From the Publisher
"A must-have for all serious mystery readers."
- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A wonderful collection, and ridiculously inexpensive for all these delightful stories."
- Otto Penzler
From Ed McBain to Sara Paretsky: a 50th anniversary celebration of mystery masterworks.
For fifty years Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine has been one of the foremost magazines of mystery and suspense. This commemorative anthology features such bestselling writers as Lawrence Block and Jan Burke, just two of the esteemed contributors to have appeared in the magazine's pages over the past five decades.
Published to coincide with the celebration of AHMM's golden anniversary, this anthology reflects the diversity of every issue of the magazine: historicals and police procedurals, cozies and noirs, humor and suspense. From Jim Thompson in the fifties and Donald Westlake in the sixties, to recent stories by S.J. Rozan, Martin Limon, and Rhys Bowen, this anthology documents a half century of great storytelling.
Publishers Weekly
Landrigan, AHMM's editor-in-chief, has done an outstanding job of selecting 34 short stories to represent the half-century of her magazine's existence. The roster of authors is close to an all-star roster of American mystery talent, with many names, such as Lawrence Block, Evan Hunter and Sara Paretsky, familiar to a wide audience. The selections span the range of the genre, from gritty noir to historical. The writing is uniformly excellent, making it hard to single out individual stories for praise, but Donald E. Westlake's "Good Night! Good Night!" about a murder victim's search for his killer, which echoes Joel Townsley Rogers classic novel The Stopped Clock, and Bill Pronzini's Nameless Detective tale, "Death of a Nobody," are standouts. Perhaps this volume's greatest virtue is providing a showcase for the gifts of lesser-known writers such as Stephen Wasylyk and Henry Slesar. This will be a must-have for all serious mystery readers. (June) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
To commemorate its 50th anniversary, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine staff-with input from its readers-selected 34 stories and arranged them chronologically here, starting with Jim Thompson's "The Frightening Frammis" from February 1957 and ending with "Voodoo" by Rhys Bowen from December 2004. Although the introduction notes the variety in this selection, the stories tend more toward the hard-boiled than the cozy, with the emphasis on solving crime and/or attaining a measure of justice. Many of crime fiction's notables are here: Donald Westlake, Bill Pronzini, Lawrence Block, Sara Paretsky, George Chesbro, S.J. Rozan, Jan Burke, Loren Estleman, and Janice Law, but-fittingly-only the master of the genre over the decades has two entries: Evan Hunter is represented with "Not a Laughing Matter" from August 1958 and, under his pseudonym Ed McBain, with "Leaving Nairobi" from June 2003. These are uniformly satisfying stories that have stood the test of time. Having them available again, under one cover, is a bonus for mystery fans. For all mystery and short story collections. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
School Library Journal
Adult/High School-In the middle of the last century, Hitchcock took popular culture by storm in a variety of media, including film, television, and short stories. Not a writer in any genre, his special genius was in identifying noir-and sometimes comic-tales told by others. Collected here are chronologically arranged exemplars of his taste. Opening with a story by hard-boiled champion Jim Thompson that appeared in the magazine in 1957 and ranging through such luminaries as Evan Hunter (writing as himself and as Ed McBain), Bill Pronzini, Lawrence Block, Sara Paretsky, and S. J. Rozan, and ending with Rhys Bowen's New Orleans-set tale of modern voodoo, these pieces have broad appeal. Each story has a terse paragraph introduction of its theme and its author's place in the field. The settings and plots are sorted across offices, city apartments, a small-town bank, and other common places. Some tales end with a surprise twist while others develop their momentum in a dreaded atmosphere. Mystery lovers may want to read the whole collection from cover to cover, while those not yet fans of the genre will, nonetheless, find one story or another worth the quarter hour it takes to consume. A good addition for collections serving students enrolled in short-story courses as well as for casual readers.-Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Thirty-four stories culled from Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, the venerable monthly that's played second fiddle to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine for half a century. Why are anthologies of reprints so often more rewarding than collections of new material? Partly because, as editor Landrican puts it, "50 years is a lot of stories." With hundreds of entries to choose from, it's easy to skip mediocre competitors in favor of Edward D. Hoch's impossible defenestration "The Long Way Down" and Steve Hockensmith's farewell-to-the-force, "Erie's Last Day." Partly because there's a particular pleasure in savoring great names from the past like Jim Thompson and Charles Willeford or reminding yourself that classics like Lawrence Block's "A Candle for the Bag Lady" and Sara Paretsky's "The Takamoku Joseki" first saw the light in AHMM, creating a mutual glow by association. Partly because only a collection of oldies can resurrect forgotten gems like Ed Lacy's neatly turned "The 'Method' Sheriff" and Stephen Wasylyk's "The Search for Olga Bateau," in which a hard-bitten reporter is softened by an unsolved case from the past. And partly for the thrill of rediscovering early stories by Bill Pronzini, Doug Allyn and S.J. Rozan before they hit the big time. The only pleasure this doorstop-sized package doesn't deliver, in fact, is a surer sense of AHMM's particular cachet. But maybe that lack of any specific house style is its greatest strength.
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