#96
I did an inventory to see how many stories of mine have been published, and with “Alfred & Hitchcock” being published in the July/Aug issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and “A Lost Dream” in the July/August issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, I’ve had 97 stories published so far, and should hit a hundred by the end of the year if the stories that have been accepted by magazines and anthologies are published by their scheduled dates. I’m also not quite sure my inventory is complete—I might’ve left off some of the stories that were published on web zines when I was first starting off.
Going alphabetically, I’m going to say “Alfred & Hitchcock” is my 96th published story. This is my latest Morris Brick crime story, and I drew inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock’s espionage films. The Alfred and Hitchcock referenced in the title are foreign spies going by the aliases Penelope Hitchcock and Thomas Alfred, and they’re up to no good, to say the least. When Morris is hired to retrieve a kidnapped pooch, he and the rest of the investigators at MBI (Morris Brick Investigations) find themselves tangled up with the two spies in the kind of espionage thriller that Hitchcock might’ve made. Just as I played with King Kong in Fay & Wray, Frankenstein in Mary & Shelley, and the James Bond movies in James & Bond, I hide plenty of Easter eggs related to Hitchcock’s films in Alfred & Hitchcock. In fact, the last three words of the story are a nod to one of Hitchcock’s films.
Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps ends with one of his most iconic scenes when, while on stage, Mr. Memory is pressed to answer what are the 39 steps. I open this story at an Alfred Hitchcock exhibition at a wax museum where a performer dressed as Mr. Memory is taking questions, and his first question is: what are the 39 steps. In this case, the answer is that it was a 1935 film starring Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll and was the eighteenth film that Hitchcock directed. Just as he does in the film, Mr. Memory plays an important role in what I hope readers will find a surprising story. While one doesn’t have to be a true Hitchcock film buff to enjoy the one, I think Hitchcock fans (and really, just about every movie fan should be one!), will have fun finding the references to North by Northwest, The Lady Vanishes, and his other films.