"The Spy and the Suicide Club"

written with Edward D. Hoch

"This is a one-time-only collaboration between Edward D. Hoch and Josh Pachter written for an anthology Mr. Pachter is putting together of collaborations between himself and other major short-story writers in the genre. Look for it!

"Socrates was a suicide club with regular clubrooms in St. James's Place, Hastings told Rand. Those who joined desired help and support in ending their own lives. The membership rolls were a closely guarded secret, but as Rand might imagine, Hastings added, there was quite a turnover...."

Of all of the Partners in Crime stories I cowrote, this was the one with which I had the least involvement. If memory serves, Ed Hoch suggested the idea of the suicide club, I roughed out a basic plotline, and then he wrote the story.

Thirty-three years later, in the summer of 2018, outgoing Crippen & Landru publisher Douglas Greene and incoming Crippen & Landru publisher Jeffrey Marks asked me to write an introduction to Challenge the Impossible, their fifth and final collection of Ed's Dr. Sam Hawthorne stories. When Crippen & Landru publishes a new collection, it often also prints a one-story chapbook to give to those who purchase a signed limited-edition hardcover copy, and they asked me to suggest one of Ed's non-Hawthorne stories for the chapbook to accompany Challenge the Impossible. I proposed "The Spy and the Suicide Club," they agreed, and our story was reprinted in this limited-edition format in August 2018.

"There Goes Ravelaar"

written by Janwillem van de Wetering

This was the second and last of van de Wetering's stories which he allowed me to translate from Dutch into English for him. It wound up receiving an Edgar nomination.

Although I'm listed as a co-author of the Hoch story and translator of the van de Wetering story inside this issue, both of their names appear on the cover but mine doesn't.

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