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Title: Stories To Stay Awake By
Series: ———-
Editor: Alfred Hitchcock
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 198
Words: 78K
Table of Contents:
Introduction by Alfred Hitchcock (ghost written)
Success of a Mission by William Arden
The Splintered Monday by Charlotte Armstrong
Death by Judicial Hanging by Francis Beeding
Floral Tribute by Robert Bloch
Red Wine by Lawrence G. Blochman
Canavan’s Back Yard by Joseph Payne Brennan
A Murderous Slice by Marguerite Dickinson
The New Deal by Charles Einstein
Boomerang by Guy Fleming
Sleep is the Enemy by Anthony Gilbert
The Second Coming by Joe Gores
From the Mouse to the Hawk by Dion Henderson
Letter to the Editor by Morris Hershman
The Spy Who Came to the Brink by Edward D. Hoch
Second Talent by James Holding
The Ohio Love Sculpture by Adobe James
Homicide House by Day Keene
Every story here revolves around somebody dying or being killed or being a killer. I found them linked thematically quite well and they didn’t seem like random stories just lumped together.
I really liked the final story, Homicide House by Day Keene. As soon as the narrator revealed that he was bricking up the body of his murdered wife, I knew exactly where the story was going to end and it was ghoulishly delightful to watch as the story went down the path I had predicted.
This book was originally released in hardback with 35 stories and then later on was released in two paperbacks with each containing half the stories. The second paperback was called More Stories To Stay Awake By but I haven’t been able to track down an ebook version, not even a pdf scan, so I will probably not be able to read the other 18 stories from the original. What a shame.
★★★✬☆
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