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Murder Most Foul
Book by Masur, Harold Q
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1971
12 people want to read
About the author
Harold Q. Masur
78 books9 followersHarold Q. Masur was an American lawyer and author of mystery novels.
He graduated from the New York University School of Law in 1934 and practiced law between 1935 and 1942. Then he joined the U.S. Air Force. In the late 30s he started writing Pulp Fiction. In 1973 he was President of the Mystery Writers of America
He graduated from the New York University School of Law in 1934 and practiced law between 1935 and 1942. Then he joined the U.S. Air Force. In the late 30s he started writing Pulp Fiction. In 1973 he was President of the Mystery Writers of America
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 3, 2019
CONTENTS
▪️"Introduction" - Harold Q. Masur
⏹️Fiction:
▪️"Fat Chance" - Robert Bloch
▪️"Backward, Turn Backward" - Dorothy Salisbury Davis
▪️"The Day of the Bullet" - Stanley Ellin
▪️"Double Entry" - Robert L. Fish
▪️"Odendahl" - Joe Gores
▪️"This Is a Watchbird Watching You" - Joe Gores
▪️"Selena Robs the White House" - Patricia McGerr
▪️"Gone Girl" - Ross Macdonald
▪️"Old Willie" - William P. McGivern
▪️"Dark Encounter" - William F. Nolan
▪️"Two Muscovy Ducks" - Charles Norman
▪️"Mind Over Matter" - Ellery Queen
▪️"The Cautious Man" - Lawrence Treat
▪️"Nothing But Human Nature" - Hillary Waugh
▪️"Give Her Hell" - Donald A. Wollheim
This is the 1971 volume in the more-or-less annual series of anthologies of stories by members of the Mystery Writers of America. As I write this in 2019, the stories in new volumes of this series are all original to the anthologies. That was not the case formerly; all of the stories in this book were previously published in the years 1940-1969. There were three each from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, two from The Saint Detective Magazine, and seven from a variety of other sources. They range anywhere from fair to superb.
The one author whose name was unfamiliar to me is Charles Norman, who is identified in Masur's introduction as a poet. His "Two Muscovy Ducks" is a brief horror tale.
Donald A. Wollheim's "Give Her Hell" is another quite short story, a fantasy about a most unpleasant man who makes a deal with the devil. The ending is nicely horrifying.
"Mind Over Matter" by Ellery Queen, the oldest story in the collection, is about the murder of the former heavyweight champion of the world. "Former" by an hour or so, that is. I think that this is better than most Ellery Queen short stories.
"Selena Robs the White House" by Patricia McGerr is about Selena robbing the White House, of course. But the point of the story is how and why she does this, and what follows. A clever story.
William P. McGivern's story "Old Willie" tells of an elderly man facing a mobster who hurt a friend of his. I think it most unlikely that the mob, unable to locate Willie, would not exact vengeance on his friend. Nonetheless, this is a good story with a most unexpected ending.
I think that the poorest story in the book is "Fat Chance" by the frequently excellent writer Robert Bloch. A pharmacist wants to get rid of his overweight wife.
Hillary Waugh's "Nothing But Human Nature" is another story that is not up to the author's best work. A police officer tricks someone into a confession, in a manner that is quite unconvincing.
I think of Lawrence Treat as the author of a fine series of police procedurals. His tale "The Cautious Man," however, is a burglar procedural, about a thief with what seems to be a fine plan for an alibi.
Joe Gores's "Odendahl" is the story of a man's past catching up with him. The setting is in Kenya and that adds immeasurably to this story. However, what hurts this for me is that Gores finds some behavior rather more excusable than I do.
Allen Kim Lang is, I believe, the only still- living author in the book. His story is titled "This Is a Watchbird Watching You." This was obviously a quote, but I did not recognize it. It seems that the Watchbirds were cartoon characters drawn by Munro Leaf staring in 1938 and continued by others after Leaf's death in 1976. They were used to teach manners to children.
The protagonist in the story is a drug dealer who commits a murder and is observed by someone from another building, who attempts to blackmail him. Now the killer must find a way to eliminate that person as well, but first he must ascertain who it is. The method used is not one that appears reliable at all, which severely damages what would otherwise be a good story.
William F. Nolan tells of a "Dark Encounter" with a serial killer. I think that there is almost approval in this story of whom the murderer chooses to kill and whom he spares, based on a rather terrible criterion.
I think that the remaining four stories are all fine. I expect humor from Robert L. Fish but got something quite different in "Double Entry," a tale of a hired killer who is a bit too good at keeping secrets.
"Gone Girl" by Ross Macdonald is an entry in Macdonald's series about tough private investigator Lou Archer. Archer stumbles across a murder in a motel. As is common for Macdonald, the story becomes very complicated. Archer is not only tough, he is smart, and always solves his cases - but often not until after another murder or two.
In "Backward, Turn Backward" by Dorothy Salisbury Davis, a fifty-nine year old man gets engaged to a teenage girl. The girl's father objects, and is soon murdered. This is more complex than it originally appears. A good, sad, moving story.
The best story in the collection is Stanley Ellin's "The Day of the Bullet." Ellin was one of the truly great authors of short mystery fiction. In "The Day of the Bullet," the narrator's closest childhood friend has a sobering experience involving the police, a gangster, and the friend's father, which shapes the rest of the friend's life. This was the basis of an excellent episode on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
This is not one of the very best volumes in this series, but there are definitely some fine stories here.
▪️"Introduction" - Harold Q. Masur
⏹️Fiction:
▪️"Fat Chance" - Robert Bloch
▪️"Backward, Turn Backward" - Dorothy Salisbury Davis
▪️"The Day of the Bullet" - Stanley Ellin
▪️"Double Entry" - Robert L. Fish
▪️"Odendahl" - Joe Gores
▪️"This Is a Watchbird Watching You" - Joe Gores
▪️"Selena Robs the White House" - Patricia McGerr
▪️"Gone Girl" - Ross Macdonald
▪️"Old Willie" - William P. McGivern
▪️"Dark Encounter" - William F. Nolan
▪️"Two Muscovy Ducks" - Charles Norman
▪️"Mind Over Matter" - Ellery Queen
▪️"The Cautious Man" - Lawrence Treat
▪️"Nothing But Human Nature" - Hillary Waugh
▪️"Give Her Hell" - Donald A. Wollheim
This is the 1971 volume in the more-or-less annual series of anthologies of stories by members of the Mystery Writers of America. As I write this in 2019, the stories in new volumes of this series are all original to the anthologies. That was not the case formerly; all of the stories in this book were previously published in the years 1940-1969. There were three each from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, two from The Saint Detective Magazine, and seven from a variety of other sources. They range anywhere from fair to superb.
The one author whose name was unfamiliar to me is Charles Norman, who is identified in Masur's introduction as a poet. His "Two Muscovy Ducks" is a brief horror tale.
Donald A. Wollheim's "Give Her Hell" is another quite short story, a fantasy about a most unpleasant man who makes a deal with the devil. The ending is nicely horrifying.
"Mind Over Matter" by Ellery Queen, the oldest story in the collection, is about the murder of the former heavyweight champion of the world. "Former" by an hour or so, that is. I think that this is better than most Ellery Queen short stories.
"Selena Robs the White House" by Patricia McGerr is about Selena robbing the White House, of course. But the point of the story is how and why she does this, and what follows. A clever story.
William P. McGivern's story "Old Willie" tells of an elderly man facing a mobster who hurt a friend of his. I think it most unlikely that the mob, unable to locate Willie, would not exact vengeance on his friend. Nonetheless, this is a good story with a most unexpected ending.
I think that the poorest story in the book is "Fat Chance" by the frequently excellent writer Robert Bloch. A pharmacist wants to get rid of his overweight wife.
Hillary Waugh's "Nothing But Human Nature" is another story that is not up to the author's best work. A police officer tricks someone into a confession, in a manner that is quite unconvincing.
I think of Lawrence Treat as the author of a fine series of police procedurals. His tale "The Cautious Man," however, is a burglar procedural, about a thief with what seems to be a fine plan for an alibi.
Joe Gores's "Odendahl" is the story of a man's past catching up with him. The setting is in Kenya and that adds immeasurably to this story. However, what hurts this for me is that Gores finds some behavior rather more excusable than I do.
Allen Kim Lang is, I believe, the only still- living author in the book. His story is titled "This Is a Watchbird Watching You." This was obviously a quote, but I did not recognize it. It seems that the Watchbirds were cartoon characters drawn by Munro Leaf staring in 1938 and continued by others after Leaf's death in 1976. They were used to teach manners to children.
The protagonist in the story is a drug dealer who commits a murder and is observed by someone from another building, who attempts to blackmail him. Now the killer must find a way to eliminate that person as well, but first he must ascertain who it is. The method used is not one that appears reliable at all, which severely damages what would otherwise be a good story.
William F. Nolan tells of a "Dark Encounter" with a serial killer. I think that there is almost approval in this story of whom the murderer chooses to kill and whom he spares, based on a rather terrible criterion.
I think that the remaining four stories are all fine. I expect humor from Robert L. Fish but got something quite different in "Double Entry," a tale of a hired killer who is a bit too good at keeping secrets.
"Gone Girl" by Ross Macdonald is an entry in Macdonald's series about tough private investigator Lou Archer. Archer stumbles across a murder in a motel. As is common for Macdonald, the story becomes very complicated. Archer is not only tough, he is smart, and always solves his cases - but often not until after another murder or two.
In "Backward, Turn Backward" by Dorothy Salisbury Davis, a fifty-nine year old man gets engaged to a teenage girl. The girl's father objects, and is soon murdered. This is more complex than it originally appears. A good, sad, moving story.
The best story in the collection is Stanley Ellin's "The Day of the Bullet." Ellin was one of the truly great authors of short mystery fiction. In "The Day of the Bullet," the narrator's closest childhood friend has a sobering experience involving the police, a gangster, and the friend's father, which shapes the rest of the friend's life. This was the basis of an excellent episode on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
This is not one of the very best volumes in this series, but there are definitely some fine stories here.
January 14, 2022
Surprise!
This is a mixed bag of stories compiled by the Mystery Writers of America. There's no theme that I can see, but all have a quirky (sometimes horrific) twist at the end. It was published in 1971, so Holmes and Watson aren't chasing bad guys across the Moor, but there are no cell phones, either. I remember it clearly, yet it was fifty years ago. Time flies, even if you aren't having much fun.
I bought it because I wanted to read "Fat Chance" by Robert Bloch. Bloch is best known as the author of "Psycho", but there's no Bates Motel. Just a cozy little story of a very respectable, hard-working pharmacist who'd like to get rid of his obese wife to marry his slender mistress. What could possible go wrong?
The great Dorothy Salisbury Davis contributes one of her beautifully written, dark-as-midnight tales. Joe Gores chimes in with an interesting story set in South Africa. WWII is over and the Good Guys won, but not everyone has been held accountable for their sins. I don't agree with Gores' sympathies, but it's intriguing.
Several are stories told from the point of view of career criminals - a drug dealer, a hitman, and a burglar. All are successful men in their chosen fields because of meticulous planning and attention to detail, but women and dog-lovers are unpredictable and a man can't figure ALL the angles.
The police are represented by one of Hillary Waugh's down-home New Englander cops. Captain Mike Gallon seems to be sleep-walking through a murder investigation, but he has decades of experience observing people and he knows the common patterns of behavior. Remember when a man could ask his grown daughter for her measurements without everyone in the room passing out cold? Different times, no doubt.
Waugh invented the "police procedural" but his wonderful books are just now being made into ebooks. I had no idea he wrote short stories, but now I'm hoping they will be gathered into an ebook.
This one won't change your life, but all the authors were professionals who knew what they were doing. If you're old, it's a look back in time. If you're young, you can take note of some talking points to entertain the old folks at the next family reunion you get dragged to. Even if you're not a hitman, it pays to plan ahead.
This is a mixed bag of stories compiled by the Mystery Writers of America. There's no theme that I can see, but all have a quirky (sometimes horrific) twist at the end. It was published in 1971, so Holmes and Watson aren't chasing bad guys across the Moor, but there are no cell phones, either. I remember it clearly, yet it was fifty years ago. Time flies, even if you aren't having much fun.
I bought it because I wanted to read "Fat Chance" by Robert Bloch. Bloch is best known as the author of "Psycho", but there's no Bates Motel. Just a cozy little story of a very respectable, hard-working pharmacist who'd like to get rid of his obese wife to marry his slender mistress. What could possible go wrong?
The great Dorothy Salisbury Davis contributes one of her beautifully written, dark-as-midnight tales. Joe Gores chimes in with an interesting story set in South Africa. WWII is over and the Good Guys won, but not everyone has been held accountable for their sins. I don't agree with Gores' sympathies, but it's intriguing.
Several are stories told from the point of view of career criminals - a drug dealer, a hitman, and a burglar. All are successful men in their chosen fields because of meticulous planning and attention to detail, but women and dog-lovers are unpredictable and a man can't figure ALL the angles.
The police are represented by one of Hillary Waugh's down-home New Englander cops. Captain Mike Gallon seems to be sleep-walking through a murder investigation, but he has decades of experience observing people and he knows the common patterns of behavior. Remember when a man could ask his grown daughter for her measurements without everyone in the room passing out cold? Different times, no doubt.
Waugh invented the "police procedural" but his wonderful books are just now being made into ebooks. I had no idea he wrote short stories, but now I'm hoping they will be gathered into an ebook.
This one won't change your life, but all the authors were professionals who knew what they were doing. If you're old, it's a look back in time. If you're young, you can take note of some talking points to entertain the old folks at the next family reunion you get dragged to. Even if you're not a hitman, it pays to plan ahead.
November 28, 2022
The highlight: Double Entry/Robert L Fish; also good Fat Chance/Robt Bloch, funny Selena Robs the White House/McGerr, Gone Girl/Ross Macdonald, Old Willie/W.P, McGivern, Nothing but Human Nature/Hilary Waugh, Mind over Matter/Ellery Queen and Backward turn Backward/Dorothy S Davis
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews