Craig Rice

A replica of the May 1953 issue of MANHUNT digest magazine featuring THE GUILTY ONES by John Ross Macdonald, DON'T GO NEAR by Craig Rice, NOW DUE IN IT by Evan Hunter, CIGARETTE GIRL by James M. Cain, OLD WILLIE by William P. McGivern, GRAVEYARD SHIFT by Steve Frazee, BUILD ANOTHER COFFIN by Harold Q. Masur, STAKEOUT by Robert Patrick Wilmot, NICE BUNCH OF GUYS by Michael Fessier, SERVICES RENDERED by Jonathan Craig, ASSAULT by Grant Colby, PORTRAIT OF A KILLER: WARREN LINCOLN by Dan Sontup, and CRIME CAVALCADE by Vincent H. Gaddis.

The fans will be delighted to hail the return of Jake Justus, Helene Brand, and John J. Malone, that extraordinary trio of sleuths. This time the trio has a murder on its hands when the Big Midget, hit of their night club show, is put out of the way. Such quaint problems as why eleven unmatched silk stockings were used as a noose enliven this fifth of the adventures into which Craig Rice has sent her characters. As usual, there is plenty of wacky humor, but, unlike so many mysteries in which comedy plays a role, it does not impede the action in this one. Rapid-fire writing, and not a deductive mystery, but "THE BIG MIDGET MURDERS" is close to the top.

John J. Malone, defender of the guilty, is notorious for getting his culpable clients off. It's the innocent ones who are problems. Like Holly Inglehart, accused of piercing the black heart of her well-heeled and tyrannical aunt Alexandria with a lovely Florentine paper cutter. No one who knew the old battle-ax liked her, but Holly's prints were found on the murder weapon. Plus, she had a motive: She was about to be disinherited for marrying a common bandleader. With each new lurid headline, Holly's friends and supporters start to rally. There's North Shore debutante Helene Brand; Holly's groom's press agent, Jake Justus; the madam of a local brothel, and Alexandria's hand-wringing servants. But not one of them can explain the queerest bent to the crime: At the time of the murder, every clock in the Inglehart mansion stopped dead. And that's only the first twist in a baffling case of "aunty-cide"--because Alexandria won't be the last to die. The first novel in Rice's John J. Malone series, Eight Faces at Three introduces the hard-drinking Chicago-based attorney that made the author a household name. Comic, witty, and lush, the Malone books are a throwback to a time when alcoholism was commonplace and murder (or, reading about murder) was fun. Fans of Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man series and Richard and Frances Lockridge's Mr. and Mrs. North will find much to enjoy in the witty banter of Malone and his constant companions, Brand and Justus. Includes discussion guide questions for use in book clubs.

John J. Malone, defender of the guilty, is notorious for getting his culpable clients off. It's the innocent ones who are problems. Like Holly Inglehart, accused of piercing the black heart of her well-heeled and tyrannical aunt Alexandria with a lovely Florentine paper cutter. No one who knew the old battle-ax liked her, but Holly's prints were found on the murder weapon. Plus, she had a motive: She was about to be disinherited for marrying a common bandleader. With each new lurid headline, Holly's friends and supporters start to rally. There's North Shore debutante Helene Brand; Holly's groom's press agent, Jake Justus; the madam of a local brothel, and Alexandria's hand-wringing servants. But not one of them can explain the queerest bent to the crime: At the time of the murder, every clock in the Inglehart mansion stopped dead. And that's only the first twist in a baffling case of "aunty-cide"--because Alexandria won't be the last to die. The first novel in Rice's John J. Malone series, Eight Faces at Three introduces the hard-drinking Chicago-based attorney that made the author a household name. Comic, witty, and lush, the Malone books are a throwback to a time when alcoholism was commonplace and murder (or, reading about murder) was fun. Fans of Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man series and Richard and Frances Lockridge's Mr. and Mrs. North will find much to enjoy in the witty banter of Malone and his constant companions, Brand and Justus. Includes discussion guide questions for use in book clubs.

Unoccupied and unsupervised while mother is working, the children of widowed crime writer Marion Carstairs find diversion wherever they can. So when the kids hear gunshots at the house next door, they jump at the chance to launch their own amateur investigation--and after all, why shouldn't they? They know everything the cops do about crime scenes, having read about them in mother's novels. They know what her literary detectives would do in such a situation, how they would interpret the clues and handle witnesses. Plus, if the children solve the puzzle before the cops, it will do wonders for the sales of mother's novels. But this crime scene isn't a game at all; the murder is real, and when its details prove more twisted than anything in mother's fiction, they'll have to enlist Marion's help to sort them out. Or is that just part of their plan to hook her up with the lead detective on the case? The basis for the 1946 film with the same name, Home Sweet Homicide is the novel that launched Craig Rice to literary fame. The book, a comedic crime story that pokes fun at the conventions of the genre, finds "the Dorothy Parker of detective fiction" at her most entertaining.

Unoccupied and unsupervised while mother is working, the children of widowed crime writer Marion Carstairs find diversion wherever they can. So when the kids hear gunshots at the house next door, they jump at the chance to launch their own amateur investigation--and after all, why shouldn't they? They know everything the cops do about crime scenes, having read about them in mother's novels. They know what her literary detectives would do in such a situation, how they would interpret the clues and handle witnesses. Plus, if the children solve the puzzle before the cops, it will do wonders for the sales of mother's novels. But this crime scene isn't a game at all; the murder is real, and when its details prove more twisted than anything in mother's fiction, they'll have to enlist Marion's help to sort them out. Or is that just part of their plan to hook her up with the lead detective on the case? The basis for the 1946 film with the same name, Home Sweet Homicide is the novel that launched Craig Rice to literary fame. The book, a comedic crime story that pokes fun at the conventions of the genre, finds "the Dorothy Parker of detective fiction" at her most entertaining.