Many years ago, I downloaded some Edward D. Hoch collections for my Kindle, determined to read more of him. One of those collections was The Spy and the Thief, “a double-barreled collection” containing seven stories of Hoch’s spy C. Jeffery Rand, and seven stories of his thief Nick Velvet. I started the collection, read most of it…and then never finished it due to having other things to read. Well, I remembered this book and set out to finally read it all the way through.
The history of The Spy and the Thief goes back to 1943, when Ellery Queen* published multiple short story collections containing stories by some of the finest writers in the genre, from Stuart Palmer to Dashiell Hammett to Roy Vickers. The goal was not only to give the public some good reading, but also to preserve magazine stories that otherwise would have fallen into the cracks of oblivion. The Spy and the Thief was part of a second round of these types of collections, which started in 1969. The collection comes with some brief dossiers on not only Hoch, but also on his two stars. On that basis, it’s worthwhile for the Hoch fanatic, but what did I think about it as a book?
I’ve already reviewed the first story in the collection, “The Spy Who Came to the Brink,” so we’ll move onto “The Spy Who Had Faith in Double-C.” Cecil Montgomery is a priest and spy at work in the island nation of Buhadi, which is currently in the midst of a power struggle between two charismatic leaders…one of whom is under the employ of the Chinese. Montgomery discovers which of the two men it is, but agents of that man kill him in a blind alley, leaving only a vague message for Rand to interpret. It’s a nice little puzzle, although one has to wonder if Rand would really be stumped by it as long as he is. Or that the killers wouldn’t have found it. I haven’t posted it since I feel that most readers, if they think about it, can crack the code.
“The Spy Who Took the Long Route” is similar to “Brink” in that there’s no doubt about the spy who’s passing information about ship placements in microdots on postcards; the question is why he’s transmitting the information the way he is. Sending the information by postcard ensures that it’ll arrive in Russian hands weeks after it’s of any use. I do like the explanation that Hoch provides. It’s bit odd, but the summation does a good job at showing why this method was used and not something else. But the main clue that tips Rand off…frankly, it makes no sense. (ROT13: Fb Enaq vf gvccrq bss orpnhfr vg’f irel hayvxryl gung gur zbyr jbhyq unir abgvprq gur zvpebqbgf ng nyy. Bxnl. Fb jul gura qbrf gur zbyr zragvba gurz, vs ab bar xabjf nobhg gurz?) It mars the story. More impactful is Hoch’s portrayal of his fictional city of Hoihong, a muggy and hazy city where the West and Russians co-mingle like the Cold War doesn’t exist. Hoch had a cynical attitude about the conflict, and I think this setting demonstrates it, as does the next story.
“The Spy Who Came to the End of the Road” opens pre-Pearl Harbor at a facility where scientists are doing work with electric eels to find a possible cure for Russian nerve gas. One man kills two workers, and then we cut to the present, where the killer might have resurfaced under another name. He claims to have worked with codebreaking, and so Rand is sent in to talk with him and test his story. This is almost a pure espionage tale with little detection until the end, with a nice little plot twist that readers might miss until the explanation. Although Hoch uses the story to talk about how much he knows about electric eels, this is pretty good.
The Lavender Machine in “The Spy Who Purchased a Lavender” is a new encryption device developed by the Americans. Old spy Peter Smith purchases one for Britain, but the odd behavior of the seller and a piece of carbon paper with a duplicate signature on it makes him suspect that the man might be trying to sell one to the Communists. I found the mystery aspect of this one pretty weak. The final explanation for the possible espionage is quite good and well thought out. But the actual crime—for of course there’s a murder committed late in the story—isn’t as well done. My issue with it, and the other Rand stories collected here, is that they almost all revolve around a dying message or code of some kind. That makes sense, seeing as Rand is a codebreaker, but it also means that alternate clues tend to be a bit thin on the ground. If the reader can break the code, they know the killer. Hoch does his best, but in order to ensure that the reader knows enough to break the code, he has to explain how it works and highlight to readers what to watch out for. Which is what happens here.
It's a shame, because I do like this story as a spy story. It’s a drag, but that’s the point, as Smith chases down thin leads that Rand is increasingly convinced are going nowhere, clumsily questioning every possible acquaintance of his suspect. Hoch does a good job of capturing Rand’s increasing frustration with what looks like a wild goose chase without making him unsympathetic.
“The Spy and the Calendar Network” is a traditional whodunit. The titular network was active after World War II, dedicated to learning all they could “about German scientists working for the Russians.” It was disbanded without accomplishing much, but now the surviving members of the group, including Rand, are gathering at Cornwall for a twenty-year reunion. But not even 24 hours in, one of the group is found stabbed to death in his room, the only evidence being a piece of paper with the word “Tarsus” scrawled on it. Once again, it probably shouldn’t take Rand as long as it does to crack this one, and again, there’s not too many clues pointing to the killer, but I liked this one. Hoch does a good job with the moody atmosphere and symbolism, and I liked the backstory behind the crimes.
We end the Rand section with “The Spy and the Bermuda Cipher.” A late-night phone call brings Scotland Yard and Rand to a Liverpool house where a Double-C agent is lying dead of a stab wound. Bizarrely, the room is filled with encyclopedias, textbooks, and clocks. 24 to be precise. Rand suspects the murder is tied to the Bermuda Cipher, a new cipher stumping the greatest minds of Double-C. The reader has no chance of figuring out how to break it, but honestly, it’s a very clever cipher that feels very practical. Unfortunately, the focus on the cipher means that the murder is a bit perfunctory, but Hoch slips in a very good plot twist that has been carefully set up. Though would a clever spy really do that? It feels like someone would notice.
I’ve become more of a Rand fan over the years, since I feel that some of Hoch’s most interesting and out-there ideas come from his espionage stories. But these aren’t Rand at his best. They’re good stories but lack the needed “oomph” to be great. And the reliance on dying messages limits them as mysteries.
We now move onto the Nick Velvet stories. Velvet is one of Hoch’s most interesting series characters, a thief who doesn’t bother with “the usual valuable things, like cash or jewels,” but “the unusual, the bizarre, the worthless.” It’s a neat hook that adds a little mystery to all of his stories, even the ones that don’t feature another crime: Why does the client want Nick to steal pool water, tickets, or a calendar? But that’s something of a soft retcon, since Hoch’s original vision for Nick placed more weight on the “unusual” rather than the “valueless.”
This is best shown by Nick’s debut, “The Theft of the Clouded Tiger.” Nick is approached by a shady trio looking for him to abduct the titular clouded tiger “a strangely mottled beast long thought to be legendary” from a public zoo for their employer, a Middle Eastern prince. The focus is on how Velvet will slip an angry tiger out of a zoo. Hoch handles this part well. Perceptive readers will figure out where the plot is going, but this was a good debut for an interesting series character…albeit one who’s quite savage here; Hoch would later tone Velvet down.
“The Theft from the Onyx Pool” sees Velvet hired by Asher Dumont, an heiress with an odd target: the water from the pool of mystery play writer Samuel Fitzpatrick. She wants it stolen not drained. And she wants it done before the Fourth. Most of the story is spent on Velvet scheming to steal the water, and his plan is honesty pretty smart. The motive for the theft is good, and I liked the reason it had to be done before the Fourth. Velvet considers a false solution which I would have also been impressed with, which is a testament to Hoch’s imagination.
I remembered liking “The Theft of the Brazen Letters” the best of my first read-through, and this reread almost held up. Velvet is hired to steal three of the letters from the sign on the Satomex Corporation building. Velvet not only has to steal the letters and figure out why his clients want them, but dodge around Charlie Weston, “a smart cop and an honest one.” I felt that most of the Velvet stories fell under “The ‘worthless’ item is secretly valuable,” but that’s not the case here at all. (Nor for the rest of the stories, honestly.) The ending is great, with Velvet explaining the risky-if-clever plan at the heart of the story and turning the tables on Weston. Some of the cluing is a little clunky, but I believe that most readers won’t think through what they mean or notice the real key evidence.
“The Theft of the Wicked Tickets” has Velvet hired to steal the tickets of the Broadway play, Wicked. The play has been closed for two months, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for Nick’s client, the father of the play’s producer. Of course, this is no simple job, as Wicked seems to still be a hot commodity in spite of it crashing and burning. Not to mention the dead man Velvet finds in the theater during his break-in. I rose an eyebrow at the reason for the theft, but I’ll trust that Hoch read about something like this.
Oh, and this story has nothing to do with the hit musical Wicked. Don’t be silly.
“The Theft of the Laughing Lions” starts with Nick’s sailboat being invaded by Ran Brewster, a “mermaid” with a job for Nick: one of the lion decorations on the tables of Phil Rumston’s “Capital Clubs.” Rumston is an odd man, an “open, friendly man” who's also "perhaps the most talkative person in the public eye." His every secret is already out in the open, so what does a young woman want with one of his lions? This is almost pure caper, as Nick’s first attempt isn’t sufficient, and his second goes wrong. Not the most amazing explanation at the end, but still a good story.
“The Theft of the Coco Loot” see Velvet hired to steal a calendar. “A calendar of this year, of the type that is given out every December. It has absolutely no value.” What makes the theft interesting is the calendar’s owner: John O’Donnell, currently in a federal penitentiary. The only thing O’Donnell seems to use the calendar for is “to cross off the days while he waits for the end of his sentence,” but when Nick and the reader learn that the crime he’s imprisoned for is piracy, it becomes obvious what makes the calendar valuable. Wisely, Hoch devotes much of the story to Velvet’s effort to steal the calendar, and I quite enjoyed the process. The main deduction hinges on trivia, but it’s trivia that Hoch seeds the story with, making it feel more fair. And a clever reader can make an educated guess if they notice those seeds. This romp ends with a gun battle and a clean win for Velvet.
Finally, Velvet is hired to steal a wooden horse from a merry-go-round in “The Theft of the Blue Horse.” The merry-go-round is part of a carnival, soon to close, near the Canadian border. But Nick’s hopes of an easy job are dashed because it seems that someone else has the same idea and has already stolen one of the horses. I thought I remembered what the reason for the theft was and was prepared to be disappointed, but it turns out I misremembered. I admit, I don’t quite follow the reason for the theft, but it’s an interesting twist that gives Velvet's actions more impact. There’s a good deduction at the end too.
Once I accepted that the Velvet stories were more likely to be caper stories than capers with full-blown mysteries, I enjoyed them more. I liked the variety of reasons for the different thefts, and the mystery elements tend to be solid, at the very least. Velvet is an appealing protagonist; it’s fun to watch a master at work—whether that be a master thief or a master author.
When I first finished this collection, I wasn’t super fond of it. The stories didn't stand out to me, and there are a bunch of typos in this edition. But on thinking about it, I can safely say I enjoyed the book. While I might put this on the lower tier of Hoch collections, I do think it’s a good book overall. I could see myself picking it up again and flipping through it, enjoying the work of an expert. But that’s because Hoch is a comfort read to me, and I don’t know if someone going into his work blind would agree, and there’s not really a story I can point to and say, “You have to read this,” (except maybe “Bronze Letters”). To be fair, I’ll label this as Not Recommended, with Caveats (I liked it, but you might not.)
*I'm assuming this refers to Frederic Dannay, but I'm labeling this as Queen to be sure.
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