Something in the Shadows / Intimate Victims

Two novels of sophisticated suspense from the early 1960's.

SOMETHING IN THE SHADOWS-- It begins on an upstate country road. Joseph Meaker is following a Mercedes-Benz on his way home when the driver ahead of him swerves suddenly and runs over something in the road. Curious, Joseph stops--and finds his treasured cat, Ishmael, dying in the road. Grief-stricken, all he can ask himself is what kind of person would drive over an animal like this. He tracks the Mercedes to his neighbors, Dr. Louis Hart and his wife Janice. Joseph's wife, Maggie, thinks he should confront the doctor and be done with it. But that isn't Joseph's way. Joseph doesn't intend to get over it—he intends to get even.

INTIMATE VICTIMS-- Robert Bowser had embezzled exactly $100,043.77. He had written the farewell note to his wife and was ready to escape down to Brazil. Unfortunately, young social-wannabe Harvey Plangman finds the note. Plangman had always wanted to be rich, to be accepted into the moneyed world. He saw his chance, and blackmailed Bowser into trading places with him. Bowser moves into Plangman's small campus rooming house, while Plangman settles into an upscale New York apartment. It was the perfect switch—Bowser found himself enjoying the freedom of his new surroundings, and Plangman worked hard at ingratiating himself into his new world. It almost worked.

Vin Packer wrote many fine novels in the 50's and 60's, primarily for Gold Medal Books. They often tackled such topical subjects as sexual orientation and teenage alienation, and sold in the millions. Many of these novels were also superb works of suspense. In reality "Vin Packer" was Marijane Meaker, born in Auburn, New York, a graduate of The University of Missouri. She retired the Packer pseudonym in 1966 and began writing a series of award-winning young adult novels as M. E. Kerr. She has also written novels under her own name and she recently published Highsmith, a Romance of the 1950's, a memoir of mystery writer Patricia Highsmith. She now lives in East Hampton, New York.