Isaac Asimov is well known to both Science Fiction fans and Mystery readers. In the 1970s, Ike wrote a straight Mystery series for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine about a group of men called The Black Widowers. This invitation by Frederic Dannay shouldn’t surprise anyone. Ike had cut his mystery-writing teeth since the 1950s with mysteries set in Science Fictional setting, usually featuring robots. For these stories, click here.
Now back in the early 1950s, Asimov complained though there were SF detectives, none of them had really played fair. The detective either solved the problem by some fantastic gizmo or some obscure knowledge unknowable to readers.
Asimov wrote in the introduction to Asimov’s Mysteries (1968):
Back in the late 1945, this was finally explained to me [by John W. Campbell]. I was told that ‘by its very nature’ science fiction would not play fair with the reader. In a science fiction story, the detective could say, ‘But as you know, Watson, ever since 2175, when all Spaniards learned to speak French, Spanish has been a dead language. How came Juan Lopez, then, to speak those significant words in Spanish!’ Or else, he could have his detective whip out an odd device and say, ‘As you know, Watson, my pocket frannistan is perfectly capable of detecting the hidden jewel in a trice.’
Such arguments did not impress me. It seemed to me that ordinary mystery writers (non-science-fiction variety) could be just as unfair to the readers. They could deliberately hide a necessary clue. They could introduce an additional character from nowhere. They could simply forget about something over which they had been making a great deal of fuss, and mention it no more. They could do anything. The point was, though, that they didn’t do anything. They stuck to the rule of being fair to the reader. Clues might be obscured, but not omitted. Essential lines of thought might be thrown out casually, but they were thrown out. The leader was remorselessly misdirected, misled, and mystified, but he was not cheated. It seemed, then, a matter to be taken obviously for granted that the same would apply to a science fiction mystery. You don’t spring new devices on the reader and solve the mystery with them. You don’t take advantage of future history to introduce ad hoc phenomena. In fact, you carefully explain all facets of the future background well in advance so the reader may have a decent chance to see the solution. The fictional detective can make use only of facts known to the reader in the present or of ‘facts’ of the fictional future, which will be carefully explained beforehand. Even some of the real facts of our present ought to be mentioned if they are to be used-just to make sure the reader is aware of the world now about him.” (Asimov’s Mysteries by Isaac Asimov)
Now being the ornery cuss I am, I’ve been searching for some lost SF gem to prove Asimov wrong. (Think of it! Being able to say you proved Ike Asimov wrong. Now that’s braggin’ rights!) I’ve looked at a number of these stories here:
“Robots Can’t Lie” by Robert Leslie Bellem
“The Veiled Lady or Let Me Spillane It to Yah!”
“Shooting Star” by Robert Bloch
“Ray A. Palmer and the Science Fiction Mystery”
“The Darker Drink: Pseudonymous Saint”
And at the end of this search, I had to hold up Asimov’s claim that before he wrote The Caves of Steel no one had ever done the job right. The search is over…or it it? I always figured if someone proved Asimov wrong it would be another SF/Mystery writer. Robert Bloch had my hopes up but alas… That left Anthony Boucher who started The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and has a Mystery convention named after him. I haven’t come across anything there yet, but what about Fredric Brown? He paid his bills writing two Mysteries a year and a pile of SF stories. Now I was onto something.
The story is called “Crisis 1999” and it appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, August 1949. (That title supposes the world fifty years hence. We can laugh now knowing what the year 1999 was really like but that’s not really important.) It’s a convoluted tale about an agent who goes undercover twice to find the secret of how all the crooks are beating the rap because they can fool the lie detector test.
Bela Joad is hired by Chicago’s Chief of Police, Dyer Rand to solve this mystery. He uses his own covert methods. The two discuss how Gyp Girard beat the murder rap because of the lie detector, how Professor Chappel, a well-known psychiatrist disappeared two years earlier and the stats on crime in the city dropping. Then Joad disappears.
Joad assumes the identity of a low-life named Martin Blue. He engineers his own fake murder by Joe Zatelli, another hood. When he walks in on Zatelli’s interrogation, after the lie detector clears him of Blue’s murder, the crook leaves the police station. Joad has proven one thing: the lie detector is being beaten.
Now starts the second half of the plan. For this Joad assumes the identity of Willie Ecks. Rumors are spread around that Ecks murdered his worst enemy, and this is confirmed when a body is reported in Washington Park. Ecks is in a jam and Mike Leary knows it. He offers to fix Willie up with the Lie Detector guy for ten thousand dollars. Dr Chappel only ask five thousand but the other half is for Mike. Willie has no choice but to pay.
A day later Bela Joad goes to Chief Rand’s apartment. He has the answer to the Lie Detector Mystery but Rand can’t prosecute anyone. To make it worse, Joad is going to go into the same business. Rand refuses to cooperate, so Joad begins to leave. Rand changes his mind.
The solution to the Mystery proves to be that Dr. Chappel has not been kidnapped but disappeared on his own. He does help criminals beat the lie detector tests by using hypnosis. The criminal gives the doctor a list of all the crimes the police might try to use against them, then erases their memory of committing those crimes. Not knowing of the crime, the crook sets off no alarms on the test. But Chappel doesn’t stop there. He also hypnotizes the criminals into going straight. Joe Zatelli and Gyp Girard have both become honest businessmen. Rand’s own crime stats show that major criminals are leaving the underworld for honest work. Joad has joined forces with Chappel to train men to go to all the cities in America and carry out the same process. Though old crimes are not being prosecuted, the two men plan to eliminate crime in a few decades.
So, do we have a contender? Did Fredric Brown write an SF Mystery before Isaac Asimov? Let’s look at the criteria:
- The French-Spanish argument – Brown doesn’t introduce obscure explanations at the end.
- No pocket Frannistans – no gizmos need apply. Lie detector tests and hypnotism were known in 1949.
- Fair Play – Fred presents all the clues – the crime stats going down, Chappel disappearing, the Lie Detector test being beaten, etc.
What he doesn’t do is present a Murder Mystery. This story is really a puzzle story in the best SF tradition as well as a crime story. So while it is an SF crime story it isn’t really an SF Mystery of the type that Asimov presents. I guess I haven’t proven the Good doctor wrong just yet. The search goes on. I guess I better have a look at that Boucher stories…
