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

• The magazines indexed in William G. Contento's Mystery Short Fiction index;
• Contents for many of the issues that were not located for the above indexes (as well as some issues the previous compilers were unaware of);
• Coverage of many English-language magazines published outside the US that were excluded from the previous indexes;
• Coverage of many magazines that have been published since the previous indexes were published;
• Coverage of a small number of magazines that the previous compilers overlooked;
• Where available, more detailed information on the contents of certain magazines (including story lengths and details of non-fiction contents).

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)

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 Adey	Richard Fidczuk	Tom Lesser	Joe Rainone
John Apostolou	Graeme Flanagan	Ron Lewis	James Reasoner
Mike Ashley	Jessica Frasca	Steve Lewis	John Rebelo
René Beaulieu	Sara Frommer	Lance Liddle	Stephen D. Rogers
Kimberley Becker	Terry Gibbons	Dennis Lien	Nichole Rounds
John Benson	Millie Gill	John Locke	Robert Silverberg
Dave Benz	Douglas Greene	John Loder	Steven Slutsky
Victor Berch	John Gunnison	Matt Louis	David Lee Smith
Terry Black	Peter Haining	Gary Lovisi	Earl Staggs
Richard Bleiler	Mark Halegua	Jeffrey Marks	Peter Stekel
Donal B. Buchanan	Rick Hall	Todd Mason	Doug Stewart
Jan Burke	Darren Heil	Andy McAleer	Kate Stine
Jeffrey B. Burton	Monte Herridge	Alastair McLean	Larry D. Sweazy
Tony Burton	Steve Holland	Steve Miller	Robert Thompson
Bill Cissna	Joe Horka, Jr.	Richard Moore	Al Tonik
William Denton	Bob Iles	Tim Myers	Virgil Utter
Paul Di Filippo	Alfred Jan	Kris Neri	Morgan Wallace
Alistair Durie	Tom Johnson	Francis M. Nevins	Rodney Walters
John Eggeling	Chuck Juzek	Scott Owen	Robert Weinberg
Peter Enfantino	David Kelleher	Terry O'Neill	Chris Wood
Barry Ergang	Bruce Kiefer	Rob Preston	Gene Zombolas
James Felton	Carol Kilgore	David Rachels	Endre Zsoldos
Tracey Caulfield and the staff at Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne
Tom Tytor and the staff at Library & Archives Canada