Four years previously, almost everyone in the Harborview café saw Ralph Simmons take Laurie May Nelson out to the parking lot before strangling her. The identification was flawless – the customers knew Ralph, they saw him clearly – and he was promptly convicted. But when hypnotic regression casts doubts on his guilt, Captain Leopold reluctantly re=opens the case – is it possible that Simmons is somehow innocent?

This and fourteen other cases from across the career of Captain Leopold are presented here, including a number of locked room mysteries and a case of the murder of a ghost, just some of the many, many cases written by Edward D Hoch…

I was asked by Crippen and Landru to take a look at any book of their choice for their 30^th anniversary of publishing short crime stories from authors across the history of crime fiction. Their most reprinted author is Edward D Hoch, the master of the mystery short story. The various collections reprinted are:

• The Ripper Of Storyville and other Ben Snow stories
• The Velvet Touch
• The Old Spies Club and Other Intrigues Of Rand
• The Iron Angel and Other Tales Of The Gypsy Sleuth
• Hoch’s Ladies
• Funeral In The Fog and Other Investigations Of Simon Ark
• Constant Hearses and Other Revolutionary Stories
• Diagnosis Impossible: The Problems Of Dr Sam Hawthorne
• More Things Impossible: The Second Casebook Of Dr Sam Hawthorne
• Nothing Is Impossible: Further Problems Of Dr Sam Hawthorne
• All But Impossible: The Impossible Files Of Dr Sam Hawthorne
• Challenge The Impossible: The Final Problems Of Dr Sam Hawthorne

And of course, this one.

There’s an interesting statement in the introduction by Roland Lacourbe – it’s a fascinating read by itself, by the way – claiming that Leopold and Simon Ark are the most popular characters written by Hoch. Maybe this is based on some sort of poll, but I don’t agree with that ranking at all – Sam Hawthorne, hands down, followed by Ben Snow in my book – but the variety of stories that Hoch manages to tell in what could just be a basic police procedural is very impressive. Leopold has a life, he ages, he finds a second wife after a bad first marriage, he retires, his associates also evolve – and each story has a unique hook.

There are some cracking tales here – the title story is clever, but I think my favourite is The Murder In Room 1010, where a woman is found in a hotel room with a dead body, with the door chained from the inside. Of course, she’s not the murderer and didn’t lock the door, so what happened?

The only shame is that this is only fifteen out of one hundred and eight Leopold stories – given Leopold’s ongoing story, it’s a shame that he didn’t get the Hawthorne treatment – but this is one of the strongest collections of short stories that I’ve read in a long time.

Many thanks to Crippen & Landru for the review copy – and Happy Birthday!