Playboy's Stories of the Sinister and Strange

by John D. MacDonald

Eleven chilling stories from PLAYBOY magazine that plunge you into incredible events and places inhabited by bizarre characters. Told by some of the most gifted writers of our time--

Contains:

The Mannichon Solution by Irwin Shaw
The Dark Music by Charles Beaumont
Somewhere Not Far from Here by Gerald Kersh
The Investor by Bruce Jay Friedman
Ripples by Ray Russell
The Dispatcher by Gerald Green
Wise Child by John Wyndham
Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Room 312 by G.L. Tassone
The Golden Frog by Ken W. Purdy
The Annex by John D. MacDonald

217 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

John D. MacDonald was born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, and educated at the Universities of Pennsylvania, Syracuse and Harvard, where he took an MBA in 1939. During WW2, he rose to the rank of Colonel, and while serving in the Army and in the Far East, sent a short story to his wife for sale, successfully. He served in the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) in the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations. After the war, he decided to try writing for a year, to see if he could make a living. Over 500 short stories and 70 novels resulted, including 21 Travis McGee novels.

Following complications of an earlier heart bypass operation, MacDonald slipped into a coma on December 10 and died at age 70, on December 28, 1986, in St. Mary's Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was survived by his wife Dorothy (1911-1989) and a son, Maynard.

In the years since his death MacDonald has been praised by authors as diverse as Stephen King, Spider Robinson, Jimmy Buffett, Kingsley Amis and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.. Thirty-three years after his passing the Travis McGee novels are still in print.