The Best of Manhunt 4: The Jack Ritchie Stories

by Jack Ritchie, Jeff Vorzimmer (Introduction)

Although Ritchie never achieved the kind of name recognition that even lesser authors enjoyed, perhaps because he toiled in mostly one genre and in one format, he still garnered the respect of his peers and the admiration of regular readers of mystery digests.

Ritchie was nominated for three Edgar Awards, winning for his Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine story “The Absence of Emily.” His stories were selected in Best Detective Stories of Year anthologies 21 times over a period of 21 years, beginning in 1961 with his story “Shatter Proof” for Manhunt until his death in 1983.

Ritchie’s stories appeared in 117 issues of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and in 57 Alfred Hitchcock anthologies. Three television episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents/Hour were based on his stories and five episodes of Tales of the Unexpected, as well one episode of the Canadian television show The Unforeseen. His story “The Green Heart,” which appeared in AHMM, was filmed as A New Leaf, an Elaine May film starring Walter Matthau.

—Jeff Vorzimmer from his Introduction

317 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 8, 2022

About the author

Jack Ritchie was born in a room behind his father’s tailor shop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on February 26th, 1922. After leaving high school, Ritchie was a student at the Milwaukee State Teachers College. When America joined the Second World War, he enlisted in the U.S army. He was stationed in the Central Pacific for two years, serving for much of that period on the island of Kwajalein. It was here that he first discovered crime and mystery fiction. To pass the time, he read a large amount of mystery books and it was through this that he grew to love the genre.

At the end of the war, Ritchie returned to his hometown of Milwaukee. After trying unsuccessfully to go back to college under the G.I. Bill, Ritchie worked for a time in his father’s shop. Not wishing to follow in his father’s footsteps, Ritchie decided to try writing stories for a living. When Ritchie met the literary agent Larry Sternig (through his mother, Irma Reitci, who also wrote short stories) he gave him a copy of a story he had written. Sternig recognised his writing ability from the very beginning and sold Ritchie’s first story, "Always the Season", to the New York Daily News in 1953. Larry Sternig went on to be his lifelong agent.

Ritchie married a fellow writer, Rita Krohne, in 1954. Rita, under her married name, wrote a series of historical adventure novels for children. Among these was the award-winning "Night Coach to Paris". Jack and Rita Ritchie made their living from the combined income of their freelance writing, though in an interview in 1962, Jack Ritchie mentioned that they never collaborated on any of their stories. Ritchie and his wife lived in various Milwaukee locales throughout the 1950's. Their first home together was a secluded log cabin on Washington Island, where during the winter they battled against the elements. With the birth of their first child in 1957, the Ritchies relocated to a larger house on the island. In 1964, they moved back to the mainland, living in a farmhouse just west of Jefferson and raising a family of four children.

In his spare time, Ritchie was an avid reader of non-fiction books and had a particular interest in history. He was also a fan of word puzzles and did the crossword in the Milwaukee Journal religiously.

While his wife took part-time work to supplement the family income, Jack Ritchie continued to be a prolific writer of short stories. Ritchie’s work appeared in an amazing variety of periodicals and newspapers. He contributed a number of "hard-boiled" stories to Manhunt magazine throughout the 1950's with other stories appearing in such diverse publications as The Philadelphia Inquirer, Smashing Detective Stories and Good Housekeeping. Some readers may wonder why Ritchie's stories appeared in such a wide variety of periodicals. The major reason for this was that his agent, Larry Sternig, would promptly send out manuscripts whenever a new publication appeared on the scene. As Jack Ritchie's son Steven has noted, this is what made Sternig a great literary agent. However, it was to Alfred Hitchock's Mystery Magazine that Ritchie sold more stories to than any other periodical. Between 1959 and 1982, Ritchie sold an incredible 123 stories to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. One of these tales, "The Green Heart", was adapted into the movie "A New Leaf" starring Walter Matthau. Other stories from AHMM were used in the popular television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

As has been noted by author Donald E. Westlake, Ritchie never really gained the recognition he deserved. This was because he wrote in the short story field, as opposed to the more fashionable novels (Tiger Island was published posthumously in 1987). But to his many fans he is seen as one of the greatest short story writers of all time. Those that have discovered his stories invariably want to read more of them. His finest works continue to be reprinted to this day and it is through this legacy that he will be remembered

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent Mid-Century Crime Stories

Ritchie wrote so many short stories in the fifties and sixties that were published in many men’s magazines of the time, most prominently in Manhunt. The best are collected here and they are great. Short, punchy, well written, and often with a surprise ending. Many were republished in the Alfred Hitchcock paperback anthologies in the sixties, which is where I first remember reading Ritchie stories. Fun and fast paced, you will love these. And thanks to Stark his,Press for bringing these stories back in print.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fourth edition of The Best of Manhunt arrived as a complete surprise. Instead of the variety of the previous three, this one features only short stories by Jack Ritchie; mostly from Manhunt, with the added bonus of five more from ancillary titles. As laid out in editor Jeff Vorzimmer’s introduction, Ritchie was a consummate short story scribe. His openings grab, his prose sizzles, his characters jump off the page into your mind, and his stories transport you into a world of gamblers, crooks, killers, fatales, wiseguys, and all seven sins.

So authentic, Ritchie’s stories could be dramatized versions of true crimes. The prose is terse, at times brutal; the voice is street savvy, hard-hearted, and true to his downtrodden cast of deeply flawed misfits. Whether you're a reader or writer of crime fiction, this volume is exemplary.