Simon Ark debuted in “Village of the Dead”, a short story featured in Famous Detective Stories in December 1955. In fact, Ark's first six appearances were in that magazine before spilling over into magazines like Crack Detective and Mystery Stories, Double-Action Detective and Mystery Stories, and Tightrope!. Eventually, the character would become a fixture in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. There were at least 45 stories featuring Simon Ark between 1956 and 2008.
In “Village of the Dead”, an unnamed narrator (he is never named) recounts a strange event that occurred in a small American town – The Gildaz Horror. In first-person, the narrator explains that he was working as a reporter scoping out political stories when a teletype hit the newsroom about a mass suicide occurring in the tiny village of Gidaz, just south of the narrator's location. He quickly gets to the scene and discovers that a majority of Gidaz's population took a fatal jump from the top of a hundred foot cliff. 73 people now lay in bloody shreds on sharp rocks lying at the cliff's base. What would make all of these people commit suicide together?
As the narrator begins researching the story he enters one of the abandoned homes and meets another investigator – one of a different sort. He introduces himself as Simon Ark, but advises the narrator that his name is not important. He is described as not appearing old, yet there were tiny lines of age if you looked close enough. The narrator says in a way Ark was a very handsome man, yet he couldn't imagine women ever being attracted to him. He later describes Ark as seemingly from another world or another time.
The two team up together to learn more about the suicide and eventually meet another reporter named Shelly that was originally from the small town. Ark discovers a book in town called The Confessions of Saint Augustine that looks as though it was burned. Later, they discover that a man calling himself Axidus came to town two years ago and began a new religion for Gidaz. The population trusted him to a fault, which may have been their downfall. Through the course of the investigation the narrator and reader learns more about Simon Ark – he may be 2,000 years old, he speaks Coptic, hints that he knew Saint Augustine himself, and that this Axidus may be an evil figure from long ago. How does it all tie together?
There are readers that absolutely love the Simon Ark stories and others really hate them. I've had the fortune of reading a lot of them and I really enjoy the character. “Village of the Dead” by itself isn't strong storytelling and ends with a Scooby-Doo type ending. That's the thing about the Simon Ark stories, they have a bizarre menace theme that eventually leads to a logical explanation instead of some far-flung supernatural one. However, what makes the stories cool is there is always a lingering thought that maybe there was something supernatural occurring. Like in this story Axidus is probably just a quack fanatic that got rich quick or he really was some ancient enemy from centuries ago.
The thing with Simon Ark stories is that he is on a mission to find the Devil. It is his goal to combat evil across the globe and to eventually bring the ultimate fight to the Devil. But, he isn't a pulpy over-the-top hero. Instead, he solves mysteries in a Sherlock Holmes way with the narrator playing Watson. As the series progresses forward the narrator becomes a book publisher and then eventually partners with Ark as a detective agency. The supernatural and bizarre menace possibilities tend to lessen as the series matures in the 60s and 70s.
Many Simon Ark stories have been reprinted in physical and digital collections. A passing glace on Amazon will net you a handful of titles with this story included. Start here as a base and then work your way forward. I'll bring you more Simon Ark reviews to guide your way through the darkness.
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