Deal Me In: "Bride in Danger"

Jay's Deal Me In Challenge has us reading one short story per week; one per card in a deck. For details, click on the link and my list of chosen stories may be found HERE.

My current selection is "Bride in Danger" by Ellery Queen (from Ellery Queen's Anthology 1966 Mid-Year Edition Vol. 11), chosen by drawing the queen of spades from the deck. Ellery has been invited as an eligible bachelor (the bride's mother is hoping to do a little more matchmaking) to a wedding in Wrightsville. He finds himself serving as a repository for various secrets and almost winds up attending a funeral for the bride instead of a reception for the happy couple. His eye for the right word helps him identify the person with murderous intentions toward Dr. Farnham's intended.

Deal Me In: "The Man Who Traveled in Elephants" & "Murder on St. Valentine's Day"

Jay's Deal Me In Challenge has us reading one short story per week; one per card in a deck. For details, click on the link and my list of chosen stories may be found HERE.

I have gotten behind, so this post will cover two stories in one. Last week's story was "The Man Who Traveled in Elephants" by Robert A. Heinlein (found his short story collection 6 X H) and was chosen by drawing the ten of hearts from the deck. 

John Watts used to be a traveling salesman and his wife, Martha who loved to travel and see new things, would go with him on the road. They loved visiting all the carnivals and festivals and country fairs that they found along the way. Even after John retired, they still traveled, claiming (to those whose curiosity was such that they just had to know why they traveled so much) that now John "traveled in elephants." And now--now Martha is gone and John is keeping the tradition alive by traveling on his own. But then the bus he's on has an accident and he finds himself at the most fantastic festival he's ever seen.


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Next up, after drawing the eight of spades, is "Murder on St. Valentine's Day" by Mignon G. Eberhart (found in Ellery Queen's Anthology 1966 Mid-Year Edition (Vol. 11).

One way and another, my widows have caused me considerable mental anguish, due in the main to their recurrent impulses to invest money in nonexistent oil wells, or to finance expeditions for the discovery of buried treasure.

Our narrator, James Wickwire, is a senior vice president at the local bank. He manages the estates of various widows who are clients of the bank. Most of them cause him anxiety--but not Clarissa--she had always kept her head when it came to money matters. Could balance a bank book with the best of them and never fell for wild cat schemes. That is until the day a young assistant cashier brought him a check for $20,000 written in lipstick on a dainty, lace, heart-shaped handkerchief from Clarissa to an unknown handsome young man. He thinks Clarissa has finally fallen for a slick line...but he didn't expect it to lead to murder.

Deal Me In: Two Stories

Jay's Deal Me In Challenge has us reading one short story per week; one per card in a deck. For details, click on the link and my list of chosen stories may be found HERE.

I have gotten behind, so this post will cover two stories in one. Last week's story was "The Tragedy of Papa Ponsard" by Vincent Starrett (found in Ellery Queen's Anthology: 1966 Mid-Year Edition) and was chosen by drawing the ten of spades from the deck. Papa Ponsard is a book store owner who dreads parting with his books and yet he knows he must sell some or be ruined--for he owes 300 francs in back rent and fears every day that Monsieur Gebhart will show up and kick him out of his shop. But few customers enter his store these days. So he starts cataloguing his books so he can try to draw in customers through the mail. Then an innocent change (on the part of his daughter's suitor) in a book's price results in an unexpected twist of fate--both wonderful and tragic.

Without his books Papa Ponsard would have been lost. But he no longer read them. Instead he catalogued them....For what is more delightful than cataloguing one's books, and what is more sorrowful than writing after them a price? (p.223)

Papa Ponsard was in his way a scholar; but better still he had been for most of his life a reader. (p. 225)

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Up next, with the draw of the jack of spades, is "The Silver Curtain" by John Dickson Carr (from the same anthology). Jerry Winton is having terrible luck at the gaming tables. Then a man comes along and offers him ten thousand francs to just go to a doctor's house and pick up some pills. Sounds like an easy way to earn some much-needed cash. But then that same fellow winds up dead with a knife in his back outside the doctor's establishment...and there's no one around but Jerry. And he didn't do it. Fortunately, Colonel March of Scotland Yard is on hand to explain what happened and who really did it.

Deal Me In: "Jericho & the Dying Clue"

Jay's Deal Me In Challenge has us reading one short story per week; one per card in a deck. For details click on the link and my list of chosen stories may be found HERE.

This past week's story was "Jericho & the Dying Clue" by Hugh Pentecost (found in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine October 1965) and chosen by drawing the seven of diamonds last Sunday. It finds Pentecost's artist/detective John Jericho staying at the home of presidential hopeful Senator Willard Rice. Rice wants Jericho to paint his portrait and Jericho wants to get the atmosphere surrounding the man before he begins. But the Senator's death after an accusation of impropriety takes him from artist to detective overnight. It would look like suicide--if there had been a note and the weapon weren't missing. And, as the title implies, the Senator's supposed last words provides him with the solution to the mystery.

Up next (with a draw of the ten of spades): "The Tragedy of Papa Ponsard" by Vincent Starett (found in Ellery Queen's Anthology 1966 Mid-Year Edition)


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Mystery Bingo Card #2
Clues & Cliches: Dying Message
  

Deal Me In: "Chicago Night's Entertainment"

Jay's Deal Me In Challenge has us reading 52 short stories--one per week; one per card in a deck. For details click on the link. And my list of chosen stories may be found HERE.

Last week's story was "Chicago Night's Entertainment" by Ben Hecht (from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine July 1958) chosen by drawing the eight of clubs. This installment in the challenge is a very short one and is actually a sketch from Hecht's A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago. Sergeant Kuzik of the first precinct is speaking to the unnamed journalist who provides the reader's point of view. Apparently, the journalist has asked Kuzik to relate some of his most interesting cases for a newspaper article. The sergeant insists that he needs time to remember his stories properly and the proceeds to give us little paragraph snapshots of some of his cases. We get a peek at the man who killed his wife and used her skull as an ashtray and the alderman who was a terrific hypnotist and convinced one of two burglars robbing his house that he (the burglar) was a policeman and he should shoot the other burglar, among others.

Overall--a very unsatisfying little sketch. Hecht gives us just enough to get us interested in the little snippets, but it would have been a far more entertaining night in Chicago (well, in Bloomington, anyway) if he had chosen one of the stories and given it a full run.

Up next, having drawn the seven of diamonds, we'll have Hugh Pentecost's John Jericho in "Jericho and the Dying Clue."

Deal Me In: Nine of Clubs "An Official Position"

Jay's Deal Me In Challenge has us reading 52 short stories--one per week; one per card in a deck. For details click on the link. And my list of chosen stories may be found HERE. 

This week's story is "An Official Position" by Somerset Maugham (from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine July 1958) chosen by drawing the nine of clubs. The title refers to the position held by our protagonist Louis Remire. Louis is a prisoner who was convicted of murdering his shrewish wife. But he had held an official position before the crime and conducted himself well as a prisoner afterward, so he was offered the position of public executioner. This is France, so he maintains and operates the guillotine. Despite the fact that his fellow prisoners despise him, he comes to realize that for the first time he is happy. He's allowed more freedom than the other prisoners--can, in fact, go into town and go to his favorite fishing place. He doesn't have to worry about a place to live or food for his table and the only negative in his life (the constant nagging) is gone. All he wants to do is finish his sentence and be able to fish. But will he be allowed to do so? The man who previously held his position went missing and was later found killed....

 

Deal Me In Reading Challenge

In 2017, I joined in on Jay's Deal Me In Challenge for the first time and after a year off I've decided to do another round. If you'd like to join in please click the link for a full run-down. Here's the short version of the rules:

~Compile a list of 52 short stories
~Match each story to a card from a regular deck of cards
~Have a deck of cards handy throughout the year
~Read one short story per week
~Choose your weekly story by drawing a new card from the deck. I plan to draw my card on Sunday.

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Clubs (all but King from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine July 1958 (completed 6/16/23)
A: "Hunting Day" by Hugh Pentecost
2: "Investigation by Telegram" by Agatha Christie
3: "The Silent Informer" by Helen McCloy
4: "The Man Who Lost His Taste" by Lawrence G. Blochman
5: "Dead Boys Don't Remember" by Frances & Richard Lockridge
6: "Lioness vs. Panther" by Q. Patrick
7: "Tea Shop Assassin" by Michael Gilbert
8: "Chicago Nights' Entertainments" by Ben Hecht (1/19/20)
9: "An Official Position" by W. Somerset Maugham (1/10/20)
10: "Wanted: An Accomplice" by Frederick Nebel
J: "For Tom's Sake" by Sheila Kaye-Smith
Q: "Carnival Day" by Nedra Tyre
K: "How Mr. Hogan Robbed a Bank" by John Steinbeck (from Ellery Queen's Anthology 1966 Mid-Year Edition (Vol. 11) [2/18/24]

Bonus Read (to complete the 1958 magazine):
Nothing Is Impossible by Clayton Rawson (novelette)

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Spades
(All but King from Ellery Queen's Anthology 1966 Mid-Year Edition (Vol. 11)
A: "You Can't Love Two Women" by L. A. G. Strong (2/18/24)
2: "I Killed John Harrington" by Thomas Walsh (2/18/24)
3: "The Grave Grass Quivers" by MacKinlay Kantor (2/18/24)
4. "The Crime by the River" by Edmund Crispin (2/18/24)
5: "£5000 for a Confession" by L. J. Beeston (2/18/24)
6: "Karmesin & the Crown Jewels" by Gerald Kersh (2/18/24)
7: "Black Mail" by Stephen McKenna (2/18/24)
8: "Murder on St. Valentine's Day" by Mignon G. Eberhart (2/11/20)
9: "A Piece of String" by Clarence Budington Kelland (2/18/24)
10: "The Tragedy of Papa Ponsard" by Vincent Starrett (2/4/20)
J: "The Silver Curtain" by John Dickson Carr (2/4/20)
Q: "Bride in Danger" by Ellery Queen (2/26/20)
K: "Angel Fix" by James Tiptree, Jr. (from Out of the Everywhere & Other Extraordinary Visions by Tiptree)

Bonus stories (to complete the anthology):
All at Once, No Alice by Cornell Woolrich (short novel) [2/18/24]
The Girl Who Lived Dangerously by Hugh Pentecost (short novel) [2/18/24]
The Clue of the Scattered Rubies by Earl Stanley Gardner (novelette) [2/18/24]
Blind Man's Bluff by Roy Vickers (novelette) [2/18/24]
That Was Will's Day by Aaron Marc Stein (novelette) [2/18/24]
Taboo by Geoffrey Household (novelette) [2/18/24]

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Hearts (from Out of the Everywhere by Tiptree and 6 X H by Robert A. Heinlein)
A: "Beaver Tears" by Tiptree
2: "Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light" by Tiptree
3: "The Screwfly Solution" by Tiptree
4: "Time-Sharing Angel" by Tiptree
5: "We Who Stole the Dream" by Tiptree
6: "Slow Music" by Tiptree
7: "A Source of Innocent Merriment" by Tiptree
8: "Out of the Everywhere" by Tiptree
9: "With Delicate Mad Hands" by Tiptree
10: "The Man Who Traveled in Elephants" by Robert A Heinlein (2/11/20)
J: "All You Zombies" by Heinlein (6/19/23)
Q: "They" by Heinlein (6/19/23)
K: "Our Fair City" by Heinlein (6/19/23)

Bonus reads (to finish the book): "The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag" (novella)  and "And He Built a Crooked House" by Heinlein (6/19/23)

Diamonds (from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine October 1965)*
A: "Flair for Murder" by Frances & Richard Lockridge
2: "The Three R's" by Ellery Queen
3: "The Japanese Card Mystery" by James Holding
4: "Baskets of Apples & Roses" by Victor Canning
5: "The Cherub Vase" by Alice Scanlan Reach
6: "The Labor Day Mystery" by Lloyd Biggle, Jr. 
7: "Jericho & the Dying Clue" by Hugh Pentecost (1/26/20)
8: "Want to Buy a Cat?" by Gerald Kersh
9: "The Course of Justice" by Hugh B. Cave
10: "The Great Glockenspiel Gimmick" by Arthur Moore
J: "The Theft of the Black Jupiter" by Margaret Austin
Q: "Devil to Pay" by J. F. Pierce
K: "The Sound of the Peepers" by Caroline Breedlove

*Remainder, including bonus stories, complete 5/26/23
Bonus stories (to finish the magazine): 
"The Right Way & the Wrong" by Sonora Morrow
Not Easy to Kill by Philip Wylie (complete short novel)

Challenge Complete: Deal Me In

Jay at Bibliophilopolis tempted me with he 7th annual Deal Me In Challenge for 2017. I had watched it go by a couple of years and though it would be a chance to tackle some of the short story collections that I'd let languish on the TBR stacks. I did finish all the stories--but I found myself struggling to keep up with the card/story-a-week format. I think I'm going to go back to just working collections into my other challenges. 

Thanks for hosting, Jay! 

Here are the stories I read this past year:

Clubs

A – "Common Stock" by Octavus Roy Cohen

2 – "Pink Bait" by Octavus Roy Cohen (5/9/17)

3 – "Farrar Fits in" by Edmund Snell (9/20/17)

4 – "The Pathologist to the Rescue" by R. Austin Freeman (catch-up post 9/12/17)

5 – "The Blue Sequin" by R. Austin Freeman (2/16/17)

6 – "The Divided House" by Thomas W. Hanshew (2/25/17)

7 – "The Riddle of the Rainbow Pearl" by Thomas W. Hanshew (1/4/17)

8 – "The Mystery of the Steel Room" by Thomas W. Hanshew (4/9/17)

9 –  "Vidocq & the Locksmith's Daughter" by George Barton (2/11/17)

10 – "Suspicion" by William B. Maxwell (5/5/17)

J –  "The Wedding Album" by David Marusek (catch-up post 9/12/17)
Q - "10 to the 16th power to 1" James Patrick Kelly (catch-up post 7/18/17)

K -  "Winemaster" by Robert Reed (finished in December, logged 12/30/17)

[A - 10 from The World's Best One Hundred Detective Stories Vol. 7 by Eugene Thwing, ed.; J-K from The Year's Best Science Fiction 17th Annual Collection by Gardner Dozois, ed.] 

 

Spades

A – "Galactic North" by Alastair Reynolds (catch-up post)

2 – "Dapple: A Hwarhath Historical Romance" by Eleanor Arnason (4/8/17)

3 – "People Came from Earth" by Stephen Baxter (finished in December, logged 12/30/17)

4 – "Green Tea" by Richard Wadholm (finished in December, logged 12/30/17)

5 – "The Dragon of Prpyat" by Karl Schroeder (5/22/17)

6 – "Written in Blood" by Chris Lawson (catch-up post 7/18/17)

7 - "Hatching the Phoenix" by Frederik Pohl (catch-up post 9/12/17)

8 – "Suicide Coast" by M. John Harrison (catch-up post 9/12/17)

9 – "Hunting Mother" by Sage Walker (catch-up post 9/12/17)

10 – "Mount Olympus" by Ben Bova (catch-up post 11/14/17)

J – "Border Guards" by Greg Egan (2/3/17)

Q – "Scherzo with Tyrannosaur" by Michael Swanwick (6/17/17)

K – "A Hero of the Empire" by Robert Silverberg (catch-up post 11/14/17)

[from The Year's Best Science Fiction 17th Annual Collection by Gardner Dozois, ed.] 

Diamonds

A – "How We Lost the Moon: A True Story" by Frank W. Allen" by Paul J. McAuley (1/14/17)

2 – "Phallicide" by Charles Sheffield (4/18/17)

3 – "Daddy's World" by Walter Jon Williams

4 – "A Martian Romance" by Kim Stanley Robinson (catch-up post 9/12/17)

5 – "The Sky-Green Blues" by Tanith Lee (catch-up post 7/18/17)

6 – "Exchange Rate" by Hal Clement (3/31/17)

7 - "Everywhere" by Geoff Ryman (6/10/17)

8 – "Hothouse Flowers" by Mike Resnick (5/31/17)

9 – "Evermore" by Sean Williams (3/23/17)

10 - "Of Scorned Women & Causal Loops" by Robert Grossbach finished 12/30/17)

J – "Son Observe the Time" by Kage Baker (catch-up post 11/14/17)

Q – "The Locked Room" by John Dickson Carr (catch-up post 11/14/17)

K – "Human Interest Stuff" by Brett Halliday (3/4/17)

[A-J from The Year's Best Science Fiction 17th Annual Collection by Gardner Dozois, ed.; Q-K from Murder by Experts by Ellery Queen, ed.]

 

Hearts

A – "The Blast of the Book" by G. K. Chesterton (4/25/17)

2 – "P. Moran, Diamond-Hunter" by Percival Wilde (3/517)

3 – "The Age of Miracles" by Melvilled Davisson Post (catch-up post 11/14/17)

4 – "The Witness for the Prosecution" by Agatha Christie (catch-up post 11/14/17)

5 – "The Hound" by William Faulkner (catch-up post 11/14/17)

6 – "The Dancing Detective" by Cornell Woolrich (catch-up post 7/18/17)

7 – "The Hands of Mr. Ottermole" by Thomas Burke (1/25/17)

8 – "The Little Dry Sticks" by Cora Jarrett (catch-up post 11/14/17)

9 – "The Last Exploit of Harry the Actor" by Ernest Bramah (3/16/17)

10 – "Puzzle for Poppy" by Patrick Quentin (catch-up post 9/12/17)

J – "Death Draws a Triangle" by Edward Hale Bierstadt (1/16/17)

Q – "Persons or Things Unknown" by Carter Dickson (5/23/17)

K – "Almost Perfect" William MacHarg (6/18/17)

[from Murder by Experts by Ellery Queen, ed.]

 

 

 

Deal Me In Week #39: "Farrar Fits In" by Edmund Snell

 

I'm trying very hard to stay on track with Jay's 7th annual Deal Me In Challenge. This week's draw is the Three of Clubs which matches up to "Farrar Fits In" by Edmund Snell (found in The World's Best One Hundred Detective Stories Vol. 7 by Eugene Thwing, ed.). This also finishes up that volume of detective stories by Thwing.

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Snell's story (which takes place in the 1920s, thus the Art Deco card above) finds Edward "Teddy" Farrar, late of the Indian Police, driving along a narrow British lane when he runs into a thick bit of fog. Out of the fog comes a young woman named Dagni who leads Teddy into a weekend house party where the guests are decked out with all the jewels they own with every expectation of being visited by a jewel thief. The big display of loot is supposed to be a trap whereby the woman and her detective partner (who has gone astray) was supposed to nab the thief/thieves before the jewels disappeared--she wants Teddy to stand in for "George." Was there ever a George? Is Dagni who she says she is? And what happened to the jewels that vanished right under their noses?

Deal Me In: Week 38: "Common Stock" by Octavus Roy Cohen

 

I'm trying very hard to get back on track with Jay's 7th annual Deal Me In Challenge. This week's draw is the Ace of Clubs which matches up to "Common Stock" by Octavus Roy Cohen (found in The World's Best One Hundred Detective Stories Vol. 7 by Eugene Thwing, ed.)

 

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I have several of Cohen's novels sitting on the TBR stack and have already read one story by him for this challenge ("Pink Bait"--same collection). Cohen's private detective, Jim Hanvey is playing chaperone to the courier of an important document. He knows the opposition will be sending someone to prevent the delivery of the document and employs an ingenious bit of sleight of hand to disrupt the villain's plans.

Deal Me In: Playing Catch Up

Still working my way steadily through the short stories for Jay's Deal Me in Challenge--52 short stories in 52 weeks based on shuffling and drawing a new card every week--although you wouldn't know it by my posts recently. When I started this post, I wrote: "I'm a little bit better this time...I'm only one week behind. Last week I drew the Ace of Spades which gave me "Galactic North" by Alastair Reynolds (found in The Year's Best Science Fiction 17th Annual Collection by Gardner Dozois, ed.; 2000). Well...that's not true anymore. I'll scurry and see if I can get caught up.

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Previous to this short story, my only experience with Alastair Reynolds was his collection of short stories, Zima Blue & Other Stories. (2006) I mention in that review that Reynolds is a hard science science fiction writer with a tendency towards dark stories--but an excellent story-teller. This is evident again in "Galactic North," an earlier story published in 1999. Here we have a story of betrayal, obsession, and revenge that spans 40,000 years of future history. It all stems from an ambush of a cargo ship transporting cryogenically-frozen sleepers. The captain of the ship has been conditioned to do whatever it takes to bring her cargo through safely...even if it means chasing the one she believes has betrayed her through all of space and time.

My next draw was the Four of Clubs. That card matches up with "The Pathologist to the Rescue" by R. Austin Freeman (found in The World's Best 100 Detective Stories Vol 7 by Eugene Thwing, ed).

In this story Dr. Thorndyke does not have the use of DNA to catch a murderer. But he is able to examine a blood sample left at the scene of the crime and he uses knowledge of of a particular disease to help reach the correct conclusion and prove a man innocent. 

Next up is the Eight of Spades...or the short story "Suicide Coast" by M. John Harrison (found in The Year's Best Science Fiction 17th Annual Collection by Gardner Dozois, ed.; 2000).

 

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This story shows us what people will do to make their lives seem more real once everything is virtual and humanity is "cored" (directly plugged in to virtual reality). But is even the real thing real anymore?

Week #33: I drew the Jack of Clubs which gave me "The Wedding Album" by David Marusck (another from the SF Collection).

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Another story about virtual reality. In this one instead of creating photo albums--people have created Sims of their favorite moments in life. But what happens if your simulations become just as real as you are? What if they demand rights as individuals. And what if all that is left of you is one of your simulations?

Week #34: This time the Nine of Spades comes to the top with "Hunting Mother" by Sage Walker. 

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 "Hunting Mother" continues my run of SF stories from the large Best of...Collection. It tells the story of genetically engineered "humans" colonizing new worlds. The colonists are mixtures of humans and human/animal combinations. Our protagonist, Cougar, has some of the genetics of his namesake. And he faces a choice as his mother, a human, becomes sick and is coming to the end of her life.


Week #35: Another SF story (it's a big book!) when the Four of Diamonds gave me "A Martian Romance" by Kim Stanley Robinson.

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Robinson has been on my SF radar for a long time. But, as far as I can remember, this is the first story I've read by him. This story tells about a terraforming effort on Mars that has gone wrong. The "old ones" who were involved in completing the project are heartbroken that all of their work has been for nothing--but the younger Mars colonists see hope for the future...even on a cold and barren world.

Week #36: The Ten of Hearts finally took me back to mysteries with "Puzzle for Poppy" by Patrick Quentin (in Murder by Experts by Ellery Queen, ed.)

not quite a St. Bernard...

This mystery features Quentin's regular protagonists, producer Peter Duluth and his wife Iris as they try to solve the attempted murder of a St. Bernard. It appears that no one is guilty--but someone clearly must be. Quentin parades all the clues before the reader and yet one feels like one has come to the blank wall at the end of a dead end street. And it's all done with a zany humor that is uniquely Quentin's. [Quentin is a pseudonym used by Richard Webb and Hugh Wheeler.]


Week #37: Back to SF with the Seven of Spades and "Hatching the Phoenix" by Frederik Pohl.

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This story takes place in Pohl's universe of Gateway--where the Heechee, an enigmatic race of aliens have left discarded technology which helps humans explore the universe. In this one, an ultra-rich woman has financed a mission to observe a planet whose sun is about to go nova.