The Playboy Book of Crime and Suspense

by Playboy Enterprises

Anthology of crime short stories by authors such as Ian Fleming, Steve Allen and Ray Russell.

Genres: Crime

405 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1967

Reviews

[TrumanCoyote · Rating 3 out of 5]

Best story here was probably "The Sender of Letters" by Herbert Gold. Also the James Bond ("The Hildebrand Rarity") was very good, as was Matheson's "The Distributor" (a real triumph of black humor). The worst story was clearly "Harpy" by T K Brown...hard to believe they would even publish something like that, with a thoroughly unbelievable situation and characters fashioned from the flimsiest of cardboard. That Injun could no doubt be tracked down to the nearest cigar store whenever he wasn't needed by the author (he apparently was too laconic to even manage an "Ugh"), yet he came across as the most life-like of that whole lot. At any rate, Playboy has always had a penchant/weakness for the light "frothy concoction" tale, a tendency rather more noticeable here than in their Science Fiction & Fantasy anthology.