No, Bill, she's not the gangster. Mom is one of the many armchair detectives in the genre. She is the widowed mother of a policeman who lives in the Bronx. He narrates his tougher cases to her and she helps him solve them but never leaves her house. She first appeared in a series of short stoires throughout the 1950s in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. More than thirty years later Yaffe decided to write novels featuring Mom and her son the cop. There were five books in the series. The complete Mom stories are available in the collection My Mother, the Detective published by Crippen & Landru. BTW, Yaffe also has the distinction of being the youngest author ever to be first published in EQMM. His first story, without Mom, appeared in the early 1940s when he was a teenager.
I choose that book because I will always remember the movie with Patti Duke and Richard Thomas. I still think it's one of the creepier neo-Gothic movies w/ a young woman in peril and a steely and cruel matriarch who resents her. Not quite as good as the B movie classic Die, Die, My Darling! (with a similar storyline), but creepy and very disturbing all the same. How often did baby faced Thomas get to play a psychopath? Once in his entire career, I think, and he was pretty darn good as a murderous kook.
I love the UK jacket for MOTHER HUNT--I'd never seen that before!
ReplyDeleteA Nice Murder for Mom ...... who is Mom? - Ma Barker.
ReplyDeleteNo, Bill, she's not the gangster. Mom is one of the many armchair detectives in the genre. She is the widowed mother of a policeman who lives in the Bronx. He narrates his tougher cases to her and she helps him solve them but never leaves her house. She first appeared in a series of short stoires throughout the 1950s in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. More than thirty years later Yaffe decided to write novels featuring Mom and her son the cop. There were five books in the series. The complete Mom stories are available in the collection My Mother, the Detective published by Crippen & Landru. BTW, Yaffe also has the distinction of being the youngest author ever to be first published in EQMM. His first story, without Mom, appeared in the early 1940s when he was a teenager.
DeleteThe "Shadow" cover is really nice. Thanks for highlighting these "Mother's Day" covers, John.
ReplyDeleteThese are wonderful - thanks John.
ReplyDeleteLove these, John. I pinned a couple. :)
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked 'em. Man, I wish there were some kind of kickback on Pinterest pins. I'd be raking in a nice second income! :^D
DeleteToo late for Mothering Sunday in the UK, that was the end of March. Always been a fan of the Shadow, I like the Rex Stout UK cover too.
ReplyDeleteThe You'll Like My Mother, echoes the line from Psycho. I remember seeing the film years ago, it was not that memorable.
Wayne.
I choose that book because I will always remember the movie with Patti Duke and Richard Thomas. I still think it's one of the creepier neo-Gothic movies w/ a young woman in peril and a steely and cruel matriarch who resents her. Not quite as good as the B movie classic Die, Die, My Darling! (with a similar storyline), but creepy and very disturbing all the same. How often did baby faced Thomas get to play a psychopath? Once in his entire career, I think, and he was pretty darn good as a murderous kook.
Delete