Murder for Halloween - Hardcover

3.53

81 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0785823190 ISBN 13: 9780785823193

Publisher: Castle Books, 2000

Tales of suspense with an original novella by Peter Straub and short stories by Ed McBain, Marcia Muller, Dorothy Cannell, Peter Lovesey and others.

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From Kirkus Reviews:

Eighteen stories, a third of them new, the others (18421992) ranging from the predictable--Poe's ``The Black Cat'' and Ellery Queen's ``The Adventure of the Dead Cat''--to the seldom-seen--Bram Stoker's ``Walpurgis Night'' (interesting mainly as the canceled prologue to Dracula), Robert Bloch's vampire fantasy ``The Cloak,'' Anthony Boucher's tidy, hard-edged whodunit ``Trick-or-Treat''--as well as other reprints by August Derleth (an American happens onto the Guy Fawkes festivities), Talmage Powell (candy bars spiked with razor blades), Gahan Wilson (a memorable neighborhood witch), Judith Garner (an equally unsettling little girl), Edward D. Hoch (Nick Velvet steals a pumpkin), Marcia Muller (a routine homicide for Sharon McCone), and Steven Saylor (Gordianus the Finder vs. the lemures). Of the new stories, the headliner is Peter Straub's overextended but haunting jazz gothic ``Pork Pie Hat''; but the range of the remaining stories--Ed McBain's thuggish trick-or- treaters, Peter Lovesey's satisfyingly detailed gypsy curse, James Grady's wheels within wheels of predatory bullies, Michael Z. Lewin's sad-sack Indianapolis procedural, Dorothy Cannell's whimsical account of detection from beyond the grave--will dispel any fears of formula, leaving only a better grade of fear behind. (Slung edited Slow Hand: Women Writing Erotica, 1992, etc. Hartman is a freelance editor.) No real peaks or valleys here: If you like the concept, you'll like the stories just fine. And the intelligently varied selection produces an anthology that, for once, is greater than the sum of its parts. -- Copyright �1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

Tricks and treats abound in this specialized collection from veteran anthologist Slung (Fever) and a pseudonymous fellow mystery editor. Ed McBain writes about a grieving widower who falls prey to thieving teenagers wearing Frankenstein masks. The old guy's plans for revenge go astray. Or do they? Cartoonist Gahan Wilson tells a slight tale about that old standby: neighborhood kids and the local "haunted" house. Some treats are better than others. Michael Z. Lewin is a mite too cryptic in the short form; Marcia Muller's PI Sharon McCone tracks the last moves of a jumper from the Golden Gate Bridge in a tense work that's only remotely connected to Pumpkin Night. The best loot of the lot is Peter Straub's novella, in which a tired black jazz musician, in a room with a slowly diminishing bottle, recalls a night long ago on the bad side of town, a white woman's screams and a death that did or did not occur. Straub displays extensive jazz knowledge and faultless narrative control from start to finish. Eat this one first.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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