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Crime, Mystery & Gangster Fiction Magazine Index

The Crime, Mystery & Gangster Fiction Magazine Index (or Crime Fiction Index in short) is an attempt to provide an index to crime fiction magazines in the same style as the classic Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Weird Fiction Magazine Index compiled by Stephen T. Miller and William G. Contento. It will be available both in CD-ROM format from Locus Press and as a series of luxury hardback volumes from the Battered Silicon Dispatch Box.

The index is based (with permission) on the two classic indexes in this field (both now long out of print):

  1. Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Fiction: A Checklist of Fiction in U.S. Pulp Magazines, 1915-1974 compiled by Michael L. Cook and Stephen T. Miller
  2. Monthly Murders: A Checklist and Chronological Listing Of Fiction In The Digest-Size Mystery Magazines In The United States And England compiled by Michael L. Cook
As well as making the contents of these classic indexes available to a modern audience, the new index also includes a huge amount of new material, including: The new index also corrects many of the errors that inadvertently crept into the previous indexes.

As can be imagined with a project of this magnitude (comprising over 12,000 issues from over 550 different magazines), the compilers would welcome any offers of assistance from anyone who has access to some of these magazines and is prepared to help out.

In particular:

  1. The core of the index has been compiled from OCR scans of the two original indexes, rather than from the magazines themselves, and as such inevitably reproduce some of the mistakes inherent in those indexes (as well as undoubtedly introducing some new ones). We would love to hear from anyone who has a collection (whether large or small) of crime fiction magazines and would be prepared to compare the relevant sections of the index against their collections.

  2. There are still a number of small gaps in earlier magazines (see here for a full list), but we would particularly love to hear from anyone who has any copies of a handful of US magazines for which there are significant gaps:
    • Cabaret Stories
    • Giant Manhunt
    • Midnight/Midnight Mystery Stories/Midnight Mysteries
    • Over My Dead Body!
    • Real Detective Tales (and Mystery Stories)
    • Red Herring Mystery Magazine
    • Scientific Detective (Annual) (not the same as Scientific Detective Monthly)
    • The Underworld (Magazine)
    • Whispering Willow Mysteries
  3. Although the index contains many hundred issues of magazines published outside the US, the coverage of these is still woefully incomplete and we would love to hear from anybody who has crime magazines published in the UK (particularly reprint editions of US pulps), Australia, Canada, South Africa or New Zealand (or, indeed, any other country publishing crime magazines in the English language).

A list of all the magazines that are included in the index can be found here while a detailed list of the magazines and issues for which contents information is still needed can be found here.

If you think you can help with any of the above, or would just like more detail on the project, then please - all contributions are welcome, no matter how small!

Meanwhile I would like to thank all of those who have already contributed (directly or indirectly) to the project:

Bob AdeyJames FeltonDavid LePlaeJohn Rebelo
John ApostolouRichard FidczukTom LesserStephen D. Rogers
Mike AshleyGraeme FlanaganRon LewisNichole Rounds
René BeaulieuJessica FrascaSteve LewisRobert Silverberg
Kimberley BeckerSara FrommerLance LiddleSteven Slutsky
John BensonJames FurlongDennis LienDavid Lee Smith
Dave BenzTerry GibbonsJohn LockeBrett Snyder
Victor BerchMillie GillJohn LoderEarl Staggs
Terry BlackDouglas GreeneMatt LouisPeter Stekel
Richard BleilerJohn GunnisonGary LovisiDoug Stewart
Jerry BoyajianPeter HainingJeffrey MarksKate Stine
Donal B. BuchananMark HaleguaTodd MasonLarry D. Sweazy
Jan BurkeRick HallAndy McAleerRobert Thompson
Jeffrey B. BurtonDarren HeilAlastair McLeanPaul Tomlinson
Tony BurtonMonte HerridgeSteve Miller Al Tonik
Ben ChapmanSteve HollandRichard MooreVirgil Utter
Steve Cherry Joe Horka, Jr.Tim MyersMorgan Wallace
Jan ChristensenBob IlesKris NeriRodney Walters
Bill CissnaAlfred JanFrancis M. NevinsRobert Weinberg
William DentonKenneth R. JohnsonScott OwenChris Wood
Paul Di FilippoTom JohnsonTerry O'NeillGene Zombolas
Alistair DurieChuck JuzekRob PrestonEndre Zsoldos
John EggelingDavid KelleherDavid Rachels 
Peter EnfantinoBruce Kiefer Joe Rainone  
Barry ErgangCarol KilgoreJames Reasoner 
Tracey Caulfield and the staff at Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne
Tom Tytor and the staff at Library & Archives Canada
My apologies to anyone I have missed - please remind me!