Ehrengraf For the Defense by Lawrence Block

I don't usually care much for short stories, but this was fun. I've read a few of Block's Matthew Scudder books and a couple of other things (I think) which I can't remember particularly - but these stories are definitely out of a different pocket.

The protagonist (one hesitates to apply the term "hero") is a particular and extremely successful attorney. He is a small man and carefully and meticularly clothed, and he really does not care to actually appear in court. So, for an exorbitant fee, he guarantees that his clients will be discovered to be innocent and not be faced with the inconvenience and indignity of court appearance.

The reader is spared the narrative details of the actions which lead to this discovery, but the sequence of logic is fully outlined. All of this is done in gently dated language, just short of pedantic, which enhances the picture of Mr. Ehrengraf - even when he escorts the newly innocent grieving widow upstairs. The stories are well-polished little gems.

For me the mystery doesn't appear until the afterword, written by a fellow named Edward D. Hoch. To my memory, I had never heard of Edward D. Hoch and here is Block (whom I have heard of) writing an afterword to the afterword in which he implies that it is an enormous honor to have had Hoch comment on his work. So -- I went to the source of all information and looked up Edward Hoch.

The man published two or three mystery novels, two or three science fiction mysteries (bet Isaac A. had read them before writing his) and (drum roll, please) about nine hundred and fifty (950) short stories. He created somewhere in the vicinity of a dozen different series which were published in the myriad of mystery magazines which proliferated at the time - I am only familiar with the similar of body of works in the science fiction genre.

Most of Hoch's work was published (I gather - first Google page only - no serious research) in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. He was one of the writers who occasionally wrote as Ellery Queen and would have two stories in the same issue of the magazine. (Ellery Queen, BTW, is actually two guys.) Hoch has only been "collected" in print a couple of times - and those collections (according to the source of all print media) are not available.

Technically, I suppose they are available - but used paperbacks priced in the near vicinity of $100 are the same thing as unavailable to my way of thinking. This is annoying, one of those series is about a thousand year old coptic monk, and I am really curious. I suppose I could check the library ---