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Opening Lines

Opening Lines

Selected from a digest featured in The Digest Enthusiast book five:

Jonathan Press cover
Jonathan Press Mystery J29 January 1947

“The Montgomery Hotel’s regular detective had taken his last week’s rake-off from the hotel bootlegger in merchandise instead of cash, had drunk it down, had fallen asleep in the lobby, and had been fired. I happened to be the only idle operative in the Continental Detective Agency’s San Francisco branch at the time, and thus it came about that I had three days of hotel-coppering while a man was being found to take the job permanently.”
“House Dick” by Dashiell Hammett Jonathan Press Mystery J29 January 1947

Title from Mercury Mystery 112
Vault

Mercury Mystery 112

Although not labeled officially with the “Ellery Queen Selects” banner, Mercury Mystery #112 met all the series’ criteria: a short story collection edited by Queen, with his introduction.

Mercury Mystery 112 cover
Mercury Mystery 112, June 10, 1947

Mercury Mystery 112, June 10, 1947

“The Case Book of Mr. Campion” by Margery Allingham
“The Crimson Letters,” The Strand Magazine, Aug. 1938 as “The Case of the Longer View”
“Safe as Houses,” The Strand Magazine, Jan. 1940
“The Case of the Question Mark,” The Strand Magazine, Jan. 1938 as “The Question Mark”
“The Definite Article,” The Strand Magazine, Oct. 1937
“The Magic Hat,” The Strand Magazine, Oct. 1938 as “The Case of the Hat Trick”
“The Meaning of the Act,” The Strand Magazine, Sept. 1939
“A Matter of Form,” The Strand Magazine, May 1940

Story's opening page
Interviews

Ellery Queen March/April 2014

An excerpt from the interview with Bill Crider, from The Digest Enthusiast book five:

Bill Crider: “At an Armadillocon some years ago, I was on the “Apes” panel, along with Joe Lansdale, Rick Klaw, Mark Finn, Chris Nakashima Brown, and probably some others I’m forgetting. The talk turned to a legendary pulp cover for a story called “Gorilla of the Gas Bags” in a pulp called Zeppelin Stories. As anyone knows, there are only a couple of copies of the magazine still around, so nobody had read the story. Joe Lansdale challenged the panelists to write a story based on the cover. He sold his, and I sold mine. I don’t know if anyone else wrote a story.”

Ellery Queen April/March 2014 cover
Ellery Queen March/April 2014 with Bill Crider’s “Gorilla of the Gasbags” with Hollywood detective Bill Ferrell

Attn. Writers: Sandra Seamans reminds us Switchblade magazine is open for submissions.

Bee Rider by Joe Wehrle, Jr.
Opening Lines

Opening Lines

Selected from a digest featured in The Digest Enthusiast book five:

“A most singular case.” mumbled Dr. Pertinnet, walking a dignified hopskotch among the checkered tiles of the sanitarium waiting room. “Can’t be unique, of course—nothing’s ever unique: must have been someone like Hallock in medical history. Just never recorded.”
“Hallock’s Madness” by William Tenn Marvel Science Stories May 1951

Marvel Science Stories May 1951 cover

Section of Mercury Mystery 110 cover
Vault

“Ellery Queen Selects”

Although not labeled officially with the “Ellery Queen Selects” banner, Mercury Mystery #110 met all the series’ criteria: a short story collection edited by Queen, with his introduction.

Mercury Mystery 110 cover
Mercury Mystery 110, April 4, 1947

Mercury Mystery 110, Apr. 4, 1947
“Dr. Fell, Detective and Other Stories” by John Dickson Carr Adventures of Dr. Fell

“The Proverbial Murder” (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine July 1943)
“The Locked Room” (The Strand Magazine July 1940)
“The Wrong Problem,” (The [London] Evening Standard Aug. 14 1936)
“The Hangman Won’t Wait” (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Sept. 1944; first broadcast on Suspense, CBS radio, Feb. 9, 1943)
“A Guest in the House” (The Strand Magazine Oct. 1940 as “The Incautious Burglar”)
Other Stories
“The Devil in the Summer House” (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Sept. 1946; first broadcast by the BBC on Oct. 14, 1940. This is the shorter version without Dr. Fell which was broadcast on the CBS radio program Suspense on Nov. 3, 1942)
“Will You Walk Into My Parlor?” (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Sept. 1945; first broadcast on the CBS radio program Suspense on Feb. 23, 1943)
“Strictly Diplomatic” (The Strand Magazine Dec. 1939)

Interviews

Ellery Queen March 1998

An excerpt from the interview with Bill Crider, from The Digest Enthusiast book five:

Ellery Queen March 1998
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine March 1998

Bill Crider: “I’ve published only two stories in EQMM, and “The Case of the Headless Man” was the first. When I wrote it, I used a couple of my series characters, Bo Wagner and Janice Langtry. They’re a writing team, like Ellery Queen, and they write about impossible crimes solved by their amateur sleuth, Sam Fernando. Now and then the cops call them in and ask for their help with impossible crimes, like one committed by a man without a head. I really had some some fun with these stories, of which there are two or three. Maybe I should collect them into an eBook, except that I can’t locate the eCopy of “The Case of the Headless Man.”

“I’d tell you where the story idea came from, but I can’t do that without giving too much away. What I can tell you is that I’d been rejected by EQMM a couple of times, and I really wanted to be published there. When I came up with this story idea, I thought it was perfect for the magazine, and sure enough, the editor bought it.”

SMFS logoHat Tip: The new Pulp Modern with Robert Petyo’s story “Sacrifice” is highlighted today by Kevin R. Tipple on The Short Mystery Fiction Society Blog.

Opening Lines

Opening Lines

Selected from a digest featured in The Digest Enthusiast book four:

“Just when the idea occurred to her that she was being murdered she could not tell.”
“Small Assassin” by Ray Bradbury Suspense Magazine #1, Spring 1951

First published in Dime Mystery (Nov. 1946), “Assassin” is included a several collections such as The October Country, The Autumn People, and The Vintage Bradbury.