The collection end with Hal Ellson’s “White Lie, or Black?”, in which a police detective in Mexico must help his chief out of an embarrassing jam by engaging the services of a thief. The lure of easy money lures him on, until dead bodies start piling up. The novelette “Punch Any Number”, by Jack Ritchie, is a great story about a P.I. Lewis, a vacationing politician meets a beautiful girl, but is paranoid she may be there to ruin his career. “Beiner and Wife”, by Michael Brett, is a good one about a struggling grocer making a deal he soon regrets. “Everybody Should Have a Hobby”, by Theodore Mathieson, is fine but unremarkable. Runyon’s “The Waiting Room”, is a terrific tale that manages to be both hardboiled and introspective at the same time, as three criminals under siege by police wait for inevitable death. “A Steal at the Price”, by James Holding, is a well-written story diminished by an ending that amounts to nothing but a bad joke, really, and is probably the weakest story in the collection.Ĭharles W. If you like Holmes stories without Holmes, you’ll like this one. Solar Pons, if you don’t know, is Derleth’s Sherlock Holmes pastiche. Good ending on this one.Īugust Derleth’s “Others Deal in Death”, is a Solar Pons story. and Death”, from Henry Slesar, a gigolo-type is frustrated when his wife hires a financial manager. Gifford, a slighted student challenges his rival to a duel involving a rattlesnake in a box. “An Interrogation”, by Talmage Powell, is another classic-style Hitchcock story, complete with an amusing twist ending. “An Honest Man”, by Elijah Ellis, is a mystery story about a small town district attorney and a sheriff solving the murder of a travelling salesman in the town hotel. Then, in “Two Bits Worth of Luck”, by Fletcher Flora, we get a solid police detective story complete with all of Flora’s notable wit and polish-Fletcher Flora is one of those writers who pops up in these anthologies often and you really can’t go wrong with him. It starts strong with Syd Hoff’s “The Human Fly”, about a boy scarred for life by an encounter at a Coney Island freak show. I was excited to read this one, as it contains stories from some writers I already know are immensely reliable. The stories in this volume date from 1961 to 1970, all culled from the pages of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. With an Introduction by Alfred Hitchcock. Punch Any Number by Jack Ritchie (novelette) Two Bits' Worth of Luck by Fletcher Flora (novelette)Įverybody Should Have a Hobby by Theodore Mathieson Now Alfie has set up his chessboard of evil, and turned his grandest masters of the macabre loose to do their bloodcurdling best - in novelettes and stories by such fiendish favorites as: A drop of arsenic in coffee, a silken noose around the neck, a sharpened knife in the back, a bullet in the brain, are just a few of the classic ploys - and there is always somebody to come up with a fascinating new variation. I rated this an 8 but I rate things on the high side, so deduct 1-2 points.Alfred Hitchcock loves the murder game because it offers such an infinite possibility of moves. Not enough to bring this up to Alfred Hitchcock Presents standards. He played fix it man Emmet Clark in those and the valet in what turns out to be a significant character in. Also, fans of color era The Andy Griffith Show (1960) or the equally tepid Mayberry R.F.D. Having said that, it is nice to see Peter Falk in something from his days before Columbo (1971). The story is (nearly) always a buildup to the ironic twist. Let's face it, they rarely hit very high on the scale of those. The question that vexed me was "What's the point of an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode without an ironic twist?" You don't watch them for high drama or great action/adventure. I've noted how important they are, never dreaming there would be an episode without one. I've only seen just over half of them but it was bewildering to watch the end and realize the episode had no twist. Maybe others can tell me of other episodes I have not yet seen. It may not be the only Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode without the ironic twist at the end, but it is the only one I have seen so far. One has to wonder how this script ever got greenlit by Hitchcock's production team.
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