I have posted a few times on the fiction of Gary Lovisi. He is an author, editor, publisher (Gryphon Books as well as Paperback Parade), and book dealer.
While some of his work has come out from his own Gryphon Books, he has also put out works from Ramble House, Wildside Press, and now Stark House Press. From them he has a trio of “notebooks,” nonfiction works on various areas. At present we have A Sherlock Holmes Notebook, A Mystery, Crime & Noir Notebook, and most recently The Fantastic Detective Notebook.
A Sherlock Holmes Notebook (2022), subtitled “A Cornucopia of Sherlockania,” is a collection of articles that cover aspects of Sherlock Holmes and related fiction, as well as collecting Sherlockania. I have no idea where most of these articles first appeared, as no such information is given.
There are over 20 articles, and I won’t touch on every one. The volume kicks off with the longest work, looking at various Holmes pastiches, including ones that made use of other characters in the series, such as Mycroft, Irene Adler, Moriarty, and others. In reading over this one, I noticed several I’ve picked up, as well as a few I want to get. Some I’ve reviewed here.
Another article looks at the Sherlock Holmes Library from Otto Penzler, which ran nine volumes. I have several of them, but I am uncertain if I have a complete set, so I’ll need to dig them out and check.
A pair of articles looks at Doyle’s other notable series character, Professor Challenger. And, yes, The Land of Mist did get a U.S. edition in 1990 as part of a wonderful two-volume trade paperback series from Chronicle Books called the Professor Challenger Adventures, which I was fortunate to get when it came out. However, the subject matter of this story makes it somewhat a lesser work, in my opinion.
Another pair of articles looks at The Valley of Fear. One takes a look at the Pinkerton detective at the center, Birdy Edwards, as possibly being the first hard-boiled detective. The other looks at the real-life events that inspired this novel. Another article looks at the unauthorized German serials, which would become the basis for Harry Dickson, the American Sherlock Holmes, in Belgium and France.
Getting more into the collecting of Sherlockania are articles looking at cigarette cards and chocolate cards with images from the Holmes series.
So there are a lot of interesting pieces in this volume. I really enjoyed this one. There are many pieces of cover art, sadly, all in black and white.
A Mystery, Crime & Noir Notebook (2023) collects almost 50 articles written over 40 years that have appeared in a variety of publications such as The Armchair Detective, Blood ’n’ Thunder, Paperback Parade, and more. There is an acknowledgment section toward the front listing the sources for all of these.
This one focuses on Lovisi’s favorite books in these related genres, most of which were published in cheap paperbacks in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, often mislabeled as “pulp paperbacks.” We have several articles that look at specific publishers, such as Avon, Lion, Falcon, and such, and one that looks at the Dell “mapbacks,” a popular series for collectors.
The rest of the book, almost two-thirds of it, is devoted to looking at specific authors and series, almost 30 of them. As this isn’t an area I am really into, I am only familiar with a few of them. Some of the authors covered include Michael Avallone, Charles Beckman Jr., Bruno Fischer, Gardner Fox, C.J. Henderson, and Don Tracy.
Another good work, just that, for me, this isn’t an area I have a great deal of interest in. There are many pieces of cover art, sadly, all in black and white.
The Fantastic Detective Notebook (2025) is an expanded update of the original that was published in 1986 by Gryphon Books. This new edition from Stark House Press is full color and about 230 pages. The focus is on detectives in a variety of fantastical settings, both fantasy and science fiction, though only written stories. Yes, a few of these have been turned into movies and TV shows, but any originals in those media are not included.
Everything here is listed by the author. How much detail for each entry will vary from part of a page for one, to several pages for another. Almost every page has a book cover in full color, hence the higher cost compared with the other two volumes.
In going through this volume, there are many works I am familiar with and have read, and several I recall coming across in bookstores over the years that I never read.
In addition, we get several appendices. One provides a trio of recommended reading lists. Another is a short list of recommended short stories. And the final one goes over the cover.
As with any such work, the question is how complete is it? At first, I figured there would be more occult detectives, but then I realized that most such characters aren’t really “detectives” trying to solve a crime, so they really don’t belong. But there are a few characters I think might have been included, such as Ravenwood, the detective who uses his psychic powers to solve crimes in the back of Secret Agent X. And Semi Dual, who also helped solve crimes through his occult powers. I also thought that the many Carnacki pastiches by Sam Gafford and others should have been noted as well. There are also the Steve Harrison stories by Robert E. Howard. And Edward Hoch did a series of detective stories with an unusual character named Simon Ark that sometimes veered into sf.
But that doesn’t detract from what is overall a pretty good work.
All three are excellent volumes. While I have posted on some of Lovisi’s other fiction, there are others I am planning on working on, including his Sherlock Holmes fiction and his sword-and-planet series of Jon Kirk of Ayres.
While I haven’t read any of his Paperback Parade, I hope to do so as well. And if you haven’t checked out Stark House Press for their other works, do so if you are a fan of noir fiction.
