Back in the late 1950s and 1960s when I was reading Manhunt it seemed like Jack Ritchie had a story in almost every issue. In his detailed INTRODUCTION, Jeff Vorzimmer writes “Ritchie’s stories appeared in 117 issues of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and in 116 Alfred Hitchcock anthologies.” That is an amazing writing career!
The Best of Manhunt 4: The Jack Ritchie Stories (2022) includes 23 of Ritchie’s stories from Manhunt and five stories from MANTRAP, MURDER! and SMASHING DETECTIVE STORIES. Plus, a Jack Ritchie bibliography!
Jack Ritchie specialized in short stories. In an interview for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Ritchie said, “I’ve alway felt that there hasn’t been a novel published that couldn’t be reduced to a better short story. Often the very long novels are really collections of short stories and sometimes they even include what are basically articles. Victor Hugo was good at that. He put about 30,000 words into Les Miserables delineating the history, structure, and whatnot of the Paris sewers. Now if I’d been in his shoes I could have describe the sewers in two paragraphs. Maybe one. Les Miserables itself would have become a novelette. Possibly even a pamphlet.” Les Miserables has almost 1,500 pages!
Jack Ritchie died in 1983 but his stories live on. This STARK HOUSE edition brings some of Ritchie’s best stories to a new audience. If you’re a fan of well crafted short stories, The Best of Manhunt 4: The Jack Ritchie Stories should be high on your list of books to read. GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
INTRODUCTION: War and Peace on a Postcard By Jeff Vorzimmer — 7
THE STORIES FROM MANHUNT:
MY GAME, MY RULES — 12
Replacement — 18
Hold Out — 26
Interrogation — 30
Solitary — 37
Try It My Way — 44
The Deveraux Monster — 50
Ripper Moon! — 64
Devil Eyes — 77
The Canary — 82
The Wire Loop — 88
Goodbye, World — 93
The Partners — 99
Degree of Guilt — 107
Divide and Conquer — 112
You Should Live So Long — 119
Kill Joy — 125
Don’t Twist My Arm — 130
Deadline Murder — 137
Fair Play — 149
Shatter Proof — 151
The Queer Deal — 158
Going Down — 167
THE STORIES FROM MANTRAP, MURDER! and SMASHING DETECTIVE STORIES
Anniversary of Death –171
A Torch for Tess — 181
Dead Cops are Murder — 191
Death Rail — 202
Rainy Afternoon — 208
A JACK RITCHIE BIBLIOGRAPHY — 211
I have the rare Manhunt issue that has stories by both Richard Moore and James Reasoner! The book of Jack Ritchie stories sounds like a definite keeper!
Bob, this is the best collection of Jack Ritchie stories published yet!
Also good news: yesterday saw the release of a NEW Ritchie collection from Crippen & Landru: CARDULA AND THE LOCKED ROOMS, which includes all nine Cardula stories (wonder what those letter can also spell?), along with several locked room stories.
Jerry, I have CARDULA AND THE LOCKED ROOMS on order! That will go to the top of the READ REAL SOON stack as soon as it arrives.
His comment on novels being reduced only takes plot into account. Many characters are undeveloped in a short story but a good plot stands up.
Patti, I would have loved to read Jack Ritchie’s version of Les Miserables !
He wasn’t at a Borges level of loving concision in every piece, but he was in the same direction. Depending how a given “Hitchcock” anthology was created, ranging from the AHMM best-ofs to the Random House adult and YA volumes edited by Robert Arthur and others to the scattered others excited by Peter Haining and others yet, a number of those Ritchie stories would be (or at least could be) counted multiple times, but at very least the overwhelming majority of all would be included with good reason.
The earliest Dell volumes edited by Don Ward deserved at least a mention as well…Harold Q. Masur did the remaining AH PRESENTS: volumes for Random after Arthur’s death, and AH’s daughter Patricia did at least one…
Todd, I’m glad you reminded us of Don Ward’s work.
Spell-“correction” clearly got Excited to misinterpret a typo of edited in re: Haining, above, who did UK pbs, a few of which were reprinted by Dell in the US…
I’ve read the first two Manhunt collections, didn’t know there was a third, let alone a fourth. George the Tempter strikes again.
Jeff, George the Tempter wants to start 2026 off right! STARK HOUSE’s MANHUNT books are must-buys for fans of wonderful crime fiction!