Ideally, it would be Hillary Waugh who’d be writing this foreword. It was, after all, he who edited this anthology and provided the original introduction—which you’ll be able to read for yourself once I get out of the way. But Hillary, who was born in 1920, is no longer around to write it. He had a good long run before giving up the ghost in 2008.
When I think of Hillary I always picture him in a tuxedo, because I was most apt to run into him at MWA’s annual Edgar Dinner and its after-party at Mary Higgins Clark’s apartment. For all I know he spent the rest of his time in ripped jeans and a fisherman’s sweater, but I somehow doubt it. I don’t know that Hillary was born to wear a tux, but no one so attired ever looked more at ease. He was good company, with social grace that matched his clothes. I can’t say I knew him well, but I liked him.
He wrote a good many books over a good many years, and has a definite claim on the title Father of the Police Procedural; his early novel, Last Seen Wearing, published in 1952, is at once a groundbreaker and a classic. MWA honored him as a Grand Master in 1989, and could as well have given him an award for faithful service, as he was always an ardent and devoted member.
And look at the stories he contrived to round up!
Larry Treat, for heaven’s sake. Cornell Woolrich, Bob Bloch, Ross Macdonald. Stan Ellin, Patricia Highsmith, Ellery Queen. Al Nussbaum. Bob Fish.
And Don Westlake. I read his story, “Domestic Intrigue,” as soon as the PDF arrived, and was astonished that it was one I’d never read before. Alas, this tells me more than I care to know about my aging memory, as the Acknowledgments page makes it clear that the story appeared in The Saint (where I surely didn’t read it) and Don’s collection, The Curious Facts Preceding My Execution (where I unarguably did). Ah well. I read it again, and enjoyed every word of it, even the partial word with which it concludes.
The authors I listed above are all with Hillary at that big Edgar dinner in the sky. And so are most of the others. David Davis and Michael Butterworth would seem still to be with us, and Ron Goulart, God love him, is still writing, with four books published this century, the most recent in 2016.
But the rest are gone. And in all too many cases, we’ve lost not only them but their work, especially their short fiction. Books tend to endure, and the internet now makes it possible for almost anyone to find a copy of almost anything ever printed and bound. And not a few of these authors have a book or two still in print, and the novels of still more of them have been given a new life as ebooks.
Ah, but the short stories. Aside from a handful of scholars and collectors, nobody pays much attention to old magazines…
So I’ll wrap this up with a bouquet of virtual flowers to everyone responsible for the program of reissuing these MWA anthologies. They give life to worthy short stories, and win readers for deserving writers.
Enough. Now you can read what Hillary has to say, and then you can read the stories. A good couple of hours is guaranteed.
—Lawrence Block