Stanley Ellin

"James Flood, just released from a Florida prison, has a desperate scheme. He and his recruits, all hardened criminals, will move in upon a prominent upstate New York family, holding the Hayworth women as hostages while awaiting delivery of a four-million-dollar ransom. Flood expects no resistance.". "Marcus Hayworth, small-town banker and leading member of the Quaker community, is convinced he can subvert Flood's plan. Instead of going to the police, he will bring his family's crisis before his meeting, asking the Quaker community to back him in nonviolent opposition.". "Subsequent events isolate both hostages and captors within the Hayworth house, waging a war of nerves that involves more than a clash between good and evil. For Flood cannot be taken for granted. Much deeper than the profit motive is his need for revenge, a most urgent and specific need. And Hayworth's principles have never been put to the ultimate test."--BOOK JACKET.

For contents, see Author Catalog.

From Goodreads: "Murray Kirk runs his private investigation agency like the business it is: he isn't interested in justice or crusades, just the profit and loss account. When he's asked to act for a young policeman accused of bribery, because he knows something about police corruption in New York City, he isn't too keen. He just can't see the profit - until he meets the man's fiancee. And then Kirk's motives become uncomfortably confused, and he finds himself descending swiftly into a grey world of bookmakers, gangsters, grafters and corrupt politicians, a world where setting up an honest cop is all in a day's work."

[Black Cat]( / Edgar Allan Poe -- [Tell-tale Heart]( / Edgar Allan Poe -- [Premature Burial]( / Edgar Allan Poe -- Torture of hope / Villiers de L'Isle Adam -- An episode of the terror / Honore de Balzac -- The hand / Guy de Maupassant -- The withered arm / Thomas Hardy -- The idiots / Joseph Conrad -- The bird / Thomas Burke -- Lot no. 249 / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -- The sentence / J. Kaden-Bandrowski -- Arabesque, the mouse / A.E. Coppard -- Cinci / Luigi Pirandello -- Suspicion / Dorothy L. Sayers -- Dead on her feet / Cornell Woolrich -- Taboo / Geoffrey Household -- A little place off the Edgware Road / Graham Greene -- The words of guru / C.M. Kornbluth -- Yours truly, Jack the Ripper / Robert Bloch -- The veld / Ray Bradbury -- Evening primrose / John Collier -- Back from the grave / Robert Silverberg -- [A rose for Emily]( / William Faulkner -- The comforts of home / Flannery O'Connor -- [Pig]( / Roald Dahl -- Robert / Stanley Ellin -- The question / Stanley Ellin -- The terrapin / Patricia Highsmith -- Not after mindnight / Daphne du Maurier -- Corabella / David Fletcher.

[Purloined Letter]( / Edgar Allan Poe A terribly strange bed / Wilkie Collins The three strangers / Thomas Hardy T[he red-headed league]( / Arthur Conan Doyle The corpus delecti / Melville Davisson Post Gentlemen and players / E.W. Hornung A journey / Edith Wharton The leopard man's story / Jack London A retrieved reformation / O. Henry The problem of Cell 13 / Jacques Futrelle The absent-minded coterie / Robert Barr The invisible man / G.K. Chesterton The infallible Godahl / Frederick Irving Anderson The adventure of the unique "Hamlet" / Vincent Starrett The Gioconda smile / Aldous Huxley Haircut / Ring Lardner The killers / Ernest Hemingway The hands of Mr. Ottermole / Thomas Burke The little house at Croix-Rousse / Georges Simenon The case of the missing patriarchs / Logan Clendening Clerical error / James Gould Cozzens The two bottles of relish / Lord Dunsany The chaser / John Collier The perfect crime / Ben Ray Redman Yours truly, Jack the Ripper / Robert Bloch The blind spot / Barry Perowne The catbird seat / James Thurber Recipe for murder / C.P. Donnel Jr. The nine mile walk / Harry Kemelman Kill or be killed / Ogden Nash The specialty of the house / Stanley Ellin Nearly perfect / A.A. Milne The Gettysburg Bugle / Ellery Queen The last spin / Evan Hunter Stand up and die! / Mickey Spillane A new leaf / Jack Ritchie The snail-watcher / Patricia Highsmith The long way down / Edward D. Hoch The man who never told a lie / Isaac Asimov I have / John Gardner [Quitters, Inc.]( / Stephen King Horn man / Clark Howard The new girl friend / Ruth Rendell By the dawn's early light / Lawrence Block Iris / Stephen Greenleaf High Darktown / James Ellroy The Pietro Andromache / Sara Paretsky Soft monkey / Harlan Ellison The hand of Carlos / Charles McCarry Karen makes out / Elmore Leonard

One Foot in the Grave • Davis Grubb Sweets to the Sweet • Robert Bloch The Petey Car • Manly Wade Wellman The Horror in the Museum • Hazel Heald and H. P. Lovecraft Something for Nothing • Robert Sheckley The Case of James Elmo Freebish • Joseph F. Pumilia The Little House • Elizabeth Walter [Black Cat]( • Edgar Allan Poe The Corner Shop • C. L. Ray Waterford Ghost's Revenge • C. B. Colby Unreasonable Doubt • Stanley Ellin

Introduction - essay by Lawrence Block Deathbinder - novelette by Alexander Jablokov The Marked Man - short story by David Ely The Ones Who Turn Invisible - short story by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre Ever After - novelette by Susan Palwick The Living Dead - short story by Robert Bloch (variant of Underground) Report on a Broken Bridge - short story by Dennis O'Neil The Beast from One-Quarter Fathom - short story by George Alec Effinger Was It a Dream? - short story by Guy de Maupassant (trans. of La morte 1887) The Madonna of the Wolves - novella by S. P. Somtow [as by Somtow Sucharitkul] Placebo - short story by Andrew Vachss The Man at the Window - short story by Charles Gordon Yanqui Doodle - novelette by James Tiptree, Jr. An Inhabitant of Carcosa - short story by Ambrose Bierce Real Time - short story by Lawrence Watt-Evans Killer in the House - novelette by Jas. R. Petrin Sometimes They Bite - short story by Lawrence Block Three Men in a Tub - short story by Lemuel Cork The Wedding Gig - short story by Stephen King Flicks - novelette by Bill Crenshaw The Leopard Man's Story - short story by Jack London Something Evil in the House - short story by Celia Fremlin How the Wind Spoke at Madaket - novella by Lucius Shepard The Black Cat - short story by Edgar Allan Poe The Dive People - short story by Avram Davidson Graffiti - short story by Stanley Ellin The Dim Rumble - short story by Isaac Asimov The Leather Funnel - short story by Arthur Conan Doyle Trinity - novella by Nancy Kress Island Man - novelette by Robert Anton Wilson [as by R. A. Wilson]

Somebody on the phone, by C. Woolrich. The yellow wall paper, by C. P. Gilman. The copper bowl, by G. F. Eliot. [Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar ]( by E. A. Poe. The calamander chest, by J. P. Brennan. The question, by S. Ellin. Couching at the door, by D. K. Broster. The idol of the flies, by J. Rice. The small world of Lewis Stillman, by W. F. Nolan. The haunted woodshed, by H. R. Daniels. The other Celia, by T. Sturgeon. Philco baby, by I. Faust.

A fine showcase for a rare and difficult form of the mystery story; fun to read and made more fun by Penzler's lively introduction. Contains: Unreasonable doubt -- Stanley Ellin A dilemma -- S. Weir Mitchell [Nunc Dimittis]( -- Roald Dahl The lady, or the tiger? -- Frank Stockton The discourager of hesitancy -- Frank Stockton The lady and the tiger -- Jack Moffitt The blind spot -- Barry Perowne The mysterious card -- Cleveland Moffett The mysterious card unveiled -- Cleveland Moffett Karmesin and the meter -- Gerald Kersh One hundred in the dark -- Owen Johnson The whole town's sleeping -- Ray Bradbury At midnight, in the month of June -- Ray Bradbury Thimble, thimble -- O. Henry The Gioconda smile -- Aldous Huxley Tea for two -- Laurie York Erskine The lady and the dragon -- Peter Godfrey A medieval romance -- Mark Twain The moment of decision -- Stanley Ellin.

The title story is one of the creepiest I've ever read. Coming from a great restaurant city (New Orleans) the whole tale of a fabulous establishment with one perfect dish that is not always available is entirely believable to me (In New Orleans, chefs have been arrested for buying endangered fish). Stanley Ellin worked very slowly but with great care; one might wish he had written more but no one can complain about the quality of what he produced.

"Renate Welsh's novel is a story about a woman's unsuccessful quest to build a home, to determine an identity. It is based on family documents of the author's great-great-grandfather, a representative in the Frankfurt consitutive Assembly and one of the leaders of the failed revolution of 1848 in Germany. He and his son eventually emigrated to the United States. The writings and correspondence of these two men appear in their original form in the novel, indicated by italics. The female protagonist, Pauline, is married to the son. There are no letters preserved from her, so the author lends Pauline a voice and attempts to correct an injustic done to this woman of the nineteenth century, the injustice of misunderstanding her, of forgetting her, or of never having taken note of her in the first place. Welsh rejects an omnipotent narrative perspective and instead engages in a conversaion with her protagonist. The two very different voices are layered one upon the other in the novel, and their juxtaposition creates a formal dialogic structure. Welsh situates the documentary materials within a fictional context. Thus fiction stands side by side with fact, subjective conjecture with objective statement. Pauline's story ends in insanity in 1855."--BOOK JACKET.