Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

With the advent of email and other electronic communication, a lot of people are sending fewer letters and checks for bills. But most people still count postage stamps among their regular office supplies. For some people, though, stamps are much more than just a way to get something from one place to another. They are valuable – sometimes extremely valuable – in and of themselves. Philatelists who have very rare stamps go to great pains to keep them safe and it’s no wonder, since stamps can be worth a great deal of money. It’s no wonder, either, that we see stamps and stamp collections in crime fiction.

For example, in Ellery Queen’s The Adventure of the One-Penny Black, we are introduced to philatelists Friedrich and Albert Ulm. They report that an extremely valuable one-penny black, signed by Queen Victoria, has been stolen from their collection. On the same day, a man being chased by police rushes into a bookshop but flees before he’s caught. The next day, all of that bookshop’s copies of Europe in Chaos are bought. Queen suspects that whoever stole the stamp put it in a copy of the book and ran before the police caught him. Now, he’s trying to find the book that has the stamp. This means that Queen has to find the missing stamp if he can, as well as the person who stole it. It turns out to be a more complicated case than it seems. You’re right, fans of The Chinese Orange Mystery; philately figures into that story, too.

Judson Phillips’ (AKA Hugh Pentecost) first mystery, Cancelled in Red, features shady rare stamp broker Max Adrian. When he is murdered, his chief rival, Larry Storm, is convinced to search for a cache of very rare stamps that Adrian had allegedly hidden. The treasure trove is too tempting for Storm to refuse, so he agrees. But that puts him up against Inspector Luke Bradley, who’s working on the case. Worse than that, he’s in the sights of a dangerous murderer who won’t hesitate to kill anyone who gets in the way.

Philately is also an important element in John D. MacDonald’s The Scarlet Ruse. In that novel, Travis McGee takes the case of Hirsh Fedderman. It seems that Fedderman has misplaced a valuable stamp collection (or perhaps it was stolen). That in itself is bad enough, but the collection belongs to a mobster called Frank Spengler. And Spengler will not take kindly to having his property go missing. McGee agrees to try to find the collection, and works with a stamp expert called Mary Alice. This isn’t going to be an easy case, though. As it turns out, it’s connected to a crime ring that won’t think twice about killing anyone who crosses the members.

Alan Bradley’s The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie introduces readers to eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, who lives in the English village of Bishops Lacey. One morning, a dead bird with a stamp stuck to its beak is found near the kitchen door. That evening, a stranger comes to the family home, and Flavia overhears an argument between him and her father. The next morning, she discovers the man’s body in the family garden. The police investigate and, as you can imagine, Flavia’s father is immediately a suspect. In fact, he’s arrested and imprisoned. Flavia is determined to clear her father’s name, so she sets out to find the murderer. She uses her deep knowledge of, and interest in, chemistry and poisons to learn the truth. And we find out that this murder is connected to rare stamps.

Fans of Lawrence Block’s John Keller will know that he is a killer-for-hire. So, at any moment he may get a new commission, pack quickly, and be on his way to his next assignment. He’s good at his job, too, and has a reputation. But he’s no thug. In fact, he’s a quiet, relatively soft-spoken person. He does crossword puzzles, too. And he’s passionately devoted to stamp collecting. He’s quite proud of his own collection and adds to it whenever he gets the opportunity. That hobby is woven throughout the stories that feature him.

And that’s the thing about stamp collecting. Philatelists are deeply devoted to learning about and collecting stamps, especially rare ones. There are clubs, both online and onground, conventions, discussion fora, and other get-togethers. And the stamps themselves can be priceless, especially misprints and other rarities. It’s no wonder at all that we see this pastime in crime fiction.

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Stephen Sondheim’s Live, Laugh Love.