When plotting a murder (figuratively speaking), the mystery writer has at hand any number of M.O.s, including such tried and true conventions as the locked room, the unbreakable alibi, the double bluff, and the mistaken identity. Now, in Murderous Schemes, renowned mystery writers Donald E. Westlake and J. Madison Davis offer an illuminating look at eight such mystery conventions, illustrating each with four short stories written by some of the masters of the form. The resulting collection of thirty-two tales spans a hundred and fifty years of crime fiction and includes virtually every style imaginable, from the hard-boiled detective story to the cozy armchair mystery. Here Westlake and Davis provide the avid mystery reader (and the budding mystery writer) with a glimpse behind the curtain, allowing them to compare for themselves how some of the great crime writers worked their magic on a particular convention. These tales highlight not only differences between individual writers, but also the differences between American and British detective fiction, and they illuminate the evolution of crime writing over time. Here is a glorious treasure chest of tales that cover every crime in the book, written by a who's who of crime fiction--Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, G. K. Chesterton, Raymond Chandler, Dorothy L. Sayers, Chester Himes, Edward D. Hoch, and Lawrence Block, to name but a few.
Bringing together a century and a half of superb crime stories, Murderous Schemes is a glorious collection that will inform and delight anyone who loves mystery and mayhem.
