes Hammett’s only contribution to Detective Fiction Weekly.

“The Diamond Wager” is a 7,600 word yarn of a gentleman thief set in Paris. For a tale purportedly written by the author of The Maltese Falcon, it’s underwhelming. Opinions on the story’s worth do not vary much. When compared to Hammett’s oeuvre, it’s an oddball outlier, a tongue-in-cheek relic of the Golden Age of mystery stories.

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Senator, You’re No Jack Kennedy. Continautors – Yes or No?

Senator, You’re No Jack Kennedy. Continautors – Yes or No?

Official continuators of a literary series can engender mixed emotions. Some folks are happy to see more stories of a character they like – even if the creator has died. Others feel that only the original author should write that character and they should lie in the grave together.

Characters eventually enter the public domain. Though exactly when varies in different countries; and it’s not always clear, regardless. But the rights holders (often the family of the author, or their Estate) contract with someone to continue the series. I have read several official continuations (though I still haven’t gotten around to Ben Black’s Philip Marlowe. And as I recall, Poodle Springs didn’t do anything at all for me). I’m gonna talk about a few, with comments on the concept, mixed in.

Tony Hillerman/Anne Hillerman

Anne Hillerman had previously written some non-fiction when she took over her late father’s Navajo Tribal Police series. The ONLY reason she is writing these books is because she owns the rights. Quite simply, her continuation novels are terrible. And are a bastardization of her father’s books. I wish someone could prevent her from any more of them.

Anne completely transformed her father’s series. She was not interested in writing more books in his style. Expanding from ‘Leaphorn and Chee.’ they are now officially ‘Leaphorn, Chee, and Manuelito Novels.’ She has completely shifted the emphasis to Bernie Manuelito. Chee is an emasculated husband who would be better off completely out of the books. They’re now like Lifetime movies about Bernie and her issues with her mom and sister, and unhappiness with Chee’s attitude at least once a book. It’s exhausting read them.

Louisa Bourbonette is now so annoying, I wish that Leaphorn (who was actually lobotomized by a gunshot wound in the first two books) would dump her.

Stargazer (the sixth book) is the worst continuation novel I’ve ever read. Well, I actually, partly read. The first five books were bad, and that one was so terrible, I abandoned it part-way through.

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