[GET] Alfred Hitchcock Presents: 16 Skeletons From My Closet

[StillStanding]

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First up is “Ghost Story”, from Henry Kane, in which his noted P.I. character Pete Chambers unearths an old crime when it appears a ghost is taking retribution against the family members who killed him.

James Holding’s “Where is Thy Sting?” is a fun but goofy story about a guy who uses honeybees to kill the writer his wife is having an affair with.

In Craig Rice’s “The Butler Who Didn’t Do It” a small-time lawyer is hired to find out who killed the former butler of a rich, corrupt family. The saving grace of this story was the protagonist, Malone, who on the surface doesn’t seem very enthusiastic about his work.

“Christmas Gift”, by Robert Turner, is about cops closing in on a criminal who stops to visit his family on Christmas Eve, and a surprising act of kindness.

Next is another terrific story from C.B. Gilford, “The Man at the Table”, in which a poker player plays a game of bluff with a killer who has broken into his home. I saw the twist coming at about the halfway point, but that did nothing to diminish my enjoyment of this one. Gilford rarely disappoints.

“Death of Another Salesman”, by Donald Honig, is a clever story about a salesman who suspects a woman has been murdered in the motel room next to his. Like the story previous to it, I saw the twist coming, but still really enjoyed the story.

And speaking of twists, in Robert Bloch’s “Man with a Hobby”, a conversation between two bowlers at a bar ends with police searching the area for a brutal serial killer—and Bloch’s famously twisted touch.

Robert Arthur, who is the actual editor and “stand-in” for Hitchcock for this this volume and many (most?) of the others, contributes “…Said Jack the Ripper”. An escaped killer hides out at a wax museum of famous killers, not suspecting something bizarre going on there.

In William Logan’s “A Gun with a Heart”, a hit-man struggles with his conscience when he’s ordered to kill his good friend.

“Assassination”, by Dion Henderson, has a security agent making sure a dignitary is safe on the way to the airport—but the agent isn’t quite what he seems.

In Richard Deming’s “A Little Sorocide”, a ridiculously meek man plots to kill his domineering sister with poison, and thinks naturally go completely off the rails.

In Lawrence Treat’s “The Man Who Got Away with It”, a murderer who has since assumed a new life and identity can’t resist tempting fate by visiting the woman he killed for.

In “Secret Recipe”, by Charles Mergandahl, a man has important dinner guests, but his psychotic wife may be serving a main course out of his nightmares. This one was genuinely creepy and even had me a bit nervous.

“Daddy-O”, by David Alexander, is another winner—a creepy old man blackmails two sisters into letting him move in and attend to his every insane fatherly whim.

“The Crime Machine”, by the great Jack Ritchie, is about a professional hit-man blackmailed by a strange man who claims to have witnessed his crimes with the aid of a time machine.

And Fletcher Flora wraps up the collection with “Homicide and Gentleman”, in which a world-weary police detective investigates a murder on a golf course, only to uncover a bizarre love triangle and a gentlemanly code of honor about murder.

This is probably the best Hitchcock collection I’ve read so far, with the most number of must-read stories. About half of them are really terrific; the others are at least quite good.
Stand-out stories: “The Man at the Table”, “Death of Another Salesman”, “The Man Who Got Away”, “Secret Recipe”, “Daddy-O”, “The Crime Machine”, and “Homicide and Gentleman”.

Code:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/nqwjl87t1nolke5/

[redsfan]

Thanks for the share, StillStanding. A good chance of thunderstorms in my area today, so this is a perfect book to dive into. It's probably better than anything on TV, so many garbage shows on especially on those stupid reality shows. Reps added of course.