Distant Danger: The 1988 Mystery Writers of America Anthology

by Janwillem van de Wetering (Editor), Jean Darling (Contributor), Walter Satterthwait (Contributor)

The stories for this annual collection of the Mystery Writers of America were selected for their strange and exotic locales. Breathtaking suspense, cold-blooded crime, and challenging twists of plot—set in the four corners of the world—make this recording a chilling audio experience. We suggest you listen with the lights on! DEADHEAD COMING DOWN by Margaret Maron, read by Andrew Stevens: There's nothing exotic about driving an eighteen-wheeler, but twenty minutes off the interstate is a whole different country—and a little challenge to break the monotony. A LITTLE PIECE OF ROOM by Barbara Owens, read by Peter Marshall: In the Arizona desert, a suspicious, crippled hermit forges an unlikely bond with a mysterious young visitor. THE MATCHSTICK HUT by Jean Darling, read by Andrew Stevens: Macker Malloy has ten hours of leave in Monrovia, Liberia. He can't find much in the way of entertainment until he runs into an old friend living in strange circumstances. NIGHT CRAWLERS by Joyce Harrington, read by Nancy Dussault: Mirabelle MacMaster's life has been cramped and inhibited, restricted by her paralyzed tyrannical father to their eerie remote home. What will she do when a means of escape presents itself? THE SMOKE PEOPLE by Walter Satterthwait, read by Arte Johnson: A sudden death amidst a squalor of a Nigerian slum looks like simple cardiac arrest—but a persistent policeman, a member of the same tribe as a dead man, suspects otherwise. THE TREASURE OF PACHACAMAC by James Holding, read by Peter Marshall: Felipe de la Vega, professor of archaeology at Lima's San Marcos University, knows that his only living relative, under the influence of an unsavory friend, means to use the professor's years of painstaking research to find a priceless treasure. THE VULTURES OF MALABAR by Edward D. Hoch, read by Arte Johnson: In Bombay, bodies are sometimes left in sacred "towers of silence" to be devoured by vultures. But someone has been entering the towers for some unauthorized purpose. THE WOMAN IN THE SHADOWS by Stephanie Kay Bendel, read by Roddy McDowall: Dr. Harwell's patients claim that a few weeks at Casa Mendez, a convalescent hotel in Puerto Rico, works wonders. The doctor himself encounters a disturbing mystery on his own first visit.

Audible Audio

First published October 1, 1988

About the author

Jan Willem Lincoln "Janwillem" van de Wetering was the author of a number of works in English and Dutch.

Reviews

[Steven Levine · Rating 5 out of 5]

CONTENTS


●Introduction - Janwillem van de Wetering


●Fiction:

•"The Vultures of Malabar" - Edward D. Hoch
•"The Saintmaker's Wife" - Helene Juarez Phipps
•"Greater Love Than This..." - Herbert Resnicow
•"Pahua" - Joe Gores
•"The Second Sight of Dr. Sam: Johnson" - Lillian de la Torre
•"The Smoke People" - Walter Satterthwait
•"Sungrab" - William F. Nolan
•"A Little Piece of Room" - Barbara Owens
•"Deadhead Coming Down" - Margaret Maron
•"Last Chance in Singapore" - Clark Howard
▪︎"The Treasure of Pachacamac" - James Holding
•"The Matchstick Hut" - Jean Darling
•"Night Crawlers" - Joyce Harrington
•"The Woman in the Shadows" - Stephane Kay Bendel
•"Tania's No Where" - Amanda Cross
•"The Jughead File" - Janwillem van de Wetering


●About the Contributors


This is the 1988 entry in the more-or-less annual series of anthologies from the Mystery Writers of America. The editors and the contributors are all members of that organization. Currently (as I write this in 2024) the new anthologies are made up entirely of stories original to that anthology. Most of the stories in this volume have prior publication dates listed. Two of them are dated 1988 with no other source given so I assume they were written for this anthology; they are "Greater Love Than This..." by Herbert Resnicow and "The Woman in the Shadows" by Stephanie Kay Bendel. One other story, "The Saintmaker's Wife" by Helene Juarez Phipps has no publication date or source listed.

I will start with the Introduction. If van de Wetering actually wrote the Introduction, then I don't think he edited the book. In fact, I'm not even sure he ever read it. The book is about "distant danger" - tales set far away from America. Exceptions might be made for "tales from nooks and crannies in 'all them other states.'" "US city life was left out." "Islands were in, so was Outer Space, a dump in Africa, a ghoulish dead-end foreign little port, an artist's studio in Kyoto, downtown Hong Kong, and windswept rocks in the old country."

There is nothing here set in Hong Kong. The "dead-end foreign little port" is evidently Monrovia, the large capital city of Liberia. And one of the stories taking place in America is set in the tiny rural community of Manhattan.

Did anybody at the publishers or at the Mystery Writers of America proofread this at all?

Even aside from the errors, I think that the Introduction is not very good. I should add that in this Introduction, van de Wetering states that he edited this anthology with fellow mystery writer Joyce Harrington. I don't see any mention of this elsewhere in the book.

The worst two stories here are both science fiction. 'Sungrab" is by the usually reliable William F. Nolan. An alien lizard man is stealing our sun, moving it out from this solar system. But he is up against Sam Space, a private operator who is evidently descended from Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade. This is awful. Ron Goulart did this kind of thing so much better.

The other science fiction story is not nearly as bad, but that doesn't mean that it's good; it isn't. My guess is that "Greater Love Than This..." by Herbert Resnicow was partially inspired by Theodore Sturgeon's 1950 story "The Stars Are the Styx," which is considerably better. In "Greater Love," as in the Sturgeon story, all the ships sent out have two person crews and the narrator determines who gets to go. In this story, each person is given a Simula, a device that matches that person up with what seems to be an electronically induced perfect soulmate. Bur the best laid plans...

There is only one other story here that I don't much like, although it is better than the stories that I have already discussed. In "The Jughead File" by the book's editor Janwillem van de Wetering, a forty year old painter in Japan had been adopted five years earlier by a well-to-do older woman. She has died, evidently by suicide. Four years later, the artist also commits suicide. He leaves a long note explaining his actions; this makes up the largest part of the story.

I think that all of the remaining thirteen stories are at least good, and some rather more than that. "Tania's No Where" by Amanda Cross is the story I had mentioned earlier that is set in Manhattan. This is a series story which features Cross's amateur detective Kate Fansler. Sixty-two year old college professor Tania Finship has disappeared. Police, the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. have all been involved in the search with no results. The college and Finship's family are all very worried. Fansler has few clues but agrees to try to help.

I have often enjoyed Lillian de la Torre's mystery tales about Dr. Samuel Johnson in the 1700s. In "The Second Sight of Dr. Sam: Johnson," Johnson and his companion James Boswell, who narrates these tales, are on an island off the coast of Scotland. They are told of a woman on the island who has "second sight" and can see things not revealed to ordinary mortals. Johnson is skeptical but is willing to be convinced with real evidence. More than one death is reported to take place on the island around this time. Of course, Johnson investigates. This is actually a pretty good story, but others in the series are definitely better.

There is another amateur detective in Edward D. Hoch's "The Vultures of Malabar." This also is a series story, in my least favorite of Hoch's many different series. This features Simon Ark, who claims to be a 2000 year old Coptic priest and indeed never seems to age. This premise always seems just silly to me. In this story, Ark and his friend who narrates go to Bombay. Ark has an old friend who is a member of the Parsi religion. They do not bury or cremate their dead; they leave their naked bodies out to be eaten by vultures. The bodies are left in locked towers open to the sky. Recently there has been an intruder in one of the towers. But what can one steal from a naked body?

Margaret Maron's "Deadhead Coming Down" is a brief tale narrated by a long-distance truck driver. He is drivng down a rural road and strikes and kills an elderly man. The ending is very good except that even in pre-computer days, both the company he drives for and the police would probably figure out what's happening. Now, as I write this in 2024, I think that this would not be possible.

"The Saintmaker's Wife" by Helene Juarez Phipps is set in New Mexico in 1852. The "saintmaker" of the title is an expert wood carver; much of his work is indeed figures of various saints. He is an aging man with a much younger wife. The wife takes the long walk to town to buy food and material for a skirt. She finds out that there is a murderer on the loose; he had found his wife in bed with another man and killed them both. On the way home, she comes across the fugitive.

There is a much later MWA anthology titled Vengeance. The next two stories would have fit nicely in that collection.

James Holding's story "The Treasure of Pachacamac" is set in Peru. A professor of archeology has spent years trying to locate lost treasure, intending to donate it to.the state. Early in the 1500s, a train of a hundred llamas, loaded with gold and silver, left the holy city of Pachacamac. It disappeared, and no one knows now where the treasure is. The professor has narrowed down the possibilities. He had written to his only living relative, a cousin, of his progress. That cousin and another man kidnap the professor and drive into the desert, intending to make him tell them where the treasure is. He does not know and tells them so, but they don't believe him. They take extreme action to make sure the professor can't get away.

Pahua is the Tahitian word for a giant clam, which "can snap shut on the arm or leg of an unwary diver and drown him." "Pahua" is also the title of a story by Joe Gores, set on the South Pacific island of Bora Bora. The main character is an excellent diver named Ferro, who has transported a couple and a load of underwater gear by boat from Tahiti. A young boy is killed while diving. Some folks think he was killed by a pahua; Ferro suspects it was murder.

Two stories, both very good, are set in Africa. The story that I mentioned set in what van de Wetering calls a "little port" but is actually Monrovia is "The Matchstick Hut" by Jean Darling. A sailor who has come ashore on a ten hour leave runs into an old friend, who now lives in Liberia. He hates living there, but there is a reason he can't leave. He has a
fortune in illegal uncut diamonds. People guarding him won't let him leave with the diamonds, and he has no intention of leaving without them. He says that they don't simply kill him because "whoever pays the bills gets his kicks watching a white man wallow in sweat and greed." (I think that's incredibly unlikely, but without some such reason, the story wouldn't make any sense.) He spends his time building an enormous edifice made of matchsticks and glue, while trying to figure out how to get away with the diamonds.

The other story set in Africa is "The Smoke People" by Walter Satterthwait. I don't think that the story ever says in what country it is set, but I believe it is Kenya. The police are notified of a death. One of the "Smoke People," members of the Giriyama tribe who live in a dump site tending the fires that always burn there, has died. There were two couples and a baby. The male member of the younger couple, father of the baby, is the one who has died. The leader of the first two police officers on the scene is Sergeant Andrew Mbutu, himself a Giriyama, a man of intelligence, compassion, and integrity. The doctor who joins them says that it looks like the man had expired from a drug overdose, but he dismisses that as being quite unlikely and, knowing that there is no chance that there will be an autopsy, calls the death a cardiac arrest. Higher ranking officers refuse to look further into the death, but Mbutu persists. This becomes a true police procedural mystery story.

There were not many mystery authors in the last half of the 20th Century and the beginning of the 21st who wrote as well and as powerfully about people who were or had been incarcerated as Clark Howard. In "Last Chance in Singapore," Alan Modred has just spent five hellish years in a Thai prison and has returned to Singapore. He is a forty-four year old man with a history of failures: two failed marriages, three failed businesses, a bankruptcy, and a conviction for smuggling. He soon runs into the now-grown daughter of an old friend, who urges him to stay away from criminal activities. But what else can he do? Who would hire a man with his past? And Modred does get involved in planning to commit a crime that might make him wealthy. He continues to see the much younger woman he had met, who thinks she can help him. The last few paragraphs of the story are surprising - and unsettling.

"Night Crawlers" is an aptly titled story by Joyce Harrington set in a rural area in the United States. Mirabelle MacMaster is a lonely woman dominated by her cruel, miserly, crippled father. She raises and sells worms for people to fish with. Her father describes her as a "great big homely soft-hearted booby." She discovers something shocking about her father. After her father's death, a former suitor re-enters her life. He too proves to be greedy and cruel. This fine story was nominated for an Edgar Award.

Some of the stories in this collection are quite sad. "The Saintmaker's Wife" is one. The last two stories that I will discuss are both quite somber.

"The Woman in the Shadows" by Stephanie Kay Bendel is set in Puerto Rico in "a small private hotel that catered exclusively to the wealthy and particularly the handicapped wealthy." The narrator is a physician who goes to the hotel with his friend, a blind sculptor with a lingering case of bronchitis. They soon meet an elderly man in a wheelchair and his sickly looking son, who appears to be in his early twenties. Shortly afterward, the doctor comes across a "young woman [who] was dancing barefoot in the moonlight near the water's edge." She tells him that she is the daughter of the man in the wheelchair and that she is not supposed to ever leave her suite. He later overhears her telling her father that she hates being locked up all the time. The doctor wants to help, but is not sure what to do. This is a fine story, albeit a sorrowful one.

Barbara Owens' story "A Little Piece of Room" is another tale set in a rural area in the United States, this one in Arizona. An old man, wounded in World War II, has lost the use of his legs and uses a wheelchair. (This story first appeared in 1979.) He lives miles from anyone else and treasures his independence. Many people, including the local sheriff, feel that he is unsafe and want him to move into town. He "don't want nothin' else but to be let alone with a little piece of room." A young man walking by asks if he can have some water, then asks if he can spend the night. He stays on and gradually they become friends. And then circumstances arise that make things change. This is my favorite story in this anthology.

This is the 26th Mystery Writers of America anthology that I have reviewed on Goodreads. I have only given one of them a five star rating up until now. I know that I have said that I think that three of these stories are poor, and ordinarily that would keep me from giving the book the highest rating. But I think that fully half of the stories in this collection are from very good to excellent, and that is really unusual. The ones that I particularly like are: "Pahua" by Joe Gores (not quite as good as some of the others, I think, but still definitely recommended); "Deadhead Coming Down" by Margaret Maron (with the caveats that I mentioned); "The Matchstick Hut" by Jean Darling (allowing for the flaw that I discussed); "The Smoke People" by Walter Satterthwait; "A Little Piece of Room" by Barbara Owens; "Last Chance in Singapore" by Clark Howard; "The Woman in the Shadows" by Stephanie Kay Bendel; and "Night Crawlers" by Joyce Harrington. Not a perfect anthology, but a very good one indeed.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked some of the stories. I especially disliked a story about a space private operative.

[Mam · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with any collection, there are some better than others - DEADHEAD COMING DOWN causes one to rethink 28-wheelers, and WOMAN IN THE SHADOWS caught me by surprise.