I recently got my hands on a number of issues of MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE from the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties. I read the magazine regularly from cover to cover when I was writing for it in the late Seventies and early Eighties, right up until it ended in 1985. (The publisher at that time still owed me $242.00 when the magazine folded, $242.00 that I never got paid, but I’m not still bitter about that $242.00 41 years later, oh, no, of course not.) Anyway, since then I’ve read the occasional old issue, but now I have this nice big stack of them, so I thought it might be good to pull one out at random and read it. The lucky issue was from January 1972. That’s my copy in the scan.
As was common for most of the magazine’s run, this issue leads off with a 20,000 word Mike Shayne novella. “Shadow of Fear” is something of an offbeat tale in which the big redheaded private detective isn’t hired on a case and has no murder to solve. Instead, it’s more of an action thriller in which a New York mobster comes to Miami and kidnaps a friend of Lucy Hamilton (Shayne’s secretary) as leverage in forcing Shayne to set up a meeting with a Cuban refugee who’s rumored to be building a secret army in order to return to Cuba and overthrow Fidel Castro. The mystery is what business this mobster has with a Cuban revolutionary, and will Shayne be able to untangle everything in time to save the young woman who’s being held prisoner.
It’s a fast-moving, hardboiled, reasonably well-plotted tale that flows well. The author does a decent job of capturing Shayne’s character most of the time, with a few missteps. In the novels by Davis Dresser, Shayne is always two and sometimes three steps ahead of all the other characters in his thinking, and in this novella, he’s not that smart. Nor would Shayne, in my mind, ever wear bell bottoms and a flowerdy shirt. (Well, the guy in those terrible photo covers on the late Dell editions of the novels might, but that guy isn’t Mike Shayne.) Those complaints aside, this novella’s version of Shayne is at least recognizable as the big redhead we all know and some of us love. That’s not always true in these ghostwritten stories.
And speaking of ghostwriters, “Shadow of Fear” has been attributed to Max Van Derveer, who also wrote the goofy, Shell Scott-like novels about private eye Tokey Wedge under the name Jack Lynn. That’s possible. Van Derveer wrote quite a few stories for MSMM under his own name, and the editors always had a habit of recruiting the Shayne ghosts from the magazine’s regular contributors. But unlike the Tokey Wedge novels, this grim, dour story has not a trace of humor in it. Like I said, it’s certainly possible Van Derveer wrote it, but since all I’ve read by him in the past has been his lighter stories, I just don’t know for sure. Either way, “Shadow of Fear” is okay, definitely not a stand-out Shayne yarn but perfectly readable.
Next up is the short story “Sagittarius” by Gary Brandner, the third of five stories by Brandner about Hollywood private eye Adam Dukane. Two Dukane stories appeared in MSMM, two in ELLERY QUEEN’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE, and one in ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE. In this one, Dukane is hired by an astrologer who counts among her clients movie stars and studio big-shots. Somebody is sending her threatening notes, and she wants Dukane to find out who and if it’s a serious threat. It is, of course, and Dukane solves the case (which, honestly, isn’t very difficult to do). Brandner is enough of an old pro to hold the reader’s interest and deliver an enjoyable story.
“Assignment—Murder” is an espionage novella by F.W. Nash. The narrator/protagonist, CIA agent Art Barrett, is sent to Beirut to investigate the suspicious death of an agent who happens to be an old friend of his. While he’s there, he has to set up the assassination of an enemy agent who’s causing a lot of trouble. Then there’s the matter of the beautiful blonde who, along with her brother, inherited some mining property in a fictional-but-real-sounding Middle Eastern nation. If you think that all these things might wind up being connected, well, there’s a good chance you’d be right. This story belongs in the same murky and dangerous realm of international intrigue as Matt Helm, Joe Gall, and Sam Durell, while not being as well-written as any of those series. Nor does it generate much unbearable suspense, as the cover claims. In fact, the middle section kind of plods along. However, the plot is interesting and the ending is pretty good and, yes, fairly suspenseful. Art Barrett is a good protagonist who probably could have carried a series. But this is his only appearance, and in fact, the only story listed in the Fictionmags Index by F.W. Nash.
Actually, as soon as I saw that name on the cover, I thought, “That’s a pseudonym.” Knowing from experience that the editors at MSMM had a habit of sticking a pen-name on a story without telling the author, I figured “F.W. Nash” was one of the other contributors to this issue. If “Assignment—Murder” was really by Max Van Derveer, they wouldn’t have needed to use a pseudonym since his other story is under the Brett Halliday house-name. Gary Brandner, maybe? Possible, but this story doesn’t read like Brandner’s work to me. Nobody else in the issue seems to be a likely suspect, either. Maybe it really is by F.W. Nash, who for some reason never sold another story. Stranger things have happened. Anyway, “Assignment—Murder” isn’t a great yarn, but I thought it was okay.
Several years before taking over the editorship of MSMM (and giving me my first steady writing job, I might add), Charles E. Fritch appears in this issue with the short story “Is There Wife After Death?”, a wry little tale that takes the premise of a famous Patricia Highsmith novel and Alfred Hitchcock film and gives it a different spin. It’s well-written, as Chuck’s work always was, and moves right along.
Miriam Allen deFord is best remembered for her science fiction and fantasy stories, but she wrote a lot of crime stories for the mystery digests, too. “The Incipient Corpse” in this issue is a lightweight tale about a professional burglar who unknowingly targets a house where a paranormal investigation is going on. This is a pretty good idea, but deFord does very little with it in a mildly amusing but very forgettable story.
M.G. Ogan was the pseudonym of husband and wife writing team Margaret and George Ogan. I seem to recall reading a few stories by them in the past and enjoying them. “The Truck-Snatchers” is the first in a short-lived series about Cole Stoddard, the owner of a security agency who specializes in cases related to the trucking industry. In this one, he’s trying to track down four highjacked trucks. With its straightforward prose and procedural elements, this reminds me a little of Joe Gores’ DKA novels and stories, although not as well-written. But it has some nice action and I enjoyed it.
The issue wraps up with a short-short by a forgotten author named Ed Dumonte, who turned out a couple dozen stories for the mystery digests. “Mrs. Becker’s Yarn” is about a little old lady who sits around various places in the city, knitting and observing life. But of course there’s more to it than that. This is a reasonably clever story.
Overall, I’d have to say this is a slightly below average issue of MSMM. None of the stories are terrible, but none of them rise above the level of okay, either. I’m going to keep working my way through the stack of them I have on hand, hopefully with better results.
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