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The Perfect Murder: Five Great Mystery Writers Create the Perfect Crime
Lawrence Block, Sarah Caudwell, Tony Hillerman, Peter Lovesey, and Donald Westlake describe how they would commit the perfect murder
195 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1991
4 people are currently reading
106 people want to read
About the author
Jack Hitt
18 books21 followersHitt was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, where he attended the Porter-Gaud School. He got his start in journalism as editor of the "Paper Clip," the literary magazine of Porter-Gaud's first through fifth grades. According to his biography, he published "some of the finest haiku penned by well-off pre-teens in all of South Carolina's lowcountry".
Since 1996, Hitt has also been a contributing editor to This American Life. He contributed a story about a production of Peter Pan in an episode entitled “Fiasco”. Other pieces include his life growing up with one of the earliest transgendered women (“Dawn”), an hour long program on a group of prisoners in a maximum security prison putting on a production of Hamlet (“Act V”, #218), a segment on voter fraud in the 2008 American Presidential election ("Cold-cock The Vote.", #276), another episode about his life in a New York apartment building in which his superintendent turned out to be the head of a death squad in Brazil (“The Super”, #323) and more recently a segment on the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay called “Habeas Schmabeas” (#331) This last program earned him the Peabody Award in 2007.
Since 2007, Hitt has been one of two regular US correspondents on Nine to Noon, hosted by Kathryn Ryan on Radio New Zealand National. Jack is currently performing in a one man show he wrote called "Making Up The Truth" about his childhood and the outlandish characters he's met in his life.[3]
Was also a consultant in the movie "Hackers" regarding techniques of cyber crime of that day and age.
Since 1996, Hitt has also been a contributing editor to This American Life. He contributed a story about a production of Peter Pan in an episode entitled “Fiasco”. Other pieces include his life growing up with one of the earliest transgendered women (“Dawn”), an hour long program on a group of prisoners in a maximum security prison putting on a production of Hamlet (“Act V”, #218), a segment on voter fraud in the 2008 American Presidential election ("Cold-cock The Vote.", #276), another episode about his life in a New York apartment building in which his superintendent turned out to be the head of a death squad in Brazil (“The Super”, #323) and more recently a segment on the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay called “Habeas Schmabeas” (#331) This last program earned him the Peabody Award in 2007.
Since 2007, Hitt has been one of two regular US correspondents on Nine to Noon, hosted by Kathryn Ryan on Radio New Zealand National. Jack is currently performing in a one man show he wrote called "Making Up The Truth" about his childhood and the outlandish characters he's met in his life.[3]
Was also a consultant in the movie "Hackers" regarding techniques of cyber crime of that day and age.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 18, 2015
This extremely gimmicky book has Hitt query five famous crime authors on how to commit the perfect murder, with the conceit being that this isn't just an intellectual exercise -- Hitt supposedly aims to carry out the murder for real. The correspondence between Hitt and the authors, all of whom are playing along with the premise, forms the 'story'.
The whole thing fairly quickly devolves into a game of who can out-clever who. It was probably enormous fun for the writers involved -- they all faux-lovingly point out the flaws in their fellow writers' murder plans, while keeping on their toes as they find their own 'perfect' schemes being critiqued (and sometimes outright mocked) by their peers.
Unfortunately, not all of the fun translates directly to the reader. The murder plans are the work of clever entertainers working to entertain themselves and each other, but they're not really worried about how Hitt's book will end up playing on paper. And Hitt, the central 'character', is simply not up to the level of the writers he's invited along, which leaves this very slight story pretty much hollow at its core. Still, fans of the five invited authors will probably get a kick out of the one-upmanship on display, and Donald Westlake fans will be particularly pleased to see that he maintains his reputation as the professional's professional, trumping everyone's contribution in the end.
The whole thing fairly quickly devolves into a game of who can out-clever who. It was probably enormous fun for the writers involved -- they all faux-lovingly point out the flaws in their fellow writers' murder plans, while keeping on their toes as they find their own 'perfect' schemes being critiqued (and sometimes outright mocked) by their peers.
Unfortunately, not all of the fun translates directly to the reader. The murder plans are the work of clever entertainers working to entertain themselves and each other, but they're not really worried about how Hitt's book will end up playing on paper. And Hitt, the central 'character', is simply not up to the level of the writers he's invited along, which leaves this very slight story pretty much hollow at its core. Still, fans of the five invited authors will probably get a kick out of the one-upmanship on display, and Donald Westlake fans will be particularly pleased to see that he maintains his reputation as the professional's professional, trumping everyone's contribution in the end.
May 22, 2019
Nah.
July 24, 2016
This funny, breezy book about how to commit the perfect murder has now been out of print for over 20 years, and it deserves a second life as a reprint or (at the very least) an e-book. It would be really fun if it could be updated to include hot new crime authors like Gillian Flynn, Ken Bruen, or Megan Abbott.
The editor Jack Hitt starts things off by positing the character of a cuckolded husband Tim who wants to murder his wife, incriminate her lover, and then walk away with all her money. Tim is new to this sort of thing, an amateur with artistic aspirations, so he reaches out to five great mystery writers and asks their advice. The participating authors—Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake, Sarah Caudwell, Peter Lovesey, and Tony Hillerman--each get to contribute their plan of how to do the dastardly deed in the most flamboyant style possible. It’s fascinating to see how each writer grabs hold of a different detail from the intro chapter and then spins it into a fiendish, outlandish murder scenario.
Caudwell’s plan was the funniest, but Block’s plan got my vote for most likely to work.
Each author gets to contribute a second essay attacking the weaknesses of everybody else’s plans while arguing for the merits of their own. It’s very tongue in cheek, of course, as the writers take merciless jabs at each other.
Lovesey gets a great zinger on Hillerman and Block, who both advocated a multiple-murder approach ala The ABC Murders: “We mystery writers were commissioned to suggest a way of killing your wife, not most of your neighbors as well. I do object to slaughter on this scale; some of the victims could be buyers of my books.”
Block skewers the talents of his peers, saying “My first impulse, I must admit, was to toss out their contributions unread. I have for years been doing just that with their novels.
You can read this cover to cover in an hour or two. If you are a fan of any of these writers, you owe it to yourself to find this book and give it a go
The editor Jack Hitt starts things off by positing the character of a cuckolded husband Tim who wants to murder his wife, incriminate her lover, and then walk away with all her money. Tim is new to this sort of thing, an amateur with artistic aspirations, so he reaches out to five great mystery writers and asks their advice. The participating authors—Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake, Sarah Caudwell, Peter Lovesey, and Tony Hillerman--each get to contribute their plan of how to do the dastardly deed in the most flamboyant style possible. It’s fascinating to see how each writer grabs hold of a different detail from the intro chapter and then spins it into a fiendish, outlandish murder scenario.
Caudwell’s plan was the funniest, but Block’s plan got my vote for most likely to work.
Each author gets to contribute a second essay attacking the weaknesses of everybody else’s plans while arguing for the merits of their own. It’s very tongue in cheek, of course, as the writers take merciless jabs at each other.
Lovesey gets a great zinger on Hillerman and Block, who both advocated a multiple-murder approach ala The ABC Murders: “We mystery writers were commissioned to suggest a way of killing your wife, not most of your neighbors as well. I do object to slaughter on this scale; some of the victims could be buyers of my books.”
Block skewers the talents of his peers, saying “My first impulse, I must admit, was to toss out their contributions unread. I have for years been doing just that with their novels.
You can read this cover to cover in an hour or two. If you are a fan of any of these writers, you owe it to yourself to find this book and give it a go
March 19, 2017
The premise here is a man whose wife is cheating on him with his best friend writes to five crime writers for advice on how to kill her and frame the friend for her murder. (Divorce not being an option, he married this woman for her money and would be left penniless.) As someone who has been planning perfect crimes in their head since childhood I was really hoping that these writers would come up with honest scenarios, that would have been fascinating. Unfortunately their suggestions are all completely bizarre and over the top. In the second half of the book this man has shared all the ideas with each writer, and they take turns debunking each others plan...which I had already done myself. That was mildly entertaining. I'm sure this was all great fun for the writers, but I wish it had been more realistic and less silly.
February 27, 2022
This is quite fun. The author (well, co-author, really) gets 5 highly-regarded writers of murder mysteries to plan the perfect murder for him. Then he gets them to critique (i.e. slag off) each other’s proposal. The 5 writers get into the spirit of the occasion and a merry time is had by all.
November 1, 2025
I got this book because it involved two of my favorite mystery writers, Tony Hillerman and Peter Lovesey, and the premise was interesting: five well known authors are in competition to come up with an artistic method for a man to murder his wife. It fell short of my expectations.
February 3, 2018
Pure fun.
February 13, 2022
I really enjoyed this tongue in cheek murder mystery in which a man pays five actual great mystery writers to plan the perfect murder of his wife while implicating his friend. Pretty funny.
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April 13, 2024Don't read this book. This book doesn't get any better the more you read it.
Seriously, don't read this book.
Seriously, don't read this book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 20, 2013
A bit too preciously absurd for my taste: An anonymous stranger asks five famous mystery writers for advice on how to commit the perfect murder. The proposed methods are all fairly preposterous, and the most obvious flaw--that if he follows the advice of any of them, there is someone who knows what he did--is mostly ignored, except when it can be used as a plot device on which to pile some more absurdity. This is one of those cute ideas which should have been abandoned in the planning stages.
April 26, 2014
Funky ending
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews