The Old Spies Club and Other Intrigues of Rand (Paperback)

by Edward D. Hoch (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Penzler Pick, January 2002: One of the mystery world's all-time prodigies (as well as one of its best-loved citizens), Edward D. Hoch is a short-story master with a subspecialty in the "locked room" or "impossible crimes" genre. Thanks to his many ongoing series characters and hundreds of tricky tales, many first seen in the pages of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Hoch's talents have been celebrated repeatedly by his peers, including those at the Mystery Writers of America, who made him a Grand Master in 2001.

Whether he's writing about Nick Velvet, the brilliant thief who steals only items with no apparent value; the wandering gunslinger Ben Snow; occult sleuth Simon Ark; or any of his other instantly recognizable heroes, Ed Hoch is uniquely successful as a mystery writer in the short story form. It is no wonder EQMM has labeled him "the king of the classical whodunit."

As is fairly obvious, to pull off the execution of an "impossible" crime within the confines of just a few pages, and also to resolve that crime in those same few pages, is a serious challenge. It usually took John Dickson Carr, probably the preeminent practitioner of the locked-room form, a whole book to accomplish what Hoch manages within a fraction of the space.

The Jeffrey Rand stories, now collected for the first time as The Old Spies Club, are top contenders for Hoch's most enduring creations. (Those involving Nick Velvet run a close second, probably because I'm at heart a romantic, drawn to gentlemen thieves as well as to well-bred secret agents.)

Rand, director of the Department of Concealed Communications until his recent retirement, is an Englishman with an archaeologist wife and a penchant for finding trouble in exotic places. Among the most satisfying of the Rand intrigues found here are "Waiting for Mrs. Ryder," which offers a clever riff on a classic ploy of misdirection, and "The War That Never Was," a dangerous story of one man's memories and the risks brought about by sharing them. --Otto Penzler

From Publishers Weekly
Fifteen Jeffrey Rand and Leila Gaad stories appear in The Old Spies Club: And Other Rand Intrigues, by Edward D. Hoch (The Spy Who Read Latin and Other Stories). Rand, a semi-retired British espionage agent, and his wife Leila, an archaeologist, embark on various and sundry Cold War adventures in Cairo, Moscow, London, New York and elsewhere.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 239 pages
• Publisher: Crippen & Landru Publishers (August 7, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1885941609
• ISBN-13: 978-1885941602
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #192,266 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #2 in	Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Authors, A-Z > ( H ) > Hoch, Edward D.
  #69 in	Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Mystery > Anthologies

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Collection of Jeffery Rand Stories, January 8, 2005

By	APRICOT "ryoko" (Tokyo, Japan) - See all my reviews

This is a collection of 15 stories of Jeffery Rand, one of the famous characters created by Edward D. Hoch.

Jeffery Rand was originally the head of Concealed Communications (Double-C), the section in charge of codes and ciphers in British Intelligence. He retired in 1970s, much earlier than his retirement age. After that his adventures continue, sometimes summoned for special assignments by the Service, or sometimes accidentally involved in incidents. Now his after-retirement stories outnumber his Double-C ones.

This book is concentrated on Rand's adventures with Leila, an Egyptian archaeologist and later his wife. But I also wanted to read why and how Rand had retired from the Service. Especially, I am disappointed that this book contains no stories about Taz, the Russian friendly enemy whose death seems to be the main cause of Rand's retirement.

Though the selection is rather unsatisfactory, each story is highly enjoyable. The stories contain various elements such as espionage, whodunit, codes and ciphers, exotic travelogue and adventure. I wish to read more and more Jeffery Rand Stories.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Old Spies Club, August 23, 2005

By	Claudia A. Reynolds (Rumford, ME USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have read several stories from this series in EQMM in the past and enjoyed them. Each time I have a new EQMM issue in hand, the first thing I do is look for one of Hoch's stories. The day the book arrived I started on the first story and kept reading. It was like eating peanuts.... I had to read them all. Edward D. Hoch is very clever and I like his re-occuring characters. If you haven't read these and like short stories - you can't miss.