Crossover Cover: Case for Sergeant Beef

 

Are you a fan of Margery Allingham's detective Albert Campion?

Then you'll love this novel, which has a shout-out to Campion, among other crossovers!

For more information, be sure to purchase my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover Cover: Black Out

 

Det. Sgt. Frederick Troy of Scotland Yard investigates the discovery of a severed arm in Stepney, as well as the disappearance of a communist, with both cases turning out to be connected to each other and the current war. Squadron Leader Neville Pym, also referred to as N. A. G. Pym, is MI5’s liaison with the Yard. A female friend of the communist has as a neighbor a fat bald man involved in Civil Defense, specifically Heavy Rescue. The Fat Man tells Troy, “I did a lot of work before the war for a detective like – amateur mind, a gentleman – in fact I’d be doin’ it now, but that he took ’imself off to the army and one of those ’ush-’ush jobs.” Perhaps Neville A. G. Pym’s middle initials stand for Arthur Gordon, and he is descended from a child of Poe’s Arthur Gordon Pym who immigrated to Britain. The Fat Man is Magersfontein Lugg, the peacetime manservant to Margery Allingham’s detective Albert Campion. Campion and Lugg’s wartime activities are described in the original novels. Lugg will go on to make several more appearances in the Troy series, but I will not list all of them here. Lawton’s novels about MI5 agent Joe Wilderness are set in the same universe as the Troy books.

This crossover is one of hundreds covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover Cover: Second Violin

 

Are you a James Bond fan?

Then you'll love this entry in John Lawton's Inspector Frederick Troy series, which has a cameo by a young Bond, as well as nods to Margery Allingham's Albert Campion mysteries, John Osborne's play The Entertainer, George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, and P. G. Wodehouse's Uncle Fred series! 

For more information, be sure to pick up a copy of my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3 when Meteor House publishes it! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover of the Week

October 1937

CASE WITH NO CONCLUSION 

Sergeant Beef is hired by Peter Ferrers to clear the name of his brother Stewart, who is in custody for the murder of the family doctor. Beef mentions his fellow detectives, Lord Simon Plimsoll, Nigel Strangeways, Anthony Gethryn, Albert Campion, and Dr. Gideon Fell, as well as his cousin Sergeant Matthew Beef, John Meredith’s assistant. Peter says Inspector Meredith, Inspector French, and Amer Picon were all too busy to take the case. Crime reporter Angus Braithwaite had been peeved by the certainty of success of various private investigators of whom he’s read, from Holmes and Blake to Thorndike and Mason. Plimsoll, Picon, and Monsignor Smith are quoted in Braithwaite’s paper, The Daily Dose, about Beef’s failure to solve the case and prevent Stewart’s hanging. 

1939 novel by Lionel Townsend, edited by Leo Bruce. Lord Simon Plimsoll, a disguised version of Dorothy L. Sayers’ detective Lord Peter Wimsey, met Beef in Bruce’s Case for Three Detectives. Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot also appeared in that novel under the pseudonym “Amer Picon,” and G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown as “Monsignor Smith.” Wimsey, Poirot, Father Brown, Philip MacDonald’s detective Anthony Gethryn, Margery Allingham’s Albert Campion, John Dickson Carr’s Dr. Gideon Fell, Freeman Wills Crofts’ Inspector French, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Sexton Blake, R. Austin Freeman’s Dr. Thorndyke (to use the correct spelling), and Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason (who is actually an attorney, not a private investigator, though he did often make use of P.I. Paul Drake’s services in his cases) have all been included in the CU. This novel brings in Nicholas Blake’s detective Nigel Strangeways and Francis Gerard’s Sir John Meredith and Sergeant Matthew Beef. One of the characters mentions going to see the Shirley Temple movie Little Miss Broadway, which came out on July 29, 1938. However, the next novel in the series, Case with 4 Clowns, takes place from April 25-May 4, 1938, and mentions the events of this book as having occurred six months ago at the beginning. Therefore, I am placing it in October 1937.

This crossover writeup is one of the hundreds included in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, to be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover of the Week

July 1922

THE BIZARRE ADVENTURE OF THE OCTAGON HOUSE 

Sherlock Holmes meets Denis Nayland Smith at Scotland Yard. Smith has carefully studied Limehouse, particularly the Devil Doctor who permeates that region. Besides Solar Pons and Dr. Lyndon Parker, Holmes enlists the aid of the Belgian consultant at 14 Farraway Street, whose friend Captain Hastings married and moved to Argentina the previous autumn, and who is himself investigating the Doctor, whom his biographer would later disguise under the name Li Chang Yen. Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie insist on being involved. At Scotland Yard, Dr. Watson nods at Inspectors Charles Parker (a relation of Dr. Parker), Stanislaus Oates, and Jimmy Japp, who says M. Poirot has additional information about the Aberystwyth case. Holmes and Watson seek information on soils from Dr. John Thorndyke and his assistant Dr. Christopher Jervis. Another of Thorndyke’s helpers is researcher Nathaniel Polton. As they leave Thorndyke’s home, Holmes and Watson run into Superintendent Miller. Watson says that a few weeks later, he, Holmes, Pons, Parker, Thorndyke, Jervis, Nayland Smith, and Petrie visited the now-empty Colsworth estate. Lord Peter was invited to attend, but he declined, and in his place came an American, either twenty-two or twenty-three years of age, named Jones who recently completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Chicago and was soon planning to attend a graduate program in linguistics at the Sorbonne. 

Story by Dr. Watson, edited by David Marcum in The Meeting of the Minds: Cases of Sherlock Holmes & Solar Pons I, David Marcum, ed., Belanger Books, 2021. Sir Denis Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie are Dr. Fu Manchu’s archenemies in Sax Rohmer’s novels. The Devil Doctor made several unnamed appearances in August Derleth’s Solar Pons stories. The Belgian consultant is Hercule Poirot. Li Chang Yen battled Poirot in Agatha Christie’s The Big Four. Rick Lai identified Li Chang Yen with Fu Manchu in his essay “Partners in Crime: Fu Manchu and Carl Peterson.” Captain Arthur Hastings and Inspector James Japp are from the Poirot books. The Aberystwyth case is mentioned in Christie’s Murder on the Links. Chief Inspector Charles Parker is the friend and brother-in-law of Dorothy L. Sayers’ detective Lord Peter Wimsey. Inspector Stanislaus Oates is from Margery Allingham’s Albert Campion books. Drs. Thorndyke and Jervis, Nathaniel Polton, and Superintendent Miller are from R. Austin Freeman’s detective novels. Jones is Indiana Jones. Indy would in fact be twenty-three in July 1922.

This crossover write-up is one of hundreds to be found in my upcoming book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, to be published by Meteor House. All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's books Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover Cover: Swan Song

A journalist asks Gervase Fen for an interview for her series on famous detectives, adding that she’s hoping to also speak with H.M., Mrs. Bradley, and Albert Campion, among others. The references to Carter Dickson’s (pseudonym for John Dickson Carr) Sir Henry “H.M.” Merrivale, Gladys Mitchell’s Mrs. Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, and Margery Allingham’s Albert Campion confirm that Gervase Fen is in the CU.

Crossover of the Week

Late November 1951

COLD BLOOD

            Sergeant William Beef’s biographer, Townsend, tells him that he needs a unique quality to make him famous as a detective: “You must resemble an alligator every few pages, like Mrs. Bradley, or talk like a peer in an Edwardian farce, like Lord Peter Wimsey. Or use bits of exclamatory French, like Poirot.” Theo Gray asks Beef to look into the death of his friend, Cosmo Ducrow. Townsend thinks, “How different, I could not help reflecting, was the conversation of Holmes and Watson while they sat waiting for their clients not half a mile away.” Noting that there are better known detectives than he, with better reputations, Beef asks Gray why he did not consult Poirot, to which Gray responds that he was engaged on another case. When Beef asks the same about Albert Campion, Gray replies that Campion was not interested. Beef says that he wonders where Gray will be if he refuses the case, to which Gray responds “On the phone to Inspector French…”

            Novel by Lionel Townsend, edited by Leo Bruce. Gladys Mitchell’s Mrs. Bradley, Dorothy L. Sayer’s Lord Peter Wimsey, Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Margery Allingham’s Albert Campion, and Freeman Wills Crofts’ Inspector French have all been established as existing in the CU; therefore, this crossover brings in Sergeant Beef. Beef’s cottage, where he first meets with Gray, is in Lilac Crescent, and was chosen for its proximity to Baker Street. Holmes and Watson were no longer living at 221B Baker Street in 1951, so Townsend must have been referring to their conversations in years past.