![]() ![]() Its only affiliation with the great filmmaker was the use of his name and image on the cover for branding purposes, sort of like Donald Trump spring water. In 1956, a sister publication, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, began publishing, also edited by Dannay. He added, a bit more loftily, “Our books are as much a canvas of their time as the books of Proust were of his time.” “We fight like hell,” Dannay said of his collaborating cousin. Dannay edited the magazine until his death in 1982, while the two collaborated, sometimes contentiously, on the short stories and novels that appeared under the byline of Ellery Queen and sold some 100 million books. Lee, who developed an unusual division of labor. It was the pen name of two cousins, Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. The first thing you need to know about Ellery Queen is that he didn’t exist. The first issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, featuring stories by Dashiell Hammett and Cornell Woolrich, was published in the fall of 1941, which means the magazine has now reached the venerable age of 75. The book is also a window into the way the publishing of short fiction has changed in America since World War II - a time of brutal contraction both in the audience for short stories and in the venues where they get published. So this book was turning out to be more than a sampling of stories by a writer with a vast range, an iron work ethic, and a time-tested ability to please readers. These stories, which both appear in Desperate Detroit, were the beginnings of long and fruitful partnerships that endure to this day. “The Used” was his first sale to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, in the June 1982 issue. The first short story Estleman published, “The Tree on Execution Hill,” appeared in the August 1977 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. I was surprised to notice that, with a few exceptions, they first appeared in one of two places: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine or Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. “Crime,” as he writes in the new book’s introduction, “is the most durable small business we have.”Īs I read these stories, I kept flipping to the front of the book, where their original publication venues and dates are printed. If anything ties Estleman’s work together, it is the eternal presence of crime in human affairs. There’s even a vampire western! One of the few things missing from this collection is a hard-boiled story featuring Estleman’s irrepressible Detroit P.I., Amos Walker.įor 40 years and counting, Estleman’s bread and butter have been the western and the crime story, though his fiction ranges so widely, from the 19th century to today, from prairies to ghettos, that it would be impossible and unfair to peg him as any single kind of genre writer. ![]() Everyone’s working an angle, and there are double-crosses and surprise twists, humor and ample darkness. Some people get away with murder, repeatedly, while others get framed for murders they didn’t commit. ![]() Estleman’s universe is not a just or tidy place. Hyde, a homicidal newspaper reporter, a grifter, an insurance scammer, a coffin-maker, a crime-solving bookseller, a truck-driving contract killer, and a cop who gets seduced into murder. The book is a sumptuous smorgasbord featuring hit men, riffs on John Dillinger and Dr. Newly published is Desperate Detroit: And Stories of Other Dire Places, a collection that will solidify Estleman’s stature with his hardcore fans while serving as an ideal introduction for uninitiated readers. In this sense he’s closer to rock-solid Trollope than to hit-or-miss Oates. ![]() The words don’t just pour out of Estleman’s typewriters - he owns dozens of them, including some century-old museum pieces - no, they roar out, a relentless typhoon of words - words that are even more remarkable for their consistently high quality than their staggering quantity. In his 63 years, Estleman has produced more than 70 books - novels, collections of short stories, and writing manuals, as well as book reviews and assorted journalism. Estleman is a crazy prolific writer, in a league with Anthony Trollope and Joyce Carol Oates. ![]()
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