M for Mystifier

A as in Alibi . Has in Heist .... Qas in Quicksand ..., T as in Trapped . . Vas in Victim. .. .

"The alphabet writer" they call LAWRENCE TREAT '24, whose addiction to alliteration is his trademark, whose meticulously manipulated mysteries have accrued kudoes from colleagues, laurels from lawmen, and affection from afficionadoes of the police procedural plot.

During a free-lancing career of more than 45 years, Treat has written close to 20 novels and hundreds of short stories. No less an authority than Ellery Queen proclaims that "it was Lawrence Treat who made the most significant contribution to the development of the police procedural story . . ~ who first gave the realistic procedural approach the solid substance and satisfying unity we know today."

There is no mystery to why Treat, known as Lawrence Goldstone until he legally adopted his nom de plume in 1942, became a fiction writer. "I wanted to be a poet," he says simply. By 1928 a Phi Beta Kappa graduate with a law degree from Columbia, membership in the New York Bar, and a briefly established practice, he finally concluded, on a trip to Paris, that "if I couldn't make a living as a poet, I had to find some form of writing that would support me." Light fiction - or, more precisely, detective stories - seemed an obvious answer.

For the first few years, he wrote for women's magazines, for the pulps, for radio. A series of detective puzzles entitled "Seeing Sherlock Home," invented for magazines and party games in the lean Depression days, sold well enough to finance a long sojourn in Spain, where he wrote his first book, Run Far, Run Fast, published in 1937 by the late C. Morrision Fitch '24. The alphabet series started with his first published mystery story, "B as in Banshee," a title chosen almost as an afterthought.

During the 19405, after "intensive on-the-job training, complete except for gun and badge," with' New York and San Diego police departments, he found his true metier and evolved the characters of Inspector Mitch Taylor, lab .technician Jub Freeman, and Homicide Squad Lieutenant William Decker, "my bread and butter ever since." Of the 16 alphabet stories collected recently under the title P as in Police, "H as in Homicide" won the Edgar (Allan Poe) award as best mystery story of 1964 and all were honored in Best Detective Stories of the Year between 1965 and 1968.

Like the overwhelming majority of professional writers, Treat is an office-hours man, disciplined to the proverbial application of the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair, rather than awaiting the summons of the Muse. He writes regularly from 9 a.m. till noon, rereads and reworks after lunch, then reassesses the day's output in the late afternoon, with perspective aided by quiet music, a quiet drink - or preferably both. He starts with the conclusion of a story, working backwards to make sure all clues are tied neatly in.

Treat is active in professional organizations, as a former chairman of the Pulp Section of the Authors' Guild, as a founder and director of the Mystery Writers of America and immediate past president of its New England chapter. He finds the 500 to 600 MWA members, of whom some 100 are full-time writers, "on the whole, serious, dedicated, proud of their craft." What do mystery writers talk about in convention? "The stock market, personalities, contracts, royalties," he confesses. Spook stories and sex-and-violence potboilers are anathema to the real professional, he contends - conceding that the MFA was recently addressed by a professed witch.

The extroverted mystery story better represents today's culture, Treat claims, than the average modern novel, which he regards a "so tight, it's as if it had been written in a closed room." Detective stories are favorite leisure reading for the great and the near-great, he says, because "They're a puzzle, a challenge to the intelligent reader, but they don't demand thinking. They leave you with a good feeling, the ends all tied up, and good always triumphs over evil."

Free-lancing - "not really risky, once you're in" - has been good to Treat. He and his wife have traveled a lot, to France, Spain, Israel, the Orient. In 1972 they took up full-time residence on Martha's Vineyard, where previously they'd spent four and five-month "summers." He's involved in community affairs, as a member of the local Zoning Board of Appeals and the Gayhead Community Council. Treat teaches adult education courses in Boston and is currently at work on a complete revision of TheMystery Writers' Handbook. "The novel I've always wanted to write" has been completed and submitted to a publisher. The Treats are keen members of the Boston Mycological Society, a more scholarly lot than the gustatorily inclined New York group they were formerly affiliated with - and he has been known to mix business and pleasure by doing in an occasional victim with a lethal mushroom. He's an accomplished wine-maker - "my wife's the braumeister, I'm the bottler" - and a novice breadbaker. He writes song lyrics, for fun, and makes picture frames for his wife's art work.

At 71, Treat has no thought of retiring. "I'm never bored and never satisfied. I love to write, and the next story may always be the perfect one." And, too, there are letters yet neglected and novel murder weapons yet untried.

How about "Z as in Zymurgy"?