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Title: 14 of My Favorites in
Suspense
Series: ----------
Editor:
Alfred Hitchcock
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre:
Crime Fiction
Pages: 181
Words:
71K
Publish: 1959
I’ve noted this on multiple other Alfred Hitchcock Presents collections, but sometimes they just rub me the wrong way. It’s like the writers are almost gleeful in how they are writing about about madness and murder and mayhem. I do not like that. The problem is that I can’t tell if it is actually the authors or just because of a mood that I’m in and not truly aware of.
I didn’t dislike this collection but I was glad to see the end of it. In the table of contents there are little blurbs for each story with spoilers galore. I’m not particularly worried as I doubt a single one of you will read this book, but just in case, do be aware. The other thing that might happen is that I win a big lottery, become super rich and famous and so some lowlife sues me because I spoiled this book for him. So I’m heading that problem off at the pass! (besides the obvious one, you know, of not buying a lottery ticket in the first place) (except on blogger, so total spoilers here)
★★✬☆☆
Blurb & Table of Contents & Synopses:
Sardonic Shockers
Selected by
Alfred Hitchcock. . .
The not so gentle man who knows all the angles (especially the sharp ones) and all the ropes (the hanging kind). From his deep-freeze of ingenious chillers incredible only to the unimaginative and horrifyingly real to the shrewd and daring—the following fourteen tales of intrigue were cunningly chosen to startle as well as satisfy, while above all holding you in the clammy grasp of. . .
SUSPENSE
"The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier, the source material for the film Hitchcock would do sometime later.
"Man with a Problem" by Donald Honig is a story about a man about to jump off a building and the beat cop trying to talk him down. The twist is that the cop was having an affair with the jumper’s wife and jumper takes them both over the edge at the end.
"They Bite" by Anthony Boucher is a straight up horror story, in which a foreign agent spying on an American desert installation learns of the ancient, bloodthirsty evil dwelling in the old abandoned adobes and dies.
In "The Enemy" by Charlotte Armstrong, a young man tries to help some kids find out who killed their dog and stumbles across a bold murder attempt.
H.G. Wells' "The Inexperience Ghost" starst with some well-bred gentlemen in their exclusive club telling tales to each other.
In "Sentence of Death" by Thomas Walsh, a cop tries to nab a killer with the help of the only reliable witness, and begins developing feelings for her.
"Spring Fever" by Dorthothy Salisbury Davis: a lonely housewife is tempted, then repelled, by a lecherous neighbor pursuing her, ending with violence.
Matthew Gant's "The Crate at Outpost One" has two soldiers guarding an important box with a secret weapon they have to withhold from the enemy. Turns out to be books.
Guy Cullingford's "My Unfair Lady" is about a man worried that he'll be accused of murdering the woman he found dead in the woods. He tries to find the little girl who initially witnessed the crime, only to discover the little girl has an agenda of her own, blackmailing the handsome murderer for free icecream and candy.
In Carter Dickson's "New Murders for Old", a man trying to recover from a nervous breakdown has either been targeted for murder or is losing his mind.
"Terrified" by C.B. Gifford has a man dying slowly after being run off the road, tormented by the young couple who did it. He dies but the cop easily figures it out at the end.
Joan Vatsik's "The Duel" a disturbed woman becomes convinced that a lothario ghost is in love with her, leading to tragic consequences for her husband who dies while she goes insane.
"Four O'Clock" by Price Day is about a man with the power to show the evil in men’s hearts. He decides to make everyone who is evil half the size of a regular man, at 4pm. With himself getting shrunk too as the twist.
Paul Eiden's "Too Many Coincidences" ends the collection. An insurance man ignores his gut feelings about potential danger to his wife because it goes against “the science of math” and she dies. Serves him right for being such a jackass.
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