What do you think?
Rate this book
Murder in Manhattan
A panel of eight mystery writers presents suspenseful and humorous mysteries set in Manhattan and peopled by a varied cast of homicidal characters
The Adams Round Table is today's counterpart of the legendary Algonquin Roundtable. Founded in 1982 by Mary Higgins Clark and Thomas Chastain, the members meet every month to discuss their craft and create some of the best-loved mysteries of our time. Here are tales of murder and mayhem in the Big Apple.
The Adams Round Table is today's counterpart of the legendary Algonquin Roundtable. Founded in 1982 by Mary Higgins Clark and Thomas Chastain, the members meet every month to discuss their craft and create some of the best-loved mysteries of our time. Here are tales of murder and mayhem in the Big Apple.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1986
About the author
Bill Adler
325 books17 followersBill Adler pursued his goal of being the P.T. Barnum of books by conceptualizing, writing, editing, compiling and hustling hundreds of them — prompting one magazine to anoint him “the most fevered mind” in publishing.
Mr. Adler achieved early success by collecting and publishing letters children had written to President John F. Kennedy. He followed up with children’s letters to Smokey Bear, Santa Claus, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew and President Barack Obama, among many others.
He helped popularize novels written by political, entertainment and sports celebrities, supplying ghostwriters and even plots. He signed up beauty queens to write diet and exercise books.
As an agent, his clients included Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Howard Cosell, Mike Wallace and Ralph Nader.
Mr. Adler was best known for his own titles. He wrote “What to Name Your Jewish Baby” (1966) with Arnie Kogen and “What Is a Cat? For Everyone Who Has Ever Loved a Cat” (1987). In 1969, he compiled “The Wit & Humor of Richard Nixon.” In 1995, he published “Cats’ Letters to Santa.”
One of his more famous tricks — a word he preferred to gimmicks — was the 1983 mystery novel “Who Killed the Robins Family?” by Bill Adler and Thomas Chastain. On the cover was an offer of a $10,000 reward for solving a series of fictional murders.
A team of four married couples from Denver won by coming up with the answers to 39 of 40 questions posed in the book. The book reached No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list in January 1984 and remained there for the better part of a year, selling about a million copies.
“Ideas are my mistress,” Mr. Adler told United Press International in 1986, saying he used his “given abilities to conceptualize books.”
It was People magazine that commented on Mr. Adler’s “fevered mind” in 1983, adding that publishing traditionalists regarded book packagers like Mr. Adler as “money-crazed barbarians with the sensibilities of turnips.”
Referring to Mr. Adler’s books, Roger W. Straus Jr., president of the publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux, told People: “They’re pretty chintzy, as a rule. It’s like throwing a quarter in the street. If you listen attentively, you find out it ain’t silver when it hits the ground.”
Others disagreed. “I consider Bill Adler unparalleled in the publishing industry — terribly, terribly original,” Mr. Cosell said.
One of Mr. Adler’s best-selling books was a collection called “The Kennedy Wit.” The president’s aides approved the project early in the administration, but Kennedy was said to have been angry about it, causing Random House to drop the idea. Mr. Adler suspected that the president had not wanted his humor emphasized so soon after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961.
After 35 more publishers turned the book down, Mr. Adler finally obtained a $2,500 advance from Citadel Press, a small publisher. The book, released in 1964, after the president’s assassination, was on the New York Times best-seller list for more than six months and sold more than 1.4 million copies.
William Jay Adler was born in Brooklyn on May 14, 1929. His parents died when he was a child, and he was raised by relatives. He attended Brooklyn College for three years and was drafted into the Army, then trained as a flamethrower for the Korean War.
After finding out that flamethrowers led infantry into battle, he applied for Armed Forces Radio, saying he had experience in broadcasting, though he did not. He was a disc jockey in Tokyo until his discharge in 1953. He then worked in broadcasting, as humor editor at McCall’s magazine and as a book editor for Playboy, where he first came up with book ideas.
One brainstorm was to ask the Kennedy White House if he could read mail sent to the president. In a time of much looser security, he was allowed to spend the day copying letters in the White House pos
Mr. Adler achieved early success by collecting and publishing letters children had written to President John F. Kennedy. He followed up with children’s letters to Smokey Bear, Santa Claus, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew and President Barack Obama, among many others.
He helped popularize novels written by political, entertainment and sports celebrities, supplying ghostwriters and even plots. He signed up beauty queens to write diet and exercise books.
As an agent, his clients included Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Howard Cosell, Mike Wallace and Ralph Nader.
Mr. Adler was best known for his own titles. He wrote “What to Name Your Jewish Baby” (1966) with Arnie Kogen and “What Is a Cat? For Everyone Who Has Ever Loved a Cat” (1987). In 1969, he compiled “The Wit & Humor of Richard Nixon.” In 1995, he published “Cats’ Letters to Santa.”
One of his more famous tricks — a word he preferred to gimmicks — was the 1983 mystery novel “Who Killed the Robins Family?” by Bill Adler and Thomas Chastain. On the cover was an offer of a $10,000 reward for solving a series of fictional murders.
A team of four married couples from Denver won by coming up with the answers to 39 of 40 questions posed in the book. The book reached No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list in January 1984 and remained there for the better part of a year, selling about a million copies.
“Ideas are my mistress,” Mr. Adler told United Press International in 1986, saying he used his “given abilities to conceptualize books.”
It was People magazine that commented on Mr. Adler’s “fevered mind” in 1983, adding that publishing traditionalists regarded book packagers like Mr. Adler as “money-crazed barbarians with the sensibilities of turnips.”
Referring to Mr. Adler’s books, Roger W. Straus Jr., president of the publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux, told People: “They’re pretty chintzy, as a rule. It’s like throwing a quarter in the street. If you listen attentively, you find out it ain’t silver when it hits the ground.”
Others disagreed. “I consider Bill Adler unparalleled in the publishing industry — terribly, terribly original,” Mr. Cosell said.
One of Mr. Adler’s best-selling books was a collection called “The Kennedy Wit.” The president’s aides approved the project early in the administration, but Kennedy was said to have been angry about it, causing Random House to drop the idea. Mr. Adler suspected that the president had not wanted his humor emphasized so soon after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961.
After 35 more publishers turned the book down, Mr. Adler finally obtained a $2,500 advance from Citadel Press, a small publisher. The book, released in 1964, after the president’s assassination, was on the New York Times best-seller list for more than six months and sold more than 1.4 million copies.
William Jay Adler was born in Brooklyn on May 14, 1929. His parents died when he was a child, and he was raised by relatives. He attended Brooklyn College for three years and was drafted into the Army, then trained as a flamethrower for the Korean War.
After finding out that flamethrowers led infantry into battle, he applied for Armed Forces Radio, saying he had experience in broadcasting, though he did not. He was a disc jockey in Tokyo until his discharge in 1953. He then worked in broadcasting, as humor editor at McCall’s magazine and as a book editor for Playboy, where he first came up with book ideas.
One brainstorm was to ask the Kennedy White House if he could read mail sent to the president. In a time of much looser security, he was allowed to spend the day copying letters in the White House pos
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
March 15, 2012
It's been a while since I read this book, I actually didn't finish it. I read the first few stories in the book, and only one was actually good, but the further into the book - the stories became worse. I just couldn't finish the last 2 or 3 stories, they were just strange and hard to read for me.
June 25, 2022
This is a high concept book. Sometime in the 1980's a group of eight well-known mystery writers decided (or were convinced) to each write a short story based on a murder in the borough of Manhattan, New York City. The stories were then collected in one themed volume, Murder in Manhattan. I am accepting that all of these writers were well-known; I only recognized one name from the list, that of Mary Higgins Clark.
The stories have no other cohesion than the general location. None of the characters or settings overlap, nor are they even set in the same time period. The tone and style of each story is unique, leading to some rapid shifting of gears as the reader moves from one tale to the next. The first story, "Directed Verdict," plays out in a cold, procedural fashion like a hard-boiled cop show. A later piece, "Bird Brain," feels like a surrealistic psycho-sexual thriller, with a woman drawn into a strange artist's predatory net. In "The Last Dream," a psychotherapist plays detective, while "An Element of Surprise" is told in first person by a hitman playing cat and mouse with his protege. It's an crazy-quilt collection, and the results are extremely uneven. Overall, I found the collection disappointing and a little dull.
Interestingly, the best story here is by the one author whose name I recognized. Clark's "Lucky Day" tells the story of a husband and wife and the down-and-out man whom they have befriended. Clark takes her readers down a clear, but ultimately misleading path, only to be faced with a clever reversal at the end. It's everything I enjoy in a short story - well-drawn characters, suspense,clever plotting, and a twist. If you read one story in this book, make it that one. The rest can be skipped without missing much.
The stories have no other cohesion than the general location. None of the characters or settings overlap, nor are they even set in the same time period. The tone and style of each story is unique, leading to some rapid shifting of gears as the reader moves from one tale to the next. The first story, "Directed Verdict," plays out in a cold, procedural fashion like a hard-boiled cop show. A later piece, "Bird Brain," feels like a surrealistic psycho-sexual thriller, with a woman drawn into a strange artist's predatory net. In "The Last Dream," a psychotherapist plays detective, while "An Element of Surprise" is told in first person by a hitman playing cat and mouse with his protege. It's an crazy-quilt collection, and the results are extremely uneven. Overall, I found the collection disappointing and a little dull.
Interestingly, the best story here is by the one author whose name I recognized. Clark's "Lucky Day" tells the story of a husband and wife and the down-and-out man whom they have befriended. Clark takes her readers down a clear, but ultimately misleading path, only to be faced with a clever reversal at the end. It's everything I enjoy in a short story - well-drawn characters, suspense,clever plotting, and a twist. If you read one story in this book, make it that one. The rest can be skipped without missing much.
March 11, 2023
Written & set in olden times, I say olden times, but I really mean the 80’s, this book is a combination of multiple talented authors combining their love for mystery, murder and mayhem along with the love of New York City to give us this highly unique concept book.
If you love noir murder mysteries like Knives Out this book is for you. There are 8 chapters in all, each written by a different author and each set in a different borough of New York City.
I probably had one of the most interesting experiences reading this book! Every chapter you read has a different voice to it, a different feel and some of those were a hit but some misses too.
The feeling of unexpectedness that flows from the differences in prose & plot is what gripped me rather than the actual mystery.
Actually, I’ll go a step further & say that the mysteries were all rather basic – the atmosphere though was very fitting for a story to be set in that era & solved according to the rules & limitations followed culturally and procedurally.
The main selling point of this book is the fact that it’s written by 8 especially talented mystery writers during the 80’s & it also plays into the drawback of it not being modern, fast, or intense considering the books we have now.
If you love noir murder mysteries like Knives Out this book is for you. There are 8 chapters in all, each written by a different author and each set in a different borough of New York City.
I probably had one of the most interesting experiences reading this book! Every chapter you read has a different voice to it, a different feel and some of those were a hit but some misses too.
The feeling of unexpectedness that flows from the differences in prose & plot is what gripped me rather than the actual mystery.
Actually, I’ll go a step further & say that the mysteries were all rather basic – the atmosphere though was very fitting for a story to be set in that era & solved according to the rules & limitations followed culturally and procedurally.
The main selling point of this book is the fact that it’s written by 8 especially talented mystery writers during the 80’s & it also plays into the drawback of it not being modern, fast, or intense considering the books we have now.
October 1, 2020
Eight authors, 8 separate mysteries, one a piece from the Manhattan area. Most authors are very good. Two are good but lagged a little. Even then this book is a treasure. Mary Higgins Clark is the author of the 2nd story a Lucky Day, and was my favorite. However; there's a few more that held my attention equally.
November 3, 2022
Okayish. No heart thumping thrills or mind boggling suspense, but interesting premises neverthless. One doesn't mind reading the book that contains 4 novellas by different authors:
1. Mary Higgins Clark's "Lucky Day,"
2. Whitley Strieber's "Vaudeville,"
3. Dorothy Salisbury Davis' "Till Death Do Us Part," and
4. Thomas Chastain's "Directed Verdict."
1. Mary Higgins Clark's "Lucky Day,"
2. Whitley Strieber's "Vaudeville,"
3. Dorothy Salisbury Davis' "Till Death Do Us Part," and
4. Thomas Chastain's "Directed Verdict."
October 15, 2018
I listened to this one. It was short stories, all set in Manhattan, different timeframes. Some were ok, not all of them were my cup of tea.
November 1, 2021
This was my first time to read a book with short stories. I don't read suspense thriller books so I figured short stories would be a good introduction or trying out phase.
This book has a few different takes on that genre which I appreciated but some stories I couldn't get with.
This book has a few different takes on that genre which I appreciated but some stories I couldn't get with.
April 18, 2022
Je n'ai pas accroché. J'ai eu beaucoup de mal a le finir.
September 23, 2022
I only read the MHC story, which has a shocking twist at the end in the style of O. Henry.
September 27, 2022
This was a good set of short stories with murder and mystery as main focus.
Read
January 7, 2023A panel of eight mystery writers presents suspenseful and humorous mysteries set in Manhattan and peopled by a varied cast of homicidal characters
January 14, 2026
I imagine this may be too literary for me to enjoy properly. There were a few I really liked; the others not so much.
January 9, 2013
This book was okay, useful for long-term, late-night reading in bed before going to sleep. None of the stories or authors were truly outstanding though.
The only selection I had for this book was the audio cassette edition, but what I have is a hardback book which I have owned for a long time.
The only selection I had for this book was the audio cassette edition, but what I have is a hardback book which I have owned for a long time.
June 1, 2019
Un recueil de plusieurs nouvelles, chacune d'un auteur (établi) dont le point commun est que le crime se déroule à Manhattan. J'ai beaucoup aimé même si le niveau varie grandement d'un auteur a l'autre. Un divertissement efficace.
April 27, 2014
Great exploration of Manhattan and its inhabitants. Some of the stories are extremely vivid and well written, others are not as good. Overall, a good book to read.
August 20, 2016
Published in 1986, a collection of murder mysteries by well known mystery writers. The stories take place in various well known sections of the city. An entertaining summer read.
August 25, 2019
Recueil de petites histoires, dommage qu’il n’y en ait pas plus !
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews