Alfred Hitchcock Presents: A Month Of Mystery

Here is a selection of the widest possible assortment of reading pleasure for the mystery reader. It is broken down into : A Week of Crime, A Week of Suspense, A Week of Detection, A Week of the Macabre, A Short Week of Long Ones. — The thirty-one selections include fascinating stories guaranteed to keep the reader pleasantly diverted, puzzled, or terrified, depending on which week he has chosen from.

Mr. Hitchcock, in his own words offers his views of the ideal setting and time for reading: “I feel that evening is the best time to approach the stories I have gathered together. An easy chair, a darkened room and a pool of light to read by offer the ideal setting in which to enjoy the varied attractions of these tales. If at all possible, avoid sharing the room with a teen-ager playing records that thump, shriek and wail at you. This is bound to be distracting. Unless of course, you are a teen-ager yourself. But if you are a teen-ager, what are you doing reading this book? Shouldn’t you be out organizing a protest against something?”

“So much for that. This time, as you will see, I have assembled a sample of stories embracing many aspects of the mystery tale. There are thirty-one of them. If you ration yourself and read one each night, they will last you exactly a month. Of course, you will have to pick a month with thirty-one days and start on the first. But this is for perfectionists only. I don’t insist. I am an advocate of the permissive school of reading.”

“Start anywhere and read as fast as you please. Now I must get back to the laboratory. There’s work to be done.”

the dusty drawer by: Muheim
drum beat by: Marlowe
south of the market by: Gores
the uses of intelligence by: Gant
love will find a way by: Alexander
retribution by: Zuroy
the queen’s jewel by: Holding
pool party by: Benedict
that touch of genius by: Sambrot
the crooked road by: Gaby
a taste for murder by: Ritchie
the twelve hour caper by: Marmer
the amature by: Gilbert
death wish by: Block
the singing piegon by: MacDonald
justice magnifique by: Treat
the white hat by: Rohmer
hard shell by: Rice
greedy night by: Bentley
a twlight adventure by: Post
murder matinee by: Masur
a humanist by: Gary
the oblong room by: Hoch
love me love me love me by: Waddell
special handling by: Keefauver
dead man’s story by: Rigsby
the leagend of joe lee by: MacDonald
crooked bone by: Kersh
the janissaries of emilion by: Copper
chinoiserie by: McCloy
soldier key by: Lanier