"The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown" by Lawrence Block (2022)

Wouldn’t it be nice to curl up with a good book, doze off, and wake up in that world? That’s a question Lawrence Block explores in his latest novel, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown, the 12th novel to feature professional thief and Greenwich Village bookstore-owner Bernie Rhodenbarr. No one’s asking me to contain my enthusiasm, and so I won’t—I absolutely loved this book, and I think any of Bernie’s many fans will, too.

As a big fan of Block and his Bernie series, this didn’t disappoint in the slightest, hitting all the hallmarks of the series that readers have come to expect. The humor, the Greenwich Village setting, the warm friendship between him and series regular Carolyn, and of course the burglary. But Block also takes readers into new territory. The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown is much more a fantasia than the earlier volumes. If you’re familiar with Brown, then you might have a little idea what’s in store, and if not, then it might help to know that Brown was an ardent admirer of Lewis Carroll, and there’s more than a hint of Wonderland in both his works and in Block’s latest. I found Block’s incursion into magical realism to be an absolute delight.

First Lines: Fredric Brown

All it takes is one sentence to transport you into the world of Fredric Brown.

His voice is as distinctive as his plots and his characters. In many ways, even when he is using a third-person narrator, it seems as though his voice is, in fact, a character in the story. Brown is omnipresent throughout his works, from first sentence to last. But, in this post, it is only the first sentences I am concerned with.

Below are the first sentences to each of his novels that were published during his lifetime. Both mystery and sci-fi are included, as is his novella, The Case of the Dancing Sandwiches. I include that only because it was published individually by Dell, the way a novel would have been. Plus, it is a great title, and the opening line is pretty spectacular.

Reading through these, there are a few recognizable traits that are characteristically Brown. First is his pacing. His books begin the way someone would tell a story orally, as though it was being told around a campfire, or as creepy bedtime story, and other times it reminds of a crazy adventure recounted at the local pub. Sometimes it feels like all three of these at the same time. His Name Was Death is a perfect examples of this.

Another trait that should come as no surprise is Brown's humor. Look at his last published novel, Mrs. Murphy's Underpants -- would anyone else juxtapose a "broken rib" and a "broken trombone" right off the bat? Only Brown. Or how about the playful repetition at the start of The Wench is Dead: "A fuzz is a fuzz is a fuzz..."

And then there are the dark portents and sinister undercurrents that are never entirely absent from Brown's writing, even when he is cracking wise. The Dead Ringer, Compliments of a Fiend, and especially The Far Cry, are perfect examples of this.

Brown, at his best, is unpredictable. He'll take a story where no one else would dare to -- or even have a wild enough imagination to think of. The Screaming Mimi's opener, "You can never tell what a drunken Irishman will do," succinctly conveys this sense of limitless possibilities.

His first lines could be leisurely, such as the twisted Dickensian start to Here Comes a Candle, or they could be fast, hard and punchy, like The Lenient Beast ("Late this morning I found a dead man in my backyard") or Knock Three-One-Two ("He had a name, but it doesn't matter; call him the psycho").

As these opening lines suggest, there are many facets to Brown's style, but they all share one thing in common: they are all unmistakably the work of Fredric Brown.

Below are the lines, pasted first with high-quality scans from my own collection, and second with just the text.

First Lines: Fredric Brown (with cover scans)

"In my dream I was reaching right through the window of a hockshop."
-The Fabulous Clipjoint, 1947

"It didn't seem in the least like a prelude to murder."
-The Dead Ringer, 1948

"There are few streets in America down which a man wearing a mask can walk without attracting undue attention."
-Murder Can Be Fun (A Plot for Murder), 1948

"It was almost quitting time when my Uncle Am came into the back room of the Starlock Agency, where we both worked."
-The Bloody Moonlight, 1949

"You can never tell what a drunken Irishman will do."
-The Screaming Mimi, 1949

"The first attempt to send a rocket to the moon, in 1954, was a failure."
-What Mad Universe, 1949

"Uncle Am didn't get home that night."
-Compliments of a Fiend, 1950

"His name was Joe Bailey and the start of what happened to him was on a midsummer right in 1929 in a flat on Dearborn Street in Chicago, when he was pushed and pulled, head first, from a snug, warm, moist place where he had been quite content."
-Here Comes a Candle, 1950

"In my dream I was standing in the middle of Oak Street and it was dark night."
-Night of the Jabberwock, 1950

"It was hotter and muggier than most August days in Chicago."
-Death Has Many Doors, 1951

"Sudden terror in her eyes, Jenny backed away from the knife, her hand groping behind her for the knob of the kitchen door."
-The Far Cry, 1951

"It was an evening like any other evening--up to midnight, when the drinks began to sneak up on him."
-The Case of the Dancing Sandwiches, 1951

"The telephone directory had given me the address; it was an apartment building like any fairly new, medium-priced apartment building midway between downtown and the suburbs."
-We All Killed Grandma, 1952

"The Herald city room was hot enough to bake a cake, although it was only half past ten by the big electric clock on the wall."
-The Deep End, 1953

"Mack Irby stoke leaning on a heavy cane listening to grind of the talker for the unborn show."
-Madball, 1953

"I'd been intending to stay a few more days but, that afternoon, something changed my mind."
-The Lights in the Sky Are Stars, 1953

"Her name was Joyce Dugan, and at four o'clock on this February afternoon she had no remote thought that within the hour before closing time she was about to commit an act that wold instigate a chain of murders."
-His Name Was Death, 1954

"A fuzz is a fuzz is a fuzz when you waken from a wino jag."
-The Wench is Dead, 1955

"If the peoples of Earth were not prepared for the coming of the Martians, it was their own fault."
-Martians, Go Home, 1955

"Late this morning I found a dead man in my backyard."
-The Lenient Beast, 1956

"Call him by no name, for he had no name."
-Rogue in Space, 1957

"It was the first murder case I'd ever had a chance to work on, and I could easily have missed that chance if we'd know that it was a murder case when the call came in."
-One for the Road, 1958

"The office of Conger & Way was on the second floor of a building that once stood on Commerce Street in Cincinnati, not far from the then-famous Suspension Bridge that leads across the wide, muddy Ohio River to Covington, Kentucky."
-The Office, 1958

"He had a name, but it doesn't matter; call him the psycho."
-Knock Three-One-Two, 1959

"My uncle said, 'Gin, Ed,' and put down his cards."
-The Late Lamented, 1959

"I woke to darkness, with the shreds of a ridiculous dream keeping me from knowing what had awakened me or even who I was."
-The Murderers, 1961

"The Mind Thing used his preceptor sense to test this strange and alien environment in which he found himself."
-The Mind Thing, 1961

"Sitting there stunned, reading and rereading the kidnapper's ransom note in my own typewriter, all I could think of was, Oh God, oh God, why did this have to happen now, now when Ellen and I were in the midst of the worst quarrel we'd had in five years of marriage, now when, if I never saw her alive again I'd never be able to apologize for the horrible things I'd said to her at breakfast."
-Five-Day Nightmare, 1962

"I was lying on my bed that evening with a broken rib and a broken trombone."
-Mrs. Murphy's Underpants, 1963

First Lines: Fredric Brown (text only)

"In my dream I was reaching right through the window of a hockshop."
-The Fabulous Clipjoint, 1947

"It didn't seem in the least like a prelude to murder."
-The Dead Ringer, 1948

"There are few streets in America down which a man wearing a mask can walk without attracting undue attention."
-Murder Can Be Fun (A Plot for Murder), 1948

"It was almost quitting time when my Uncle Am came into the back room of the Starlock Agency, where we both worked."
-The Bloody Moonlight, 1949

"You can never tell what a drunken Irishman will do."
-The Screaming Mimi, 1949

"The first attempt to send a rocket to the moon, in 1954, was a failure."
-What Mad Universe, 1949

"Uncle Am didn't get home that night."
-Compliments of a Fiend, 1950

"His name was Joe Bailey and the start of what happened to him was on a midsummer right in 1929 in a flat on Dearborn Street in Chicago, when he was pushed and pulled, head first, from a snug, warm, moist place where he had been quite content."
-Here Comes a Candle, 1950

"In my dream I was standing in the middle of Oak Street and it was dark night."
-Night of the Jabberwock, 1950

"It was hotter and muggier than most August days in Chicago."
-Death Has Many Doors, 1951

"Sudden terror in her eyes, Jenny backed away from the knife, her hand groping behind her for the knob of the kitchen door."
-The Far Cry, 1951

"It was an evening like any other evening--up to midnight, when the drinks began to sneak up on him."
-The Case of the Dancing Sandwiches, 1951

"The telephone directory had given me the address; it was an apartment building like any fairly new, medium-priced apartment building midway between downtown and the suburbs."
-We All Killed Grandma, 1952

"The Herald city room was hot enough to bake a cake, although it was only half past ten by the big electric clock on the wall."
-The Deep End, 1953

"Mack Irby stoke leaning on a heavy cane listening to grind of the talker for the unborn show."
-Madball, 1953

"I'd been intending to stay a few more days but, that afternoon, something changed my mind."
-The Lights in the Sky Are Stars, 1953

"Her name was Joyce Dugan, and at four o'clock on this February afternoon she had no remote thought that within the hour before closing time she was about to commit an act that wold instigate a chain of murders."
-His Name Was Death, 1954

"A fuzz is a fuzz is a fuzz when you waken from a wino jag."
-The Wench is Dead, 1955

"If the peoples of Earth were not prepared for the coming of the Martians, it was their own fault."
-Martians, Go Home, 1955

"Late this morning I found a dead man in my backyard."
-The Lenient Beast, 1956

"Call him by no name, for he had no name."
-Rogue in Space, 1957

"It was the first murder case I'd ever had a chance to work on, and I could easily have missed that chance if we'd know that it was a murder case when the call came in."
-One for the Road, 1958

"The office of Conger & Way was on the second floor of a building that once stood on Commerce Street in Cincinnati, not far from the then-famous Suspension Bridge that leads across the wide, muddy Ohio River to Covington, Kentucky."
-The Office, 1958

"He had a name, but it doesn't matter; call him the psycho."
-Knock Three-One-Two, 1959

"My uncle said, 'Gin, Ed,' and put down his cards."
-The Late Lamented, 1959

"I woke to darkness, with the shreds of a ridiculous dream keeping me from knowing what had awakened me or even who I was."
-The Murderers, 1961

"The Mind Thing used his preceptor sense to test this strange and alien environment in which he found himself."
-The Mind Thing, 1961

"Sitting there stunned, reading and rereading the kidnapper's ransom note in my own typewriter, all I could think of was, Oh God, oh God, why did this have to happen now, now when Ellen and I were in the midst of the worst quarrel we'd had in five years of marriage, now when, if I never saw her alive again I'd never be able to apologize for the horrible things I'd said to her at breakfast."
-Five-Day Nightmare, 1962

"I was lying on my bed that evening with a broken rib and a broken trombone."
-Mrs. Murphy's Underpants, 1963

Fredric Brown: Critical Perspectives 3

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Fredric Brown is one of my all-time favorite writers.

As a writer, I admire Brown's craft, ingenuity, innovation, experimentation, and concision (particularly in his short stories). As a reader, I love to be entertained, amazed, shocked, and delighted by Brown's inimitable imagination. I also feel like I've grown with him as a reader. I remember the first time I read him, I totally didn't "get" him at all. The humor was so bizarre that a lot of it went over my head. But with the second book of his I tried, Here Comes a Candle, I was hooked. The radical form (which mixed the novel with theater, radio, and movie scripts, as well as newspaper fragments) was eye-opening, and the story was absolutely thrilling.

The unmistakable alchemy known as "Fredric Brown" was at once enough but also not enough: it gave me all that I wanted to experience as a reader, but left me always wanting more of it (but never more from it). In fact, that there are still books of his on my shelf that I haven't read is only because I am trying to stretch out my enjoyment of his work, and delay the inevitable day when I run out of "new" Fredric Browns. But then I'll have the pleasure of starting over and re-reading them all again.

This personal reaction was by way of introducing the next installment in Pulp Serenade's "Critical Perspectives" series, which examines vintage reviews of classic writers. (Previous entries were on Day Keene and David Goodis.) I'm very pleased to see how well his books were received by critics in his own time, for the most part. You can't please all of the people all of the time, but it looks like Brown came pretty close. Take a look below and see what the critics had to say about your favorite Fredric Brown novel. (I couldn't find reviews for The Dead Ringer, Death Has Many Doors, or The Mind Thing.)

The Fabulous Clipjoint: "The motive for the killing is cockeyed, the plot is screwy and the title of the book has nothing whatever to do with the story." – Anthony Boucher, New York Times, 16 March 1947

**Years later, Boucher revised his opinion: "The Fabulous Clipjoint…received the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar as best first mystery novel of the year and remains one of the outstanding winners of that annual honor." – Anthony Boucher, New York Times, 24 Feb 1957

Murder Can Be Fun: "Unless our memory is at fault, this is by far the best thing that Frederick [sic] Brown has done up to this time. It bids fair to be the most ingeniously plotted detective story of the year." – Isaac Anderson, New York Times, 7 Nov 1948

The Bloody Moonlight: "However uncomfortable for Ed [Hunter], for the reader it's exciting." – Isaac Anderson, New York Times, 29 May 1949

What Mad Universe: "…while Fredric Brown is no H.G. Wells, he has dreamed up an amusing and inventive story….Lots of fun." – Jane Cobb, New York Times, 13 Nov 1949

The Screaming Mimi: "Mr. Brown's preceding books have brought him quite an enthusiastic following, and his current one is not going to let anyone down. It is as fast, smooth, and well-plotted as the others – and it centers around a ripper. Mr. Brown manages to convey a goodly amount of the visceral terror an actually ripper would induce in the reader." – Anthony Boucher, New York Times, 27 Nov 1949

The Screaming Mimi: "Treat your menfolks to this one." – Albuquerque Tribune, undated

Compliments of a Fiend: "Purely as a detective story the book is weak. It sags in the middle through a long investigation of blind alleys and is finally solved only because Ed at last takes, on page 195, a logical step which he could and should have taken on page 77. But, as the story of a young man coming of age in Chicago, it is warm and likable." – Anthony Boucher, New York Times, 16 April 1950

Here Comes a Candle: "This is a psychological novel of first rank – a story as terrifying and tragic to the reader as it was for poor Joe Bailey, whose life it encompasses. It is a bloody, cruel but never depressing glimpse of reality that few authors would dare tackle….It is a brilliantly written biography of frustration. It's closing chapter is a shocker you'll long remember." – Richard L. Blakesley, Chicago Daily Tribune, 6 Aug 1950

Here Comes a Candle: "Ellie Dravich and the beautiful Francy Scott are as lifeless as dressmakers' dummies, so Joe's ultimate choice is simply one of brunette over blonde." – Nelson Algren, New York Times, 13 Aug 1950

Here Comes a Candle: "Comes close to fulfilling this observer's definition of the perfect psychological thriller….On the whole, it's the sort of hand-tailored terror that should redeem your next rainy week-end." – William Du Bois, New York Times, 26 Aug 1950

Night of the Jabberwock: "…a zany yarn that's sheer delight….Perhaps, Mr. Brown takes a few too many excursions to Wonderland and wastes too much time at Smiley's bar – but these are pleasant places and once the violence starts, there is swift and varied action until the end. If you are interested in a small-town paper, chess, Lewis Carroll or in a charmingly wacky whodunit, here's your book." – Margery H. Oakes, New York Times, 31 Dec 1950

The Far Cry: "Creative originality becomes, of course, more difficult each year in the detective story; but Fredric Brown manages…to achieve a brand-new plot twist, and to encase it in an unusually solid novel. To hint at much of the plot might rob you of the extremely rare and welcome sensation of pure surprise which I experienced in reading the last chapter (though I could wish that Brown had not pushed on past that surprise to a somewhat too glib and tricky ending). Let me simply say that the book contains a fine bitter study of a bad marriage, an admirable sense of the reality of murder, and a well-sketched background of Brown's home state of New Mexico." – Anthony Boucher, New York Times, 30 Dec 1951

The Far Cry: "I couldn't quite make out what happened. But it's an original all right and a distinct gripper." – Maurice Richardson, The Observer, 19 Oct 1952

We All Killed Grandma: "Seems not so much a first draft as a hasty attempt to rewrite a pulp novelette to book length. Brown's novels have varied from superlative to disappointing; but hitherto his most uneven stories of murder and of science fiction have at least been startlingly original. This one is simply a standard stock case of arbitrary amnesia, such as only flourishes in murder novels, with action and detection notably absent. I suppose you can't blame Brown for resting his dazzlingly inventive mind; the next one will probably be a honey." – Anthony Boucher, New York Times, 25 May 1952

The Deep End: "The story line is simple (perhaps too much so) and unsurprising; but the high school school hero who is also an unobtrusive mass murderer is an unusually terrifying killer… Sex is plentiful and outspoken enough to please all reprint readers, but honestly written and necessary to the plot; and the sharp prose and narrative movement are Brown at his best." – Anthony Boucher, New York Times, 28 Dec 1952

Mostly Murder: "Those who know only his novels will find the same sharp vigor and individuality here, in neat, tight packages – solid specimens of the top level of pulp writing in the Nineteen Forties." – Anthony Boucher, New York Times, 14 June 1953

Madball: "It's a carnival you'll remember more sharply than any you've attended….But the background is much better than the story, which is burdened by a technically trying effort to write both an 'inverted' story and a whodunit at the same time, a good deal of straining for 'irony,' and enough sex, of assorted varieties, for a half dozen novels." – Anthony Boucher, New York Times, 4 Oct 1943

The Lights in the Sky Are Stars: "A muddled piece of futurinalia. Treatment of present day politics is grossly improbable, and to achieve one of those 'arty' endings, Brown alienates the reader from his main character." – Mark Reinsberg, Chicago Daily Tribune, 28 Feb 1954

His Name Was Death: "Masterfully delivered tale…Brilliant wallop in climax." – Drexel Drake, Chicago Daily Tribune, 4 July 1954

Angels and Spaceships: "Mr. Brown shows that he is also a master of the vignette with the shock, or surprise, ending…..[A]n eminently worth-while acquisition for any reader, whether tyro or fan." – Villiers Gerson, New York Times, 24 Oct 1954

Angels and Spaceships: "Science-fiction at its fascinating best." – Edmund Crispin, The Observer, 31 July 1955

Angels and Spaceships: "…shows this brilliantly fanciful master at his best." – Kingsley Amis, The Observer, 7 Oct 1962

The Wench is Dead: "Despite appearances, don't look for a regular whodunit here; as such it has marked weaknesses….the gratifyingly unconventional story is told with conciseness and bite." – Anthony Boucher, New York Times, 8 May 1955

Martians Go Home: "Doesn't quite reach the hilarity of his What Mad Universe – but let's not be a carping Martian! It's a rare piece of satire." – J. Francis McComas, New York Times, 4 Dec 1955

The Lenient Beast: "Nicely calculated….the book represents an extraordinarily successful fusion of Dragnet-like police routine with the novel of psychological suspense." – Anthony Boucher, New York Times, 15 April 1956

The Lenient Beast: "One of Brown's best yet." – Anthony Boucher, New York Times, 2 Dec 1956

Rogue in Space: "[The character of] Crag is a wooden invention; his story makes so little sense that one wishes it had ended on page 98." – Villiers Gerson, New York Times, 17 March 1957

The Office: "Unfortunately, this is all very dull…" – J.M., New York Time, 27 April 1958

One for the Road: "It's an agreeable enough leisurely story…but its movement is, for Brown, surprisingly unurgent, and the mystery is resolved in an unpardonably chancy manner." – Anthony Boucher, New York Times, 17 Aug 1958

One for the Road: "Neatly tangled puzzle in diverting small town stage setting." – Drexel Drake, Chicago Daily Tribune, 28 Sept 1958

The Late Lamented: "The puzzle is a simple if neat one; but you'll find the spectacle of Ed [Hunter] falling in love even more agreeable than Ed and Am as detectives." – Anthony Boucher, New York Times, 22 Feb 1959

Knock Three-One-Two: "The story, difficult even to hint at, is adroitly unrolled and ingeniously (if maybe too neatly) concluded." – Anthony Boucher, New York Times, 16 Aug 1959

Knock Three-One-Two: "[A] good little thriller….A bit sexy, perhaps…" – Francis Iles, The Guardian, 9 Dec 1960

Nightmares and Geezenstacks: "Fredric Brown has the enviable ability to tell an entire short story in approximately the length of this column….Many are criminous, more are fantastic or science-fictional, some are bawdy, and all are at once delightful to the reader and maddening to the rival author who tries to emulate their technique. There's more fun in this small volume than in a half-dozen collections by less miraculously concise writers." – Anthony Boucher, New York Times, 20 Aug 1961

Five Day Nightmare: "A tight, taut, five day excursion into controlled terror….[T]he wily Mr. Brown outdoes himself again in the plotting." – Dorothy B. Hughes, Los Angeles Times, 22 April 1962

Five Day Nightmare: "…builds up the suspense to anyone's satisfaction." – Francis Iles, The Guardian, 21 Feb 1964

The Murderers: "First half promising. Then gets wild." – Maurice Richardson, The Observer, 18 Feb 1962

The Shaggy Dog and Other Murders: "…a collection of Fredric Brown's incomparable short stories which leaves the reader demanding more." – Dorothy B. Hughes, Los Angeles Times, 14 April 1963

The Shaggy Dog and Other Murders: "…contains ten stories from the pulp detective magazines of the 1940's, all ingeniously entertaining and highly professional, and suggesting that we need more unpretentiously good collections from the days when the crime magazines seemed to hit a higher average of storytelling than they do today." – Anthony Boucher, New York Times, 12 May 1963

The Shaggy Dog and Other Murders: "…airy trifles by no means without humor…" – Francis Iles, The Guardian, 2 Oct 1964

Jack Seabrook on Fredric Brown's "The Night the World Ended"

Jack Seabrook has written a great article over at Barebones E-Zine on a television adaptation Fredric Brown's "The Night the World Ended" made for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The original short story, which first appeared in the January 1945 issue of Dime Mystery and was reprinted in both Mostly Murder and Carnival of Crime, is among my all-time favorite Fredric Brown stories. The plot concerns several newspapermen who pull a prank on the town drunk: they print a phony newspaper headline saying the world is going to end that night just to see what he'll do. It encapsulates so much of what Brown did best: interweave philosophical inquiry and existential irony in a dark, suspenseful, and absolutely fun short story. Bizarre, compelling, disturbing, and even a reference to Martins! Yup, it's all there. "The Night the World Ended" is, in my opinion, Fredric Brown at his best.

As Jack Seabrook notes in his article, the television adaptation "is more sad than suspenseful." While they make a number of changes to the story, I still found it very enjoyable, and I think the show still captures the cruelty and humor of Brown's original story.

For a more in-depth analysis, be sure to read Seabrook's article. Seabrook is the leading authority on all-things Fredric Brown, and he wrote a biography of the author called Martians and Misplaced Clues: The Life and Work of Fredric Brown. Seabrook's other articles at Barebones include:

Fredric Brown's "Arena" and The Outer Limits

Fredric Brown: Two Lost Stories by Guy Fredric Brown

Fredric Brown: Night of the Psycho

Fredric Brown: The Deadly Weekend

The Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode originally aired on April 28, 1957. There were a couple of great lines in the episode. These two were my favorites:

"Every joke's got to have a pay-off. This joke's got to have a pay-off, too."

"A guy tries to do right the last night of his life and nothing goes right"

"Nightmare in Darkness" by Fredric Brown (Dennis McMillan, 1987)

Few writers could make the bizarre seem like the natural order of the world like Fredric Brown. The strangest things make the most sense, and anything ordinary should be observed with a suspicious, untrusting eye. Volume 11 in Dennis McMillan’s Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps series, Nightmare in Darkness (1987) is another excellent collection of the author’s matchless imagination and creative panache. Comprising vintage pulp stories along with previously unpublished pieces, as well as a remembrance by one of Brown’s children (his son Linn), Nightmare in Darkness is both entertaining and enlightening.

Linn Brown’s introduction portrays his father as aloof and enigmatic, even to his own family. Apparently Fredric would spend only two hours every morning writing – no more, no less. He speculates that Fredric could have written more (which would have provided more income for the family), but that at first he just didn’t want to. Later, Fredric was too sickly to have the strength to write. Between allergies and emphysema, he was never the image of health.

One of Brown’s specialties was the “short short,” and Nightmare in Darkness has three exceptional specimens. “Why, Benny, Why?” shows the darker side of Brown’s humor, and the cruel irony and cosmic injustice that often rules his fictional worlds. In this disturbing twist on wish fulfillment, a young woman walks home alone and discovers that sometimes your worst fears can come true. In “Mirror,” which was never published in Brown’s lifetime, the titular object manifests a man’s guilty conscience. And in the previously unpublished title story, “Nightmare in Darkness,” Brown makes one of his definitive statements on the horror of our everyday reality. That it is believed to be the last story Brown ever wrote only makes the final revelation all the more powerful.

Brown also had a knack for imaginative titles, and “The Cheese on Stilts” surely rates among his best. The story is the first of three involving Carter Monk, a reporter whose nose for a good story usually winds him up in the most unusual predicaments. This one finds Monk at the scene of a murder, the investigation of which leads to – yup, you guessed it – “the cheese on stilts.” I won’t spoil the surprise of what it actually is. Also, Brown manages to work in a Schopenhauer reference, probably one of the rare times that the philosopher’s name was invoked in a pulp magazine. The other Carter Monk stories included are “Footprints on the Ceiling,” which is about a theater troupe that is shocked by what appears to be a murderer that walks on walls, and “The Monkey Angle,” which finds Monk investigating what a runaway monkey has to do with a kidnapping case.

Other pieces of note are the original ending to The Screaming Mimi (a wonderfully outlandish flight of fancy that takes an unexpected twist); “Get Out of Town,” which blends Brown’s love for music and bars with a fun gangster story; “The House of Fear,” about a housewife whose night classes in “Logic” prove life saving; and “Trouble Comes Double,” a cautionary tale about why one should never pass up a lobster dinner for a backstage invitation from a shapely dancer.

To close, two of my favorite quotes from the collection:

“And that gosh-awful melody went on, and each note seemed to hang in the air like a dead body hanging by its neck from one of a row of gibbets.” –“Get Out of Town”

“One by one the other lights were coming on now, and I could see my lobster again. But, instead of eating it, I watched the girl. She was even better looking than the lobster.” –“Trouble Comes Double”

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Cover Art by Joe Servello

"Before She Kills" by Fredric Brown (Dennis McMillan, 1984)

If there’s anything better than one Fredric Brown story, it’s several stories, and it doesn’t get any better than the Dennis McMillan collections. Before She Kills was the second volume of McMillan’s “Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps” series. The first hardcover edition appeared in 1984, and the paperback (one of the few that McMillan issued for the series) appeared in 1986. William F. Nolan, noted scholar and author, was also a friend of Brown’s and wrote the introduction. “I found him to be a warm, quiet man with a wacky, pun-loving sense of humor,” remembers Nolan, “a sideways thinker who did all his rough-draft writing in his head.”

Nolan’s portrait of Brown should strike a chord with many writers. Before his first novel sold, he held down a day job to support the family and devoted the night to writing. Brown was, for years, a proofreader, and his intimacy with the English language shows through in his stories’ playful literacy.

The stories in Before She Kills span the gamut of Brown’s career, from 1940s pulps to 1960s digests, and they’re as madcap as they are magnificent. The consistent high-caliber of his stories is damned impressive, and it’s a blessing for fans of his work that he was so prolific.

The title story, “Before She Kills,” is one of two stories in the collection to feature Brown’s series private investigators, the uncle and nephew team of Ed and Am Hunter. In this yarn, a husband desperate for a divorce hires Ed and Am to make sure that his wife tries to kill him. Their job? Make sure she doesn’t succeed. It’s a terrific story that is characteristic of Brown’s sly ability to twist an archetype into something totally bizarre and original. Ed and Am’s other appearance is in “The Missing Actor,” about a thespian with a fondness for gambling who takes a powder with his father’s money.

My favorite story in the collection is “A Cat Walks,” originally published in the April 1942 issue of Detective Story Magazine. How’s this for an opener? “It all started with one cat, one small gray cat. It ended with nine of them. Gray cats all – because at night all cats are gray – and some of them were alive and others dead. And there was a man without a face, but the cat’s didn’t do that.” Brown is firing on all cylinders on this tale – a detective story with nightmarish illogic, a hint of surreal horror, and topped with a wily sense of humor.

In “A Date to Die,” a mystic (one of Brown’s favorite subjects) calls the police to report a murder that he commits while on the telephone. “A Mad Dog!” is about an alcoholic playwright who visits a doctor who specializes in experimental treatments for alcoholics, and winds up chasing an escaped homicidal lunatic through the night. And in “Handbook for Homicide,” Brown delivers a splendid twist on a variety of mystery archetypes. Take an old dark house, fill it with a bunch of astronomers, toss in some poisonous snakes, add a locked room murder, and top it off with a torrential rainstorm. With Brown behind the scenes, the possibilities are limitless with this one. It’s another short story classic from Fredric Brown.

Here’s a funny quip from “A Handbook for Homicide” that I’d like to close with: “I’ve been wet before and it hasn’t hurt me. I’ve been sober, and it has.”

This is among the more affordable McMillan volumes, and it is well worth tracking down.

Fredric Brown's Writing Habits

In her introduction to Fredric Brown’s Paradox Lost (Random House, 1973), Elizabeth Brown recalls her husband’s writing habits. Reading about writers’ habits can somehow humanize them, but while it demystifies the physical process, the creative one remains as elusive and unexplainable as ever. As a musician, I rather liked reading about Fredric Brown and his flute, as I always have a guitar and bass within arm’s reach of the computer. Strumming a few chords or playing bass often helps me get around any writing roadblocks.

So, here’s how Fredric Brown went about writing:

“Fred hated to write but loved having written.

“He would do everything he could think of to delay sitting at his typewriter; he would dust his desk, tootle on his flute, read a little, tootle some more. Or if we were living in a town where mail was not delivered, he would call for it at the post office, and then find someone to have a game, or two or three, of chess or pinochle or cribbage. By the time he got home he thought it was too late to get started. After this went on for days and his conscience began to hurt, he would actually sit at his typewriter. He might write a line or two, or he might write a few pages. But the books got written.

“He was not a prolific writer. His average day’s output was about three pages. Sometimes, if a book seemed to be writing itself, he would write six or seven pages a day, but this was unusual…”

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Photo courtesy of Secret Dead Blog, which also has another great quote by Fredric Brown on writing. Be sure to check it out.

"Thirty Corpses Every Thursday" by Fredric Brown (Dennis McMillan Publications, 1986)

The last time I wrote about Fredric Brown, Gordon Harries pointed out that it wasn’t a kick that I was on – it was a bender. Here I am again, a couple months later, writing about another collection of Brown’s short stories. This one is Thirty Corpses Every Thursday: Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps Vol. 6, published by Dennis McMillan in 1986. It collects eight of Brown’s inimitable tales, all written between 1940 and 1943.

What makes this edition so special – apart from Brown’s inimitable, wonderful, and offbeat stories (he was not only prolific, but also consistent with the high quality of his stories, which is very good news for fans of his) – is that William Campbell Gault wrote the introduction. Himself a pulp maestro, he was both a colleague and friend of Brown’s. Gault eschews the typical laudatory introduction and instead contextualizes what it meant to be a burgeoning/struggling writer for the pulps at that time, like writing for fly-by-night sex magazines when nothing else was available. “I think the dirtiest word we used was ‘curvaceous.’ They bought longer stories than the syndicates and paid the exorbitant price of one third of a cent a word for them.”

Gault also describes a writer’s community in which they all looked out for each other. They helped get agents, or to get manuscripts in people’s hands; they gave rides when someone needed them; and they played golf for small stakes when they weren’t writing – which wasn’t often, as they were always pounding the keys. “It was a better time, those days, depression and war notwithstanding. We wrote and they bought. We wrote fast; they bought cheaply. But they bought. They didn’t assume it would make them rich; all they asked for was reasonable returns and reader interest.”

Ending on note at once somber and optimistic, Gault comments on the changing reception to pulp literature over the years. “It would be comfortable to think that the garbage that leads the best seller lists is a new trend in America. It isn’t. Check your old World Almanacs to confirm that. The best sellers of those years are no longer being reprinted; many pulp writers are. Do we have to die to be appreciated? It doesn’t matter. We are doing what we want to do and getting paid for it. There is no higher reward than that.”

As sincere as I think Gault is, there’s something hidden in that last remark, a secret anxiety that plagues all writers. The fear of being forgotten, or not being read – or not being able to be read. There’s a dual responsibility between readers and publishers to help keep literature alive. Readers must remember, and they must recommend – which is why Patti Abbott’s “Friday's Forgotten Books” initiative is so crucial. But, the work must be kept in circulation, and that’s not always the case. This edition of Brown’s short stories, as with all of his volumes in the McMillan line, has been out of print for about twenty years. Luckily, this volume was released in paperback, and for around thirty bucks you can still pick up used copies. Other volumes appeared only in hardcover, and those are far more expensive, and much harder to come by. Some are available through interlibrary loan – otherwise, we are left to pass along our copies to friends, to share what we have collected and what we love. Ultimately, this is one of the responsibilities of readers, writers, fans, critics – no one is exempt. You read the book, and you like it, then share why it is you value it. The more you share, the more you ensure that the book’s life will be sustained.

On that note, here’s a listing of the stories included in the collection, their original bibliographic information, and a quote and brief synopsis for each. The best story, in my opinion, is not the title story, but “A Matter of Death.” It shows Brown’s experimental side, as he alternates seamlessly between the point of view of the murderer, the victim, and the oblivious patrol officer on duty that night. As a literary device it not only heightens the suspense for the reader, but also forces us to connect to all three characters in different ways. Our experience with the story is not only much richer, but also darker (our sympathy is not so simple or straightforward) and funnier (as omnipotent readers, we see all the confusion that the characters aren’t fully aware of).

On with the quotes!

“Murder Draws a Crowd” (Detective Fiction Weekly, July 27, 1940)
“In the heart of the crowd across the street, a woman screamed. It was a scream of sheer horror.”
A series of mysterious ads draws large crowds to the Herald-News Building, and in the midst of the hubbub a murder is committed. Yet no witnesses can be found.

“I’ll See You at Midnight” (Clues, November 1942)
“I took a drink of the coffee, dark, black, and unsweetened. It burned like hell going down. But there were other things inside me that burned worse.”
Larry Bonnert lost his job, his wife, and his self-respect when he failed to put the gangster Dixie Wilman behind bars. Now he has a chance to get it all back, but the price is steep: risking his own life to put a bullet in Dixie right in front of his gang.

“Death’s Dark Angel” (Thrilling Detective, May 1943)
“Maybe it was just as well that didn’t know what he was headed for, that evening.”
Walter Hanson shows up to his bookie to collect on a one dollar bet and winds up with a couple of gangsters thinking he committed murder and stole their ten-thousand dollars.

“Thirty Corpses Every Thursday” (Detective Tales, December 1941)
“I started to thinking back and I felt lower than a mole’s instep.”
Two of the last three busses to Phoenix have gone off-road, killing all thirty passengers. Bill knows it can’t be coincidence but can’t prove otherwise, so reluctantly he gets behind the wheel for the midnight road, ready for anything…

“A Matter of Death” (Thrilling Detective, November 1944)
“He surprised me by falling out of the closet with a thud that seemed to shake the whole hotel. He was dead as a salted mackerel, and he hadn’t got into that closet and died of heart failure waiting for me.”
Getting off the bus in Cincinnati for a quick beer turns out to be a bad idea for Jack, because soon there’s a corpse in his hotel room, and a warrant out for his arrest.

“A Fine Night For Murder” (Detective Tales, November 1942)
“To hell with the kid, let him die. Mary’s and Delaney’s kid, and the hell with it.”
A bored police officer patrols the seemingly boring streets while unbeknownst to him a deadly reunion is shaping up when an ex-boyfriend just out of jail comes to town looking for revenge.

“Satan’s Search Warrant” (10-Story Detective, September 1942)
"Big Ben Hayden woke up, not screaming, but wanting to scream. Two ghouls, each taller than a house, had been fighting each other to decide which of them would eat Ben for an hors d’oeurve…”
Police officer Ben Hayden resents being woken up to go back to work. Even more he resents having to walk through the rain to investigate an accidental death. And then he realizes it’s murder, and that he’s at the wrong end of several guns. Now he really wishes he didn’t pick up that phone.

“Death Insurance Payment” (Ten Detective Aces, October 1943)
“And if the man on the floor of the closet was Larkin, it was quite obvious why he had not straightened the kitchen or fixed the furnace. He was dead, quite dead.”
Henry Smith shows up to a house to sell life insurance and winds up with two dead bodies on his hands – and three new customers. Too bad they’re also the only suspects.

[Brown, Fredric. Thirty Corpses Every Thursday: Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps Vol. 6. Cover by William L. McMillan. Miami Beach, FL: Dennis McMillan Publications, 1986.]

Stories for Sunday: "Hobbyist" by Fredric Brown

Try as we might, some Sundays we just have to spend catching up on work. So, for those of you who, like myself, have a long "to do" list, here's a real short story that you can read quickly, but that will certainly stay in your memory. It's called "Hobbyist" and is by one of my favorite writers, Fredric Brown. The story was originally published in the May 1961 issue of Playboy, and later in the collection Nightmares and Geezenstacks.

Since I've already gushed about how much I admire Brown's writing several times on this blog, I won't repeat myself, except to say that Fredric Brown never fails to deliver a gleefully fiendish tale. Such is the case with "Hobbyist," about a man who visits a pharmacist in search of an undetectable poison and winds up getting more than he bargained for.

Read "Hobbyist" by Fredric Brown.