The Old Spies Club and Other Intrigues of Rand

I have read several stories from this series in EQMM in the past and enjoyed them. Each time I have a new EQMM issue in hand, the first thing I do is look for one of Hoch's stories. The day the book arrived I started on the first story and kept reading. It was like eating peanuts.... I had to read them all. Edward D. Hoch is very clever and I like his re-occuring characters. If you haven't read these and like short stories - you can't miss.

This is a collection of 15 stories of Jeffery Rand, one of the famous characters created by Edward D. Hoch. Jeffery Rand was originally the head of Concealed Communications (Double-C), the section in charge of codes and ciphers in British Intelligence. He retired in 1970s, much earlier than his retirement age. After that his adventures continue, sometimes summoned for special assignments by the Service, or sometimes accidentally involved in incidents. Now his after-retirement stories outnumber his Double-C ones. This book is concentrated on Rand's adventures with Leila, an Egyptian archaeologist and later his wife. But I also wanted to read why and how Rand had retired from the Service. Especially, I am disappointed that this book contains no stories about Taz, the Russian friendly enemy whose death seems to be the main cause of Rand's retirement. Though the selection is rather unsatisfactory, each story is highly enjoyable. The stories contain various elements such as espionage, whodunit, codes and ciphers, exotic travelogue and adventure. I wish to read more and more Jeffery Rand Stories.