Born in 1932, a child of the Bronx, New York, Lachman went on to attend City College of New York and then spend two years in the U.S. Army, conveniently stationed in New York. During his service stint, he developed a fondness for live theater and remained passionate about theater for the remainder of his life. He was also an early fan of mystery fiction, reading his first published mystery in 1943, when he was 11 years old. Little did Lachman know then that the study of crime and mystery fiction would become his principal work.
He spent more than 40 years reviewing short stories for Mystery Readers Journal, wrote columns for The Armchair Detective and the print edition of Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine, and contributed his knowledge and judgment to other periodicals such as Mystery FANcier, CADS (Crime and Detective Stories), and Mystery*File. In 1976 Lachman, together with his co-authors Chris Steinbrunner, Otto Penzler, and Charles Shibuk, won the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award for Best Critical/Biographical Work with their Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection. According to Deadly Pleasures, “He was nominated for the same award in 1994 for A Reader’s Guide to the American Novel of Detection, which was also nominated for an Agatha, an Anthony, and a Macavity Award. Lachman won the Macavity Award in 2001 for The American Regional Mystery (2000), which was also nominated for an Anthony and an Agatha.” His 2005 book, The Heirs of Anthony Boucher: A History of Mystery Fandom, picked up the Anthony Award for Best Critical Non-fiction.
(A revised and updated edition of that work was released in 2019.) I own one additional product of Lachman’s scholarship: Detectionary (1977), which he co-edited with Otto Penzler and Chris Steinbrunner.Lachman received the MWA’s Raven Award in 1997, recognizing his “outstanding achievement in the mystery field outside of the realm of creative writing.” in 2001, Deadly Pleasures conferred upon him its Don Sandstrom Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement in Mystery Fandom. A dozen years later, the Bouchercon Board of Directors gave him the David Thompson Special Service Award for his “exemplary life-long service to the mystery and crime fiction community.” And although he couldn’t attend the convention due to illness, this last September the organizers of Bouchercon in San Diego named him as the winner of their Star Award. Convention attendees were told that Lachman had participated in 40 previous Bouchercons, and they regretted he couldn’t be on hand to accept his latest prize.
If you have memories of Marv Lachman you’d like to share, I hope you will do so in the Comments section at the bottom of this post.
READ MORE: “Marv Lachman, R.I.P.,” by Martin Edwards (‘Do You Write Under Your Own Name?’); “100 Notable Novels of Detection, Selected by Marvin Lachman” (Mystery*File).
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