The Continental Opposite, by Evan Lewis

"The Continental Opposite," by Evan Lewis, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, May 2015.

This dude Lewis is turning into a major threat.  First there were his stories about Skyler Hobbs,who thinks he is the reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes.  Then tales of Davy Crockett's ghost, who harasses his descendents into solving crimes.  And now he has revived Dashiell Hammett's famous character the Continental Op.

Brief pause for confusion from the readers.  But Hammett's family owns the copyright!  And Lopresti doesn't like fan fiction (Author B writing new stories with the characters of Author A)!

True.  But I am sometimes a sucker for reboots, in which Author B rethinks the original and comes up with a new twist.

This story takes place in the fifties, decades after the Op's last appearance.  The main character is a young detective named Peter Collins (he notes bitterly that his father deliberately gave him a name that is gangland slang for "nobody").  Peter works for the Portland, Oregon branch of a national detective agency and when he accuses his boss of corruption the company sends in a retired op who used to work for the San Francisco branch("sometime in the forties Continental had put him out to pasture, and he'd spent the years since killing a vegetable garden, sneering at golf course, and not catching fish.") .  Peter finds him sinister and refers to him as the Old Man.

Hmm.  In Hammett's stories the Op's boss was the Old Man, but it is clearly not the same person.  In fact, this new guy strongly resembles Hammett's hero, much older and, if possible, more cynical.

Now let's address the copyright issue.  Does Lewis use the name of the characters?  No, because the Op never had one.  (And Old Man is hardly a unique moniker either.)  The Op worked for the Continental Detective Agency.  Peter works for Continental Investigations, which recently changed its name from something or other.

A brilliant story, and the first of a series.  I can hardly wait.

It's So Peaceful In The Country, by WIlliam Brandon

"It's So Peaceful In The Country," by William Brandon, in Black Mask Magazine, 1943, reprinted in The Hard-boiled Detective, edited by Herbert Ruhm, Vintage Books, 1977.

I have been reading a lot of old hard-boiled stories lately, mostly from the Black Mask school.  A lot of them read like photocopies of Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op stories, some blurrier than others.  It made this story stand out by contrast.

Brandon's hero is Horse Luvnik, just out of jail on burglary charges and feeling unhappy because his beloved wife has decided she doesn't want him back until he goes straight.  And she has decided that going straight means buying a cigar store.  How he is supposed to gather enough coin to do that is his problem.  (I guess he can go straight after that.)

Things look bad but then Horse gets an invitation to Vermont.  A gentleman scholar there named Dingle is working on what he hopes will be the definitive book on Edgar Allan Poe's first editions.  The problem is that some of the information  he needs is in the home of his hated rival, a woman who lives a few miles away.  And since she refuses to share Dingle hires Horse to steal her notes every night -- and then smuggle them back into her house every morning.

As you can imagine, things quickly get silly.  It is as if Damon Runyan and P.G.Wodehouse collaborated on a hard-boiled tale.  The Continental Op might spin in his grave, but I enjoyed it.

The Hawaii Murder Case, by Terence Faherty

"The Hawaii Murder Case," by Terence Faherty, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, January/February 2017.

This is  the seventh appearance here by fellow SleuthSayer, Terence Faherty.  He remains the World Champeen in my blog.

Let's talk about pastiches.  Again.  It seems like there is something in the air, or the zeitgeist that is pulling htem at a high rate and high quality.

Last week it was Jonathan Turner's mash-up of characters created by Steve Hockensmith and Arthur Conan Doyle. Faherty himself has written clever send-ups of Doyle's work.  And Evan Lewis dazzled us with a reboot of Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op stories.

But today's story more closely resembles another series of Mr. Lewis: those about state legislator David Crockett who is the unfortunate bearer of the consciousness of his ancestor Davy Crockett.

Mr. Faherty introduces us to Kelly and David, a married couple who visit Hawaii.  David has some annoying habits, wanting to tell his wife everything he knows, especially about whatever book he is reading.  (Why no, I am nothing like that myself. Just ask my wife.  Or better yet, don't.)

But David is reading one of S.S. Van Dine's novels about that most irritating of Golden Age amateur sleuth's, Philo Vance.  (Ogden Nash wrote that he needed a kick in the pance.)  And when David suffers a concussion he becomes convinced that he is the great and annoying detective.  Bad for his wife, but good for justice since a mysterious death has just occurred...

Very funny and clever.

Heathen Springs, by James L. Ross

"Heathen Springs," by James L. Ross, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, April 2016.

Nice private eye-type story by Mr. Ross in his second appearance on this page.

Hugh Brewster is a disillusioned psychology professor who becomes an investigator for a security company.  One of their clients is a movie studio and when the son of a minor star is kidnapped Brewster is sent into the desert where filming had been going on location to try to solve the dilemma.

The local cops aren't much help and the studio boss isn't willing to contribute to a ransom: "I'm not hanging out a sign saying I'm a soft touch."  But the worst part is thatno one is calling with a ransom demand. If they don't want money than all the other possibilities are grim.

The story is good all the way through but what I loved was the ending, a cold conversation between Brewster and his boss that reminded me of Hammett's Continental Op  chatting with the Old Man.