Alfred Hitchcock's The Best of Mystery: What Happened to Each Writer?

I just finished The Best of Mystery, culled from Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine in 1980, the year Hitchcock died.  I thought it'd be interesting to excavate the careers of the writers included in the collection.  There are some names even someone like me who doesn't read a lot of mysteries will know, and then some that require a little more digging.  So let's begin!

Edward D. Hoch ("Winter Run," "Warrior's Farewell," "A Melee of Diamonds") Ended up best known for his short stories.

Henry Slesar ("You Can't Blame Her," "Happiness Before Death," "Case of the Kind Waitress") Wrote teleplays for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, among other projects.

Pauline C. Smith ("A Flower in Her Hair," "Linda Is Gone") Limited to Hitchcock publishing ventures.

Avram Davidson ("The Cost of Kent Castwell") Celebrated by hobbyists but never really broke out.

Lawrence Block ("Pseudo Identity," "With a Smile for the Ending") Wrote extensively, dozens of novels under a variety of names.  Easy to find.

Jack Richie ("That Russian!," "The Third Call," "#8") Later refined his name as Jack Ritchie; worked for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, had a short story adapted into a movie starring Walter Matthau.

Hillary Waugh ("Galton and the Yelling Boys," "Nothing But Human Nature") Dozens of novels, easy to find.

Charles Boeckman ("Blind Date") Known primarily for his earlier jazz career.

Roderick Wilkinson ("Pressure") Fairly obscure.

Bill Pronzini ("The Running Man," "Here Lies Another Blackmailer," "I Don't Understand It") Wrote extensively, best known for the Nameless Detective.

F. J. Kelly ("The Vietnam Circle") This particular name did not leave a legacy.  May have been modified later.

Ed McBain ("Sadie When She Died") Extensive work, easy to find, was once adapted by Akira Kurosawa.

Gilbert Ralston ("A Very Cautious Boy") Wrote extensively in Hollywood, including co-creating The Wild Wild West.

Borden Deal ("A Try for the Big Prize") His stories inspired work in both Broadway and Hollywood.

Robert Colby ("Voice in the Night") Never really broke out.

Ron Goulart ("Undertaker, Please Drive Slow," "News from Nowhere") Ghost writer of William Shatner's TekWar books.

Donald E. Westlake/Richard Stark ("Never Shake a Family Tree," "Just a Little Impractical Joke," "Come Back, Come Back...," "The Best-Friend Murder") The second most accomplished of the writers in the collection, with an extensive list of Hollywood adaptions to his credit, including recent examples Payback (1999), What's the Worst That Could Happen? (2001), and Parker (2013).  Probably better known recently as Richard Stark, creator of Parker, a character who has appeared in many films, often renamed, until the most recent one.

Lawrence Treat ("Dead Duck") Known primarily for his short stories.

John Lutz ("Games for Adults") Wrote the book that later became the film Single White Female.

James Michael Ullman ("Night of the Twisters") Best known for How to Hold a Garage Sale.

Patricia Highsmith ("Variations on a Game") The writer of The Talented Mr. Ripley, plus Strangers on a Train (later adapted as a Hitchcock movie) and what came to be known as Carol (also made into a movie).  Easily the most accomplished of the lot.

William Link & Richard Levinson ("Child's Play") Frequent collaborators worked extensively in television.

Jean Potts ("Murderer #2") Best known for her short stories.

Rufus King ("Damon and Pythias and Delilah Brown") Wrote a number of books.

Richard M. Ellis (Glory Hunter") Apparently best known for Hitchcock publications.

C. B. Gilford ("Frightened Lady," "Murder, 1990") Best known for his Hitchcock work.

James Holding ("Once Upon a Bank Floor," "The Montevideo Squeeze") Remains fairly obscure.

Wenzell Brown ("Death by Misadventure") Born in Portland, ME (of interest mostly to me), had some work adapted by Hollywood.

Charlotte Edwards ("Television Country") Wrote for television.

Dan J. Marlowe ("Art for Money's Sake") Wrote a number of books.

Paul W. Fairman ("Panther, Panther in the Night") Works adapted by Hollywood.

E. X. Ferrars ("Perfectly Timed Plot") Wrote dozens of books.

Bryce Walton (All the Needless Killing," "Doctor Apollo") Wrote a few episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Mary Barrett ("One for the Crow") Daughter of Irving Berlin.

Kate Wilhelm ("A Case of Desperation") Well respected for her science fiction work.

Paul Tabori ("An Interlude for Murder") Better known for other pursuits.

Eleanor Daly Boylan ("Death Overdue") Best known for her Hitchcock work.

Helen Nielsen ("Pattern of Guilt") Wrote for Perry Mason and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Donald Honig ("A Real, Live Murderer") Best known for writing about baseball.

Holly Roth ("The Pursuer") Remains fairly obscure.

Lawrence Page ("Final Arrangements") Significantly obscure.

David Ely ("Countdown") Best known for Seconds.

Nedra Tyre ("Murder Between Friends") Somewhat obscure.

Carroll Mayers ("Ghost of a Chance") Best known for Hitchcock work.

Margaret Chenoweth ("The White Moth") Best known for Hitchcock work.

Comic Strips Worth Checking Out

People have been declaring the death of the comic strip since at least Calvin & Hobbes ending in 1995 (nearly a quarter century at this point!), in part thanks to Calvin's own creator, Bill Watterson, who famously complained about the diminishing space accorded strips in newspapers and the resulting lack of artistic ambition.  I previously set out to explore what there was worth reading in a post that became one of my most popular here, but that was some time ago at this point, and so here's an update.

Part of the problem comic strips have is, of course, that newspapers themselves are no longer touchstones of family life.  I myself tend to read papers only when they've been made available by someone else (my dad, who still reads them every day; a good reason to stay at a hotel is for their free copies), so my experience of both them and recent comic strips in general is sporadic.  That doesn't mean strips aren't worth reading today.  A local carrier either misdelivered a paper last week or was attempting to drum up business, but at any rate I found myself reading strips again, looking to see if there was anything worth noting, and there was, as it turned out.

That's Macanudo, a comic strip created by Liniers that's been published in Argentina since 2002 but recently (September 2018) made the leap into English language papers.  Obviously equipped with unique origins, it also reshapes the idea of comic strips into a recognizably modern style. 

You don't need to reinvent the wheel to stand out, though. 

 



That's Sally Forth, a strip that has technically existed since 1982, but has successfully reinvented itself, with an evolving pool of creators, over the years, with the current team (writer Francesco Marciuliano and artist Jim Keefe) in place only since 2013.  The best element of this one is Ted Forth, who frequently seems like he hails from some alternate dimension, but in recent years lost his dad and has settled a little more into reality.  He seems almost as if he were a grownup Calvin.  Ted and Sally's daughter Hil is sort of a mix of her parents, although she seems closer to Ted.  Sally's biggest quirk is her annual eating of the ears off Hil's chocolate Easter bunnies (a scant few months away!).

Pearls Before Swine is the current gold standard.

Red and Rover has always struck me as a pleasantly gentle version of Calvin & Hobbes.

Big Nate has taken on much more visibility in recent years thanks to making the leap into books akin to Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Zits has consistently excelled on art.

 



Over the Hedge became an animated movie way back in 2006.  Still in newspapers, if you can find it.

FoxTrot has gone into semiretirement.  You can only read new strips on Sundays now.  (I recently watched the whole Indiana Jones movie series; this strip seemed appropriate.  Plus there's going to be a fifth entry soon; I expect that walker to actually be in it.)

Favorite books read in 2018

1. Green Lantern: Earth One, Vol. 1 by Gabriel Hardman & Corinna Sara Bechko - Brilliant reinvention of the mythos.
2. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald by J.K. Rowling - Timely cautionary tale about the splitting of society down ideological lines.
3. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway - Finally reading Papa continues to be fruitful.
4. Batman, Vol. 4: The War of Jokes and Riddles by Tom King & Mikel Janin - Compelling look at the psychology of Batman and his villains.
5. Redeployment by Phil Klay - Piercing look at modern American warfare.
6. Bearing False Witness by Rodney Stark - Enlightening look at truth and fiction of the Catholic Church throughout history.
7. Boxers & Saints by Gene Luen Yang - Creative look at the Boxer Rebellion.
8. G.I. Joe Cobra Command - The Complete Collection by Chuck Dixon, Mike Costa & various - Costa's Cobra comics are essential reading, but this might be the best place to see it in context and IDW's G.I. Joe material in general at its finest.
9. 41 by George W. Bush - I read both this and Bush's memoir Decision Points during 2018, but this one turned out to be incredibly timely, chronicling his father's incredible life, in the year he passed away.
10. A Once Crowded Sky by Tom King - This was also the year I finally read King's pre-comics novel, that also features superheroes.