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The Lethal Sex: the 1959 anthology of the mystery writers of America
14 lively ladies spin 14 torrid tales of mayhem and murder. An anthology of the year's Best by The Mystery Writers of America. Edited, with an introduction by John D. Macdonald.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
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About the author
John D. MacDonald
570 books1,382 followersJohn 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.
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.
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August 9, 2023
CONTENTS
●Introductory Material:
"A Message from Mystery Writers of America"
•"A Matronizing Preface" - Laurie R. King
•"A Word to the Men" - John D. MacDonald
•"Acknowledgments"
•"Introduction" - John D. MacDonald
•"Postscript" - John D. MacDonald
●Fiction:
•"Dear Mr. MacDonald" - Christianna Brand
•"Snowball" - Ursula Curtiss
•"McGowney's Miracle" - Margaret Millar
•"He Got What He Deserved" - Bernice Carey
•"Two for Tea" - Margaret Manners
•"You'll Be the Death of Me" - Anthony Gilbert
•"The Withered Heart" - Jean Potts
•"To Be Found and Read" - Miriam Allen deFord
•"Sleeping Dogs or Now You Know" - Gladys Cluff
•"A Matter of Ethics" - Carolyn Thomas
•"What Is Going to Happen?" - Nedra Tyre
•"Thirty-Nine" - D. Jenkins Smith
•"No Trace" - Veronica Parker Johns
•"There Are No Snakes in Hawaii" - Juanita Sheridan
This is the 1959 entry in the series of anthologies assembled by the Mystery Writers of America. There are fourteen stories: six of them are listed as being original to this book, one comes from Cosmopolitan, one from Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and four from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. One is attributed to just "King Size Publications, Inc." "He Got What He Deserved" is not listed at all in the acknowledgements. Publication dates for the reprinted stories range from 1954-1958.
This book, as I said, was originally published in 1959. The version that I have is from 2018. The quite poor "cover art image" is attributed to "Mr. Nikon," which I suspect just means that some unidentified person with a camera took the picture. Oddly, none of the contributors' names appear on the Contents page.
The opening "Message" from the MWA is just a statement that they decided to publish this edition without making any changes to the stories. Laurie R. King's "Preface" begins "Let me start by saying that in the twenty-first century, no all-women collection would be edited by a man." King then takes easy potshots at MacDonald's introductory material, which is as condescending to the authors represented as King says that it is.
However, MacDonald also says that "every story was written by a female, and their brilliance, their shrewdness, their capacity for horror may surprise those of you still foolish enough to think of woman as the weaker sex.'
MacDonald's "Postscript," confusingly placed before the stories, acknowledges that some readers may be "offended by discovering that several of these stories are not mystery stories." That doesn't bother me; the fact that there are no lethal women in some of the stories does. An earlier MWA anthology titled Dolls Are Murder also ignored what I believe is the implication of these titles.
"Sleeping Dogs or Now You Know" by Gladys Cluff is one of the stories which is not a mystery and certainly has no murderous women. The central character, a woman long married to a fat cigar-smoking businessman who used to be much different, has discovered that she can easily place herself in her imagination into news stories of murders. Then she finds that she now unwillingly becomes other people and is frightened by this. This is quite effective, although I wonder ?
Similarly Margaret Millar's "McGowney's Miracle" is another story that is not principally a mystery - although there is a sort of crime involved. A private investigator, who narrates the story, has tracked down an undertaker who had moved away shortly after the burial of a coffin which later was later found to be filled with newspapers. But what happened to the body of the woman who was supposed to be buried there? That, of course, takes us to the "miracle" of the title. But that is not the entire miracle; the "important" miracle is about the powers of love and faith. This story too has a conclusion that ends the story but not the situation.
No one is murdered in "A Matter of Ethics" by Carolyn Thomas either. An American doctor whose wife had died some years earlier is now living in Trinidad, working on a book about tropical diseases. A man from the doctor's past comes to Trinidad, looking for help with business connections and easily available sexual partners. The doctor provides assistance, of a kind.
There is no violence in any of the stories discussed so far - but the other stories in the collection more than make up for that. In "Snowball" by Ursula Curtiss, there is some question for most of the story about what might have taken place. The narrator and another man travel to a remote cottage in which friends of theirs, a poet and his wife, live - but not at all in harmony. They find the cottage deserted, except for Snowball the cat and quite a lot of blood. A blizzard isolates the two men in the cottage, with no electricity, no phone, and a car that won't start.
Some of the violence in these tales arises from the usual causes in mystery stories - mostly greed and lust. In some, however, madness leads to mayhem. The two sisters in Christianna Brand's "Dear Mr. MacDonald" have long had problems. One had assaulted the other some time earlier and had subsequently been institutionalized. Now the madness seems to have recurred, and a killing may take place. This is clever and tricky - and I don't understand the ending.
D. Jenkins Smith's story "Thirty-Nine" starts with a woman on a farm with her writer husband, three kids, farm animals, and a farm hand. It is the day before her thirty-ninth birthday and her mood is...odd. A totally surprising (to me, at least) development takes place.
The girl who is the central character in "What's Going to Happen?" is just thirty years younger than the woman in "Thirty-Nine"; her ninth birthday is coming up soon. She is narrating events in her life. She is now with other children, in some place at which she had arrived on the previous night. Her thoughts are of her life, the years that she was with both parents and the years since then after her father left. She states, "I am a good girl. You ask my mother." When she was being punished, her mother would put her in a closet with no light. Then they moved, and when she was punished she was put in a room with a view of people in the building opposite them, and observing those people became the girl's chief pleasure. And then things changed. I think that this is both puzzling and powerful.
The murderer in "He Got What He Deserved" by Bernice Carey combines madness and greed. The story is told from the viewpoint of an inexperienced lawyer hired by the woman because she liked his name in the phone book. And will she be easy to defend? Perhaps not:
I killed him, of course," she said. "But the way I look at it, I was perfectly justified."
Some of the stories have exactly what I expected from the book title: women who kill for some sort of personal gain. In "Two for Tea" and "No Trace," the main characters are devious, plotting their actions but also able to instantly react to situations.
In "Two for Tea" by Margaret Manners, a woman who chose her husband solely for wealth and prestige finds that threatened. Another woman tells her that she and the husband are in love and want to marry. This woman has something to help persuade the wife to get a divorce - a letter that the wife had once written to another man explaining that she loved him but the man who became her husband could give her more financially. The wife immediately comes up with a plan to rid herself of her rival.
Another wife is the central character in Veronica Parker Johns' "No Trace." That wife has a lover - who happens to be the husband of her husband's secretary. She has decided to break up with the lover, but things become very complicated. This could easily have been the plot of a film noir.
It is the husband who has a lover in "You'll Be the Death of Me." by Anthony Gilbert. (Gilbert was a pseudonym for a female author, Lucy Malleson.) His wife suspects nothing until she finds a distinctive button in her husband's coat pocket. (This story was originally published under the title "The Goldfish Button.") Then she hears of the woman whose coat is missing that button - and under what circumstances the button had come off the coat. A good story, with more than one surprise for the reader.
Another husband, about to be married as the story begins, is the narrator of "To Be Found and Read" by Miriam Allen deFord. On the way to his wedding, he is driving alone when he comes across an aging man who obviously needs help. He lets that man ride in his car, where the man soon dies. And then the story takes the first of several unexpected twists, leading to an even more unexpected ending.
At the start of Jean Potts' story "The Withered Heart," yet another husband has just murdered his wife and disposed of her body in a way that will look as though she had died in a car accident. Years of marriage to that woman "had very nearly destroyed in him the capacity for feeling anything." And then the man realizes that he must kill again to cover up the murder of his wife. This has my favorite ending of any of the stories in this collection.
The longest tale in this book is "There Are No Snakes in Hawaii" by Juanita Sheridan. This is narrated by an author living with his wife in Hawaii. Another couple are also coming there from New York, an artist who is to illustrate a book by that author and the artist's wife. The artist loves every aspect of life in Hawaii. His wife does not, and she wants them to return to New York. Sheridan makes Hawaii seems totally paradisiacal; how could anybody want to leave? And what happens when one is determined that they should both leave and the other is equally determine to stay?
There are no stories in this anthology that I think are wonderful but only a few that I actually dislike. My favorites are "There Are No Snakes in Hawaii" by Juanita Sheridan, "Thirty-Nine" by D. Jenkins Smith, and "The Withered Heart" by Jean Potts.
●Introductory Material:
"A Message from Mystery Writers of America"
•"A Matronizing Preface" - Laurie R. King
•"A Word to the Men" - John D. MacDonald
•"Acknowledgments"
•"Introduction" - John D. MacDonald
•"Postscript" - John D. MacDonald
●Fiction:
•"Dear Mr. MacDonald" - Christianna Brand
•"Snowball" - Ursula Curtiss
•"McGowney's Miracle" - Margaret Millar
•"He Got What He Deserved" - Bernice Carey
•"Two for Tea" - Margaret Manners
•"You'll Be the Death of Me" - Anthony Gilbert
•"The Withered Heart" - Jean Potts
•"To Be Found and Read" - Miriam Allen deFord
•"Sleeping Dogs or Now You Know" - Gladys Cluff
•"A Matter of Ethics" - Carolyn Thomas
•"What Is Going to Happen?" - Nedra Tyre
•"Thirty-Nine" - D. Jenkins Smith
•"No Trace" - Veronica Parker Johns
•"There Are No Snakes in Hawaii" - Juanita Sheridan
This is the 1959 entry in the series of anthologies assembled by the Mystery Writers of America. There are fourteen stories: six of them are listed as being original to this book, one comes from Cosmopolitan, one from Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and four from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. One is attributed to just "King Size Publications, Inc." "He Got What He Deserved" is not listed at all in the acknowledgements. Publication dates for the reprinted stories range from 1954-1958.
This book, as I said, was originally published in 1959. The version that I have is from 2018. The quite poor "cover art image" is attributed to "Mr. Nikon," which I suspect just means that some unidentified person with a camera took the picture. Oddly, none of the contributors' names appear on the Contents page.
The opening "Message" from the MWA is just a statement that they decided to publish this edition without making any changes to the stories. Laurie R. King's "Preface" begins "Let me start by saying that in the twenty-first century, no all-women collection would be edited by a man." King then takes easy potshots at MacDonald's introductory material, which is as condescending to the authors represented as King says that it is.
However, MacDonald also says that "every story was written by a female, and their brilliance, their shrewdness, their capacity for horror may surprise those of you still foolish enough to think of woman as the weaker sex.'
MacDonald's "Postscript," confusingly placed before the stories, acknowledges that some readers may be "offended by discovering that several of these stories are not mystery stories." That doesn't bother me; the fact that there are no lethal women in some of the stories does. An earlier MWA anthology titled Dolls Are Murder also ignored what I believe is the implication of these titles.
"Sleeping Dogs or Now You Know" by Gladys Cluff is one of the stories which is not a mystery and certainly has no murderous women. The central character, a woman long married to a fat cigar-smoking businessman who used to be much different, has discovered that she can easily place herself in her imagination into news stories of murders. Then she finds that she now unwillingly becomes other people and is frightened by this. This is quite effective, although I wonder ?
Similarly Margaret Millar's "McGowney's Miracle" is another story that is not principally a mystery - although there is a sort of crime involved. A private investigator, who narrates the story, has tracked down an undertaker who had moved away shortly after the burial of a coffin which later was later found to be filled with newspapers. But what happened to the body of the woman who was supposed to be buried there? That, of course, takes us to the "miracle" of the title. But that is not the entire miracle; the "important" miracle is about the powers of love and faith. This story too has a conclusion that ends the story but not the situation.
No one is murdered in "A Matter of Ethics" by Carolyn Thomas either. An American doctor whose wife had died some years earlier is now living in Trinidad, working on a book about tropical diseases. A man from the doctor's past comes to Trinidad, looking for help with business connections and easily available sexual partners. The doctor provides assistance, of a kind.
There is no violence in any of the stories discussed so far - but the other stories in the collection more than make up for that. In "Snowball" by Ursula Curtiss, there is some question for most of the story about what might have taken place. The narrator and another man travel to a remote cottage in which friends of theirs, a poet and his wife, live - but not at all in harmony. They find the cottage deserted, except for Snowball the cat and quite a lot of blood. A blizzard isolates the two men in the cottage, with no electricity, no phone, and a car that won't start.
Some of the violence in these tales arises from the usual causes in mystery stories - mostly greed and lust. In some, however, madness leads to mayhem. The two sisters in Christianna Brand's "Dear Mr. MacDonald" have long had problems. One had assaulted the other some time earlier and had subsequently been institutionalized. Now the madness seems to have recurred, and a killing may take place. This is clever and tricky - and I don't understand the ending.
D. Jenkins Smith's story "Thirty-Nine" starts with a woman on a farm with her writer husband, three kids, farm animals, and a farm hand. It is the day before her thirty-ninth birthday and her mood is...odd. A totally surprising (to me, at least) development takes place.
The girl who is the central character in "What's Going to Happen?" is just thirty years younger than the woman in "Thirty-Nine"; her ninth birthday is coming up soon. She is narrating events in her life. She is now with other children, in some place at which she had arrived on the previous night. Her thoughts are of her life, the years that she was with both parents and the years since then after her father left. She states, "I am a good girl. You ask my mother." When she was being punished, her mother would put her in a closet with no light. Then they moved, and when she was punished she was put in a room with a view of people in the building opposite them, and observing those people became the girl's chief pleasure. And then things changed. I think that this is both puzzling and powerful.
The murderer in "He Got What He Deserved" by Bernice Carey combines madness and greed. The story is told from the viewpoint of an inexperienced lawyer hired by the woman because she liked his name in the phone book. And will she be easy to defend? Perhaps not:
I killed him, of course," she said. "But the way I look at it, I was perfectly justified."
Some of the stories have exactly what I expected from the book title: women who kill for some sort of personal gain. In "Two for Tea" and "No Trace," the main characters are devious, plotting their actions but also able to instantly react to situations.
In "Two for Tea" by Margaret Manners, a woman who chose her husband solely for wealth and prestige finds that threatened. Another woman tells her that she and the husband are in love and want to marry. This woman has something to help persuade the wife to get a divorce - a letter that the wife had once written to another man explaining that she loved him but the man who became her husband could give her more financially. The wife immediately comes up with a plan to rid herself of her rival.
Another wife is the central character in Veronica Parker Johns' "No Trace." That wife has a lover - who happens to be the husband of her husband's secretary. She has decided to break up with the lover, but things become very complicated. This could easily have been the plot of a film noir.
It is the husband who has a lover in "You'll Be the Death of Me." by Anthony Gilbert. (Gilbert was a pseudonym for a female author, Lucy Malleson.) His wife suspects nothing until she finds a distinctive button in her husband's coat pocket. (This story was originally published under the title "The Goldfish Button.") Then she hears of the woman whose coat is missing that button - and under what circumstances the button had come off the coat. A good story, with more than one surprise for the reader.
Another husband, about to be married as the story begins, is the narrator of "To Be Found and Read" by Miriam Allen deFord. On the way to his wedding, he is driving alone when he comes across an aging man who obviously needs help. He lets that man ride in his car, where the man soon dies. And then the story takes the first of several unexpected twists, leading to an even more unexpected ending.
At the start of Jean Potts' story "The Withered Heart," yet another husband has just murdered his wife and disposed of her body in a way that will look as though she had died in a car accident. Years of marriage to that woman "had very nearly destroyed in him the capacity for feeling anything." And then the man realizes that he must kill again to cover up the murder of his wife. This has my favorite ending of any of the stories in this collection.
The longest tale in this book is "There Are No Snakes in Hawaii" by Juanita Sheridan. This is narrated by an author living with his wife in Hawaii. Another couple are also coming there from New York, an artist who is to illustrate a book by that author and the artist's wife. The artist loves every aspect of life in Hawaii. His wife does not, and she wants them to return to New York. Sheridan makes Hawaii seems totally paradisiacal; how could anybody want to leave? And what happens when one is determined that they should both leave and the other is equally determine to stay?
There are no stories in this anthology that I think are wonderful but only a few that I actually dislike. My favorites are "There Are No Snakes in Hawaii" by Juanita Sheridan, "Thirty-Nine" by D. Jenkins Smith, and "The Withered Heart" by Jean Potts.
May 6, 2022
This MWA “Classic" short story collection, The Lethal Sex, was edited by John D. MacDonald, an odd choice in my opinion, because he could be gratingly condescending in his treatment of women. Some of the stories are by great writers ... but none is a great story. My recommendation? If you come across the book, read it, but don’t bother to go searching for it.
April 23, 2014
This book is worth reading for the stories, certainly; but the introduction by John MacDonald concerning his first editing job is priceless.
February 9, 2019
For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...
April 30, 2017
Uneven–as all short story collections are–but largely enjoyable. The last two stories perhaps colored my thinking too much or I might have given this a higher rating. This is, perhaps, chiefly interesting as a cultural document—particularly the into from the editor. Fascinating how many of the bad women in this are punished for their actions and how often the bad men really aren't. IT is strange and possibly telling that so many of the stories here seem to have the same, detached tone.
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