Customer Reviews

Hunter and Hunted: The Ed and Am Hunter Novels (Frederic Brown Mystery Library)

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After all the hoopla over the first volume of Ed and Am novels, once again the writings of Fredric Brown disappear into the vast unknown. SMPL made a big noise about publishing the complete mysteries of Brown in a sequence of volumes that were to begin with this one in 2002. Three years later, after promises made in numerous venues, SMPL has virtaully disappeared, taking this ambitious and long-overdue project with them. And in the interim, nary a word spoken from any source on the topic, least of all this august forum.

So much has been written about the quality and brilliance of Fredric Brown that it scarcely requires yet another treatment at my hand. That Brown is the overlooked genius in the shadow of Jim Thompson and others is news to no one who is paying attention. The deepest mystery is the repeated attempts by publishers more stalwart than SIMPLE and more numerous, to resurrect the writings of the man who almost single-handedly created noir fiction, all of which have fallen on the deaf ears of the masses. Or been swallowed in the machinations of the family estate. Or been mismanaged by vision-less editors looking for the big cash-out. Or whatever. The sad effect of all this is the steady disappearance of brilliant, prosaic Americana written by a mysterious, deeply troubled and ultimately doomed man whose vices were many, whose crimes were (mostly) of the mind, and who had a compelling penchant for nocturnal bus rides. Our world moving forward into the new millenium is the poorer for our inability to preserve the words that so vividly sliced a bit of life out of the guts of our country in the grave early days of our new Empire. His was the world of my grandparents and yours, a world we must always remember and learn from. It is the root cause of our disturbing national psyche today, and Brown serves it up as well as any, and much better than most.

Fredric Brown was best known as a science fiction writer with a flair for the surprise ending. Actually, he wrote more mysteries than he did science fiction. His only series, the Ed & Am Hunter mysteries, ran to seven novels. This volume collects the first four.

"The Fabulous Clip Joint" (which won an Edgar): Ed Hunter's father, an alcoholic printer with a shrewish wife, is murdered on his way home from a late night binge. Aside from an alcoholic witch of a stepmother and an over-sexed younger stepsister (neither of whom he particularly likes) the only family Ed has left is Uncle Ambrose, an itinerant carnival worker that Ed hasn't seen in over a decade. Ed searches out his Uncle Am and together they set off on a quest to find and punish the killer. Under Uncle Am's guidance Ed learns (1) that his father wasn't the mediocrity Ed thought him to be, (2) that he, Ed, is capable of much more than he ever imagined, and (3) who killed his father.

"Dead Ringer": In a lateral logic puzzle, the author gives you a set of seemingly incongruous facts forming a "fair play" mystery. If you can fit the facts together correctly, you can solve the mystery. "Dead Ringer" is a lateral logic puzzle. All the pertinent facts are there. You just have to recognize which ones are relevant and the solution is obvious. At least it's obvious after Ed and Am Hunter explain how the facts fit together. A naked midget is found stabbed to death at the carnival. Later a chimpanzee drowns, and finally a child dies. Through the first two deaths, Ed and Am Hunter mind their own business. The third death stirs them to action, and the mystery is quickly solved. They arrive at the solution independently, but Am gets there a little quicker than Ed.

"The Bloody Moonlight": Ed Hunter, rookie detective with the Starlock Detective Agency, gets his first solo case. He goes to the country to check out an investment opportunity for a wealthy young lady who's appealing for more reasons than the size of her bank account. He has trouble sinking his teeth into the assignment because of a beautiful girl who isn't what she seems, a disappearing body, and a narrow minded sheriff who shoots first and asks questions later. On his way to interview the inventor, who may be in radio contact with Mars or Jupiter, Ed finds a body with the throat torn out. Ed leaves the body, finds a phone, and reports the crime. When the sheriff can't find the body, he beats Ed up, which makes Ed determined to [1] return the favor, and [2] find the body again. The plot thickens as Ed unravels who killed whom, the true identity of his dream girl, and exactly where those radio signals are coming from. He gets everything sorted out, and then confronts the problem of keeping the sheriff from killing him before he can expose whodunnit.

"Compliments of a Fiend": In one of his books on the paranormal, Charles Fort wrote of the disappearance in Mexico of the author Ambrose Bierce. He then mentioned the disappearance (several years later and almost a continent away) of another man named Ambrose, and asked whether there might not be an Ambrose Collector at work. It is against this backdrop that a gentleman calling himself Ambrose Collector telephones the Starlock Detective Agency asking for an operative who had experience with carnivals. Starlock dispatches Am(brose) Hunter, and he falls off the face of the earth. When Ed Hunter begins to miss his Uncle Am, a mutual friend opines that he must have been gotten by the Ambrose Collector. With only this clue to go on, Ed begins the search for his uncle. The investigation lurches along with no apparent progress, but all the while Ed is unwittingly gathering clues. When Ed solves the problem of the missing 45 minutes, the clues fall into place. Now Ed must not only find his uncle, but also survive the discovery.

Fredric Brown definitely doesn't get enough recognition. This particular type of crime story is really well-written and engaging, along with being a good source of odd slang from the earlier part of the 20th century. Truly worth the money and the time you'll spend reading it!

This book is one of the finest collection of mystery novels from a single-author who was never part of the hard-boiled trio, and even then had carved his own niche in the genre that, at times, seemed to outshine even his "mother" base, i.e. science-fiction. It is a genuine tragedy that the publisher went kaput after releasing this single volume of Frederic Brown Mystery Library, since it clearly shows that had they persevered in their venture we, the mystery lovers, were in a for a treat. The novels, individually, are acclaimed gems that hardly require any review. They are: -

1) The Fabulous Clipjoint: trying to solve a mystery of the most personal kind, the uncle-nephew partnership gets forged, and they learn a thing-or-two about themselves.
2) The Dead Ringer: another episode in the life of the duo, another solution which leaves life rather open-ended for them, again.
3) The Bloody Moonlight: trying to settle the mystery of possible signals from Mars, the matter gets complex with talks about a werewolf and the younger Hunter himself being suspected of murder.
4) Compliments of a Fiend: the vanishing of the senior Hunter becomes sinister as there are suspicions regarding am "Ambrose" collector who might be collecting Ambrose-s (including Ambrose Bierce) for a long time.

The mysteries are unique. The characters are authentic in all their flaws & strengths. The plotting & narratives are entirely realistic. In short, you would really like to find out the publishers of this volume to know why they had chickened out from publishing the subsequent volumes. Until some saint comes up to resume their venture, you are whole-heartedly recommended towards getting hold of this volume and immersing yourself therein.

In my opinion Fredric Brown is not only one of the best pulp mystery writers, he is one of the greatest story tellers of the last century. His writings take you on journeys that transcend time, guided by characters that make you want to know them more, and all while putting the pieces together on superbly sordid mysteries. The Ed and Am novels are my favorites and this book is a must have for any pulp fiction, mystery,or detective novel fan.

After Hammett and Chandler, Fred Brown is the best hard-boiled detective writer of the Black Mask era. In this book, which contains several novels about a young man and his uncle in a world of murder, carnivals, freight trains, and dark alleys, the first novel is a classic, and all of them are highly enjoyable. For those of us who find modern detective novels too cutesy poo to stomach, and long for the world when a dick was a policeman and a shammus was a private eye.

Fredric Brown is one of the best Science Fiction writers, with O'Henry endings, humor, cynicism, with a hard driving plot. I guess his crime fiction has most of these characteristics, but it seems to have less bite. A nice read, but not special like his Sci-fi stuff.