Crossover Cover: Whistle Up the Devil

 

Are you a Golden Age of Mystery fan?

Then you'll love this novel, the first of two featuring amateur sleuth Algy Lawrence, which has references to Wilkie Collins' Sergeant Cuff, Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin, Clayton Rawson's Merlini, John Dickson Carr's Dr. Gideon Fell, Freeman Wills Crofts' Inspector French, and Rupert Penny's Chief Inspector Beale!

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

Autumn 2016

GUIDED TOURS OF FAMOUS SECRET PLACES 

A guide leads a tour group around Paris as part of a magic working, beginning at the Rue Morgue. The members of the tour group are from Arkham, Brichester, Derry, Ingersham, Medicine Man, Mud Creek, and Harrisonville. The first stop is the L’Épi-Scié Tavern, followed by a mansion on the Rue Thérèse. De Castries taught the guide that silver and abstract designs kept his enemies away. The mansion was, and perhaps still is, the meeting place of the Habits Noirs, or the Black Coats in English. The guide lists secret societies that have manipulated humanity throughout history, including the Black Coats, the Si-Fan, the Illuminati, the Shin Tan, the Brotherhood of the Seven Kings, the Black Lodge, and the Power House. The Mona Lisa was stolen twice, the first time by Arsène Lupin, using a secret passageway also used by the notorious Belphégor, also known as the Phantom of the Louvre. Other secret passages in Paris include the room in the Dragon Volant and the passages used by Erik under the Opera House. The guide makes the Voorish Sign and takes the group through the Room of the Barbarous Gods, which includes giant stone statues of the Serpent-Men of Valusia and a black idol from the castle of Joiry. Escaping from the Louvre through the sewers, and feeling like Jean Valjean in the process, the guide and his group resurface not far from the Court of the Dragon. An imitator of Erik battled Lupin’s grandson in the '60s. The next stop after the Opera House is the Rue d’Auseil. The Hidden Places, parts of the world that have been separated from the normal world by powers unknown, include St. Beregonne’s Lane in Hamburg, the cities of Selene and Xebico, the land of Lilliput, and the parts of the Sargasso that Hodgson wrote about. They should not be confused with journeys to other worlds like those of Randolph Carter or the crew of the Mainz Psalter. Occasionally, a person like Erich Zann will find their way into the Rue d’Auseil. A gaping hole in the sky leads into the realm of Azathoth. The guide cries out words in the old tongue of R’lyeh. The man from Mud Creek invokes Cthulhu and Dagon, while the man from Derry sings of the Black Goat of the Wood with a Thousand Young. 

Short story by Matthew Ilseman in Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 14: Coup de Grace, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2017; reprinted in French in Les Compagnons de l’Ombre (Tome 24), Jean-Marc Lofficier, ed., Rivière Blanche, 2018. The Rue Morgue is from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Arkham, Massachusetts is the setting of many of H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos tales. Brichester is a town in the Severn Valley in Ramsey Campbell’s contributions to the Mythos. Derry is a recurring setting in the works of Stephen King. Ingersham is from Jean Ray’s The City of Unspeakable Fear. The town of Medicine Man is from Gene Wolfe’s The Sorcerer’s House. Mud Creek, Texas is the setting of many works by Joe R. Lansdale. Harrisonville, New Jersey is the home of Seabury Quinn’s occult detective Dr. Jules de Grandin. The L’Épi-Scié tavern and the mansion on the Rue Thérèse are from Paul Féval’s novels about the crime cartel known as the Black Coats. Thibaut de Castries is from Fritz Leiber’s Our Lady of Darkness. The Si-Fan is the society controlled by Sax Rohmer’s Dr. Fu Manchu. The Illuminati is a historical group, but the reference here is specifically to Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson’s The Illuminatus! Trilogy. The Shin Tan is led by Monsieur Ming, the archenemy of Henri Vernes’ hero Bob Morane. The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings is from L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace’s book of the same name. The Black Lodge is from Talbot Mundy’s Jimgrim novel The Devil’s Guard, as well as the television series Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks: The Return. The Power House (aka Krafthaus) is from John Buchan’s The Power House. Arsène Lupin is Maurice Leblanc’s gentleman thief. Belphégor is from Arthur Bernède’s titular novel and serial, as is the Room of the Barbarous Gods. The Dragon Volant is from the story “The Room in the Dragon Volant,” included in J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s In a Glass Darkly. Erik is the title character of Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera. The Voorish Sign is from Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror.” The Serpent-Men of Valusia are from Robert E. Howard’s Kull stories. Joiry is from C. L. Moore’s tales of Jirel of Joiry. Jean Valjean is from Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. The Court of the Dragon is from Robert W. Chambers’ “In the Court of the Dragon,” included in The King in Yellow. Arsène Lupin’s grandson encountered an Erik-like villain in “Vissi d’arte, Vissi d’amore,” an episode of the anime Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine. The Rue d’Auseil and Erich Zann are from Lovecraft’s “The Music of Erich Zann.” St. Beregonne’s Lane is from Jean Ray’s “The Shadowy Street.” Selene is from Féval’s Vampire City. Xebico is from H. F. Arnold’s “The Night Wire.” Lilliput is from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. The Sargasso reference is to William Hope Hodgson’s Sargasso Sea stories. Randolph Carter is from Lovecraft’s Dream Cycle. The Mainz Psalter is from Jean Ray’s titular story. Azathoth is one of Lovecraft’s Outer Gods. R’lyeh is the sunken city where a slumbering Cthulhu is imprisoned. Dagon is from Lovecraft’s “Dagon” and “The Shadow over Innsmouth.” The Black Goat of the Wood with a Thousand Young is Lovecraft’s Great Old One Shub-Niggurath. 

This crossover writeup is one of hundreds included 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 of the Week

September 1908–1911

YOUNG BECK, A CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK

Paul Beck Jr., the son of sleuth Paul Beck, embarks upon his own detective career. There are references to a cricket-playing gentleman thief named Baffles, and Paul Jr.’s best friend, Charlie Kirkwood, remarks to Paul Sr., “I think I remember once, long before I had the pleasure of knowing you personally, reading a case of yours in which the famous Baffles imitated the finger marks of an absent burglar with India-rubber gloves.” Paul Sr. also comments, “No monkey has turned up in a burglary since the mystery of the Rue Morgue, so it must be a man.”

Collection of short stories written by Charles Kirkwood, edited by M. McDonnell Bodkin, 1912. “Baffles” is meant to be A. J. Raffles. The elder Beck’s encounter with Raffles is unrecorded. Paul Sr.’s comments treat Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue” as an historical event. Paul Beck, Jr. is in his twenties, and is allegedly Paul Sr.’s son by Dora Myrl. However, Paul Sr. was identified as forty-one-years-old when he married Dora during the events of The Capture of Paul Beck, which also took place in 1908. Rick Lai writes, “Paul is now in his early sixties while Dora is about forty. I suspect that Paul Sr. had an earlier marriage when he was about nineteen. For some reason, Paul Sr. didn’t want this first wife discussed; possibly she was a crook. Kirkwood must have been instructed to make misleading chronological assertions and pretend that Paul Jr. was Dora’s son.”

Crossover Cover: Sherlock Holmes: Gods of War

In Late September 1913, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson battle a murderous cult seeking to engineer a World War. Holmes describes the time he met Dupin, who failed to impress him. One of the cultists is descended from Sir Nigel Loring, but the reference is to the historical knight of that name, not Doyle’s heavily fictionalized version. The foreword, allegedly written by Watson in 1923, claims Holmes is now deceased, and it is stated within the main text Mycroft died seven years ago (that is, in 1906). Watson also describes Mary Morstan as his first wife, whereas in the CU she was his second wife. All these factors place this book in an AU.

Crossover of the Week

1940

THE BLACK BAT AT BAY

Jim Anthony comes out of retirement when he is tasked by the N.Y.P.D. with capturing the Black Bat, who has been framed for murder. Anthony was recommended to Commissioner Warner by FBI agent Dan Fowler, with whom Anthony has worked before. Anthony also tells Warner, “A famous member of my fraternity once said that pertinence is purely a matter of perspective.” The Bat attacks a group of criminals at the wrecked Comet Club, which was once owned by a man named Suydam, who died in 1921 in the same fire that destroyed the club. Gangster Gentleman Jack Schulz has a penthouse in the Shandor Building.

Short story by Josh Reynolds in Black Bat Mystery, Volume 2, Airship 27 Productions, 2012. The Black Bat and Jim Anthony appeared in the pulp magazines Black Book Detective and Super Detective, respectively. FBI agent Dan Fowler’s stories appeared in G-Men Detective. Fowler and Anthony previously met in Erwin K. Roberts’ story “Neighborhood in Peril” and Reynolds’ tale “Proof of Supremacy.” The fellow sleuth quoted by Anthony is either Sherlock Holmes or C. Auguste Dupin. Suydam is a relative of Robert Suydam from H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Horror at Red Hook.” The Shandor Building is from the movie Ghostbusters. Anthony must have permanently resumed his adventurous career after this, given his appearances in “The Carolingian Stone” and other stories.

Crosssover Cover: Les Ogres de Montfaucon

A collection of short stories featuring Edgar Allan Poe’s sleuth C. Auguste Dupin. In “Les Ogres de Montfaucon,” Paris is struck by an epidemic of the Red Death from Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death.” No date is given for these events. In “Le Vampire de Prague” (“The Vampire of Prague,”) set in 1820, a twenty-year old Dupin hunts a vampire through Europe and meets Dr. Martin Hesselius from J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla.” In “Le Drame de Reichenbach” (“The Drama of Reichenbach,”) set in 1855, Dupin witnesses a duel at the Reichenbach Falls between Giacomo Moriarti, an Italian gentleman, and Sherrinford Holmes, the husband of Cornélia Vernet and father of Mycroft and Sherlock. Holmes accuses Moriarti of seducing his fiancée Cornélia ten years ago, resulting in a son, Jacques, who is being raised by Moriarti in Italy. According to Moriarti, he and Cornélia simply rescued the baby, who was a Parisian foundling, and he adopted him as his son. At the end of the duel, Moriarti falls from a cliff, and Holmes disappears. “Giacomo” is the Italian equivalent of the English name “James,” while “Jacques” is the French version of that name. A birthdate of 1800 does not fit with Dupin’s family history as outlined in Tarzan Alive, nor do the genealogies for Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty given by Dôle fit with Farmer’s versions. Therefore, I place these stories in an AU.