Magazine Review: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine August 1953 edited by Ellery Queen
If you’re not picky about condition, you can find a lot of cool old magazines for very reasonable prices, like say a dollar for this 1950s EQMM. At this time, editor Frederic Dannay still used his pen name of Ellery Queen on the masthead.
The cover story is “The Girl with the Burgundy Lips” by Lawrence G. Blochman. Mystery writer Marshall T. Custer is challenged to solve a murder that bears a strong resemblance to his latest novel. A model has been found strangled, and her roommate has gone missing. Said roommate is the prime suspect, but Marshall isn’t too sure about that.
He clashes with police detective Kenneth Kilkenny, as Mr. Custer is found of the “leaps of logic” and “character relationships” school of detection, which Detective Kilkenny is of the “solid evidence” and “actual proof” school. (Each of them appears separately in at least one other Blochman story.)
What makes this story unusual, and this issue a bit of a collector’s item, is that it was originally written for Collier’s as a bit of a prank. The then-editor had noticed that every time a story contained an error, eagle-eyed readers would send in a flood of letters about this. So he commissioned Mr. Blochman to write a story with deliberate errors for the readers to spot. By the time the story was completed, Collier’s had changed editors, and the new guy didn’t like the idea. So the story was published there with the errors removed.
But for the EQMM reprint, the errors were put back in, and a reader contest announced. The reader’s letter that correctly spotted all twenty deliberate errors and best explained them would win $100! I don’t believe the “deliberate errors” version has ever been reprinted, so you can only see it here in this magazine. I will say that none of the errors prevent solving the mystery, though you will have to use the Custer method rather than the Kilkenny method.
“The Man Who Came Back” by Edna Ferber is listed as the only crime short story by the author of among other things, Show Boat. A man convicted of embezzlement (a crime he actually did commit) is released from prison and hired to do bookkeeping at a hotel run by an old friend. This is strongly objected to by the current bookkeeper, a woman about to leave to get married. Her objections seem justified when a rather large sum of money goes missing.
The story is from 1912, and there’s a rather grating bit of class consciousness at the end that stomps flat any hint of romance.
At this point in time, EQMM had absorbed Black Mask, a pulp magazine that had specialized in hard-boiled and crime noir stories. So this issue has two stories from Black Mask’s inventory, one new and one reprint.
“Unknown Quantity” by Cary Lucas is a postwar story; a lieutenant drinking alone gets sucked into a raucous group’s party, and dragged along to the host’s home. Turns out there’s a lot of hard feelings among the group of friends. When he wakes up the next morning, there’s a corpse in the living room. Between the booze and his post-traumatic stress, the soldier doesn’t remember much about the last time he saw the woman, but the rest of the party seems to want to pin her death on him. Oh, and there’s a serial killer on the loose, did you know?
“Code of the Underworld” by Jim Kielgaard is set in the backwoods (not normal noir territory) as one fur trapper murders another, more successful trapper so he can steal the best furs. The only witness is the dead trapper’s “pet” beaver, which has a magnificent pelt. The murderer decides he wants that one too, but may have bitten off more than he can chew.
“On the Brink” by James Yaffe is mentioned in the editorial introduction as the third story by this author to win a prize in one of EQMM’s frequent story contests. A maiden aunt realizes that her favorite nephew has been driven to the point of murdering his own father. (Content warning: emotional abuse.) While Hannah doesn’t like her brother much, she recognizes that murdering him won’t solve anything, and ruin her nephew’s life even more than it already has been. Can she find some way of preventing the crime without letting on she knows?
This is one of those stories where the interactions and backstory are vague enough that you can choose to believe that Hannah and her long time companion are lesbians, or just really good friends. The tension ratchets up as it becomes clear that Hannah has not, in fact, misread the situation.
“The Apron of Genius” by Earl Derr Biggers (creator of Charlie Chan) is one of only two known short crime stories by the author (and this one was a surprise find by the editor!) There’s a particularly authentic French bistro under the elevated railway, the Cafe Cote d’Or. It’s one of those hidden spots only true aficionados know about, but they are dedicated customers.
The secret to its success is chef Adolphe’s brilliant cooking skills, which he attributes to an apron given to him by his teacher, the great Bertrand de Bouillon. He takes extra special care of this apron, the source of his own culinary powers.
But when a rival restaurateur moves in across the street, Adolphe’s apron vanishes! Disaster ensues as Adolphe’s cooking becomes inedible. Can the bistro’s most loyal clientele find a way to save their friend?
“Hard Bargain” by Richard West is one of the “First Story Department” tales EQMM loved to run, the first story sold by the author. It’s a “deal with the devil” tale, though the being making the bargain will not cop to being the actual devil. As is usually the case with such stories, the terms of the bargain are filled in a way unfavorable to the human.
“The Way Round” by Phyllis Bentley takes us to England, where a tourist asks for directions to the local isolated landmark. The people he talks to act just a bit oddly, but that could be country folk eccentricity. But then he walks all the way around the landmark and discovers a secret….
“Two Birds with One Spanner” by Freeman Wills Crofts is part of the Inspector French series. A man is in serious debt and being blackmailed. He comes up with a clever plan to solve both problems at the same time. It’s a little too clever.
“The Society of the White Button” by Pietro di Donato concerns immigrant hodcarriers who decide to take steps up to the slightly more lucrative career of bricklayers at the behest of their social climber wives. One of them is a real jerk about it to his former comrades, and it is decided that something must be done. Something permanent. The author also wrote “Christ in Concrete”, which is considered a masterpiece of the Italian-American experience.
“Striding Folly” by Dorothy L. Sayers is one of the last three Lord Peter Wimsey stories, though that character barely appears. A chess master who’d retired to an isolated cottage is upset that his new neighbor, a boorish businessman, is prepared to open their area to commercial exploitation. He’s visited by a mysterious figure that is a match for him at chess, but when the businessman turns up dead with one of the protagonist’s chess pieces nearby, no trace of the mysterious figure who could provide an alibi can be found. A prophetic dream may be the key.
“The Crazy House” by Miriam Allen deFord was a Special Award winner. It’s a take on the Winchester House, a rambling structure built to appease ghosts with bizarre architecture like stairways that go nowhere and rooms with no doors. The caretaker of this house slowly becomes aware that there’s someone else living on the premises. Someone who might just be insane in a murderous way.
“All of God’s Children Got Shoes” by Howard Schoenfeld was a contest winner. Two wandering fellows are stowaways on a train when a third man joins them. He turns out to be slumming it to write a story, but his prejudices show he’s already picked how the story ends and that he has no clue what the poor actually need. Shoes, for starters.
“Heaven Can Wait” by C.B. Gilford ends the issue with another Special Award winner. A murdered mystery writer is sent back to Earth on the morning of his death day to solve his own murder. He’s warned not to change anything, but will he find a way to cheat fate? I was reminded a little of Knives Out, but the ending is a bit soppy.
Overall, a strong issue. I particularly liked the Biggers and Kielgaard stories; “Hard Bargain” was my least favorite due to the predictability. Most of these stories can be found in various anthologies, good hunting!
