safe crack – SMB Noir

January 1928 issue ~ cover art by Fred Craft

January 1928 issue

cover art by Fred Craft

~ Louis Victor Eytinge, “When Fingerprints Lied”, ‘Paul Prentiss, former pete-man (safe blower)’, 2nd of 2 stories in BM

~ Westmoreland Gray, “Guns of Silence”, ‘Vic Cammack, reporter, & Jerry the Yegg, crook, vs. bandits’, last of 3 stories in BM

~ Dashiell Hammett, “Dynamite”, 3rd of 4 Continental Op stories that will go together to make up Red Harvest (Knopf hc, 1929), reprinted in The Big Book of the Continental Op (Vintage, 2017), 34th of 51 stories in BM

~ Nels Leroy Jorgensen, “The Faith o’ MacGown”, 1^st of 3 with Rio Kennedy of the Customs Service in Santo Domingo, 11^th of 39 stories in BM

~ Carl L. Martin, “Pore Pickin’s”, Deputy Lon Havens, Drew County, Bayou country, ‘bank robbery & Mississippi River flood, dialect used’, 2nd of 6 in BM

~ Frederick L. Nebel, “The Penalty of the Code”, ‘the code of silence’, reprinted in Street Wolf (Altus Press, 2014), 10 of 67 stories in BM

~ William S. Newell, “A Man Reforms”, ‘Louse’ Eller, a punk criminal, author’s sole appearance in BM

~ Stephen Payne, “The Fifth Loop”, ‘Western‘, 1^st of 2 stories in BM

~ L.R. Sherman, “The Man Who Would Not Quit”, ‘Far North’, 2nd of 3 stories in BM

~ Raoul [Fauconnier] Whitfield, “The Sky’s the Limit”, last of 7 Chuck Reddington story; ‘airplanes & machineguns’, 17th of 68 stories in BM [see also 24 stories as Ramon Decolta]

©Seattle Mystery Bookshop

The Money Trap x 3

New York: E.P. Dutton, 1963. First Edition.

Basis for the 1966 film noir, starring Glenn Ford, Ricardo Montalban and Rita Hayworth.

1964 Monarch reissue

cover art by Harry Barton

better image than previously posted

April 1921 issue ~ cover art by William Grotz

April 1921 issue

cover art by William Grotz

~ John Baer, “Partners in Crime”, 4^th of 24 stories in BM

~ Hamilton Craigie, “The Lap of the Lady”, shop lifting and female impersonation, last of 7 solo stories in BM

~ Eric A. Darling, “The Pigtail of Wi-Wing-Ho”, ‘Chinese; diamond hidden in pigtail’, last of 5 stories in BM

~ Walter Deffenbaugh, “The Second Safe”, ‘safe-cracker, narrator’, 2^nd of 14 stories in BM

~ Ford Douglas, “The Mardi Gras Souvenir”, ‘”Complete Mystery Novelette”, 1^st-person narrator’, 1^st of 4 stories in BM

~ Gaius Drew, “Murder Magic”, ‘Benson the Houseman’, 1^st of 2 stories in BM

~ Clinton [aka Charles] Harcourt, “The Hold-Up on Napoleon Boulevard”, ‘Barney Fagan, thief’, 5th of 6 stories in BM

~ Marc Edmond Jones, “Death’s Bridegroom”, author’s only appearance in BM

~ C.S. Montanye (Carleton Stevens), “What the Moonlight Revealed”, 8th of 29 stories in BM

~ Hubert de Tavanne Roussel, “The Stained Paper”, ‘short-short’, and “The Yellow Stripe”, ‘set in the Kalahari Desert (South Africa)’, 2^nd and 3rd of 7 stories in BM

~ Ward Sterling, “The Riddle of the Tattooed Men”, 1st of 2 stories in this issue (see Ward), 7th of 16 stories under this name in BM

~ John D. Swain, “Mahogany Brogues”, ‘cocaine addict kills bully on NYC subway’, 1^st of 2 stories in BM

~ Harold Ward, “Under the Crimson Skull”, ‘two detectives & Cora Morgan, “government operative’, 2^nd story in this issue, 13th of 29 stories under this name in BM [19^th and 20th of 46 stories in BM under three different names – Ward Sterling and H.W. Starr]