100 Crooked Little Crime Stories

by Martin H. Greenberg

ACE 156619556X (ISBN13: 9781566195560)
All sewed up! / Curt Hamlin --
Always together / Allen Beck --
Appointment with yesterday / Geoffrey Vace --
At the pistol's point / E.W. Hornung --
The best policy / Ferenc Molnár --
Beyond reasonable doubt / Robert C. Dennis --
Blind date / J. Lane Linklater --
Brand of Cain / Dan Gordon --
The burglar's story / W.S. Gilbert --
A burning clue / E. Hoffman Price --
The compliments of the chief / Lincoln Steffens --
The confession / Maurice Level --
The crimson complex / G. Fleming-Roberts --
The cunning of the serpent / Henry S. Whitehead --
A dead clue / David Nowinson --
Dead man's drop / R. Van Taylor --
Dead men talk / Ernest C. Amaral --
Death's old sweet song / George William Rae --
The debt collector / Maurice Level --
A devil's highball / G. Fleming-Roberts --
Double demon / William Fryer Harvey --
Each night she dies --
/ William Brandon --
Easy kill / William Hellman --
Eight dollar murder / Robert Sidney Bowen --
Ferry slip / Don James --
Final game / Hugh B. Cave --
First kill / Chet Williamson --
Flophouse court / Hapsburg Liebe --
Flowers for Mr. Vecchi / Larry Allan --
Footsteps / Justin Case --
Footsteps in the night / Hugh B. Cave --
Good night, sweet alibi / Rufus Bakalor --
The grave joker / Morris Cooper --
Graveyard race / Andrew Fell --
The guy who heard murder / Francis K. Allan --
The hard-luck kid / Geoffrey Vace --
A helping hand / Rufus Bakalor --
How to show a corpse / Johanas L. Bouma --
I hope they're worried / Don James --
If the shoe fits / Ken Lewis --
Imperfect alibi / D.L. Champion --
In the bag / Carey Barnett --
Incense sticks / Ernest Leong --
An ingenious defense / Anonymous --
Into the lion's den / William F. Nolan --
It's your neck / George William Rae --
Jackie won't be home / Dane Gregory --
Jeff Peters as a personal magnet / O. Henry --
The job / Joe R. Lansdale --
Kerrigan / Edwin Baird --
Last laugh / Lix Agrabee --
Let nature take its corpse / C. William Harrison --
The letters of Halpin Chalmers / Peter Cannon --
The man of the knife / Alexandre Dumas --
Many happy returns / Justin Case --
Marked in red / Ralph Powers --
A matter of proof / Grover Brinkman --
Mind over mayhem / Mack Reynolds --
Mine host, the ghost / Costa Carousso --
Motive / August Derleth --
Murder in bronze / Herbert L. McNary --
Mushrooms / Chet Williamson --
New blood / Gary Lovisi --
Nimble fingers / W. Ryerson Johnson --
No flowers for Henry / Carl Hughes --
Nobody, that's who / William F. Nolan --
Numb / Wayne A. Harold --
On a dark October / Joe R. Lansdale --
One man's poison / Curt Hamlin --
The pigeon drop / Michael A. Black --
A quarter for Crazy Eddie / Will Murray --
The raffle / Wayne D. Dundee --
A real nice guy / William F. Nolan --
Red runs the tide / John P. Foran --
The red sail / Lester Dent --
A retrieved reformation / O. Henry --
Sacrifice / C.J. Henderson --
The sapient monkey / Headon Hill --
Side door to hell / Cyril Plunkett --
The silver protector / Ellis Parker Butler --
The slave-maker / Edgar Wallace --
Some jobs are simple / Chet Williamson --
Strictly accidental / Morgan Talbot --
Sudden violence / Robert Petyo --
Switch / Gerald Tollesfrud --
The tell-tale heart / Edgar Allan Poe --
Terror's night / I.R. Austin --
Thaxton's call / Jack Dolphin --
They tell no tales / Francis Chase, Jr. --
Till death do us part / Dana McGuire --
The time is now! / Dorothy Dunn --
To the point / Hugh B. Cave --
Turnabout / Colby Quinn --
Two must die! / Ric Hasse --
Untimely visitor / John Bender --
A valentine from Teacher / Jim Knapp --
The white square / Everett M. Webber --
Whitemail / Joyce Kilmer --
Whose turn is it? / C.J. Henderson --
The witch's way / Joseph Shallit.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Short Stories, Crime, Anthologies, Horror

589 pages, Hardcover

First published May 28, 1994

About the author

Martin Harry Greenberg was an American academic and speculative fiction anthologist. In all, he compiled 1,298 anthologies and commissioned over 8,200 original short stories. He founded Tekno Books, a packager of more than 2000 published books. In addition, he was a co-founder of the Sci-Fi Channel.

For the 1950s anthologist and publisher of Gnome Press, see Martin Greenberg.

Reviews

[Mauoijenn · Rating 2 out of 5]

A chunky book filled with 100 crime stories filled with mystery, death and destruction. On a bad note, only a handful of these were really good. The other 80% were just okay.

[Savanna Stevenson · Rating 1 out of 5]

i didn't enjoy this book at all....there was some intersting stories but for the most part i didn't enjoy i was so ready to finish the book and now that i'm finish it going straight into my goodwill pile.

[Tatjana · Rating 2 out of 5]

By and large most of these stories are poorly written and cliche.
Lots of stories with crooks who call women broads and say, "...,see?"
There are the occasional gems and the book is blissfully free of the big names. If you can get it at the library and have read everything else, then it's a terrific bathroom companion.
If not, don't go looking for it. You will be disappointed.

[Jen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Of the 100 stories, there were maybe 5 or 6 that I thought were really good. The other 95 or so, were "meh" at best.

[hyper saline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is great. Most of the stories are so old and weird and unsophisticated. Some are decent, none are really good. Each story, though, is a little spot in time when writing was different and pulpy and the writers got paid in wooden nickels.

There are no less than three stories where the perpetrator is caught because they're colorblind. Most of them are crime stories but there are the occasional supernatural ones. A woman kills her sister, and then the ghost sister kills her! Some are incredibly dumb, like the man who forgot his fake name and lost out on his stolen loot. The kids who repaired a chair, and then the chair killed a guy! They're ridiculous.

Lots of smooth talkers, jive talkers, sweet talkers, etc. Really a great little time machine of stories.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the stories in this collection are better than others, but there is not a true dud in the book. Almost every story is well written and entertaining and some stories I wish were longer. I recommend it for an "in-between-other-books read."

[Marilyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Best thing about this book is that the stories are so short, just right for snoozing in the hammock. Since some of the stories are so old as to be unintelligible, you can skip over them and not feel like you missed anything.

[¿Lôre? · Rating 3 out of 5]

really weird and random stories

[Linda Fast · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book that is easily put down as most stories are just a page or two. Some of the stories were interesting and others I just plain did not understand.

[R. David · Rating 3 out of 5]

As in all collections, some good, some not so good.

[Ch J Loveall · Rating 4 out of 5]

my quest for new authors continues (found Wayne D. Dundee)

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this is one of those books best read over a long period of time. Something to pick up every once in a while, or read one story every few days. Otherwise the stories start to blend together and get kind of repetitive.