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The Black-Eyed Stranger
The Edgar Award–winning author of The Unsuspected and Mischief delivers a “highly ingenious” novel of a high-profile kidnapping (The New York Times). Sam Lynch is not a crook, but most of his friends are. A journalist by trade, he has the inside scoop on every crime in New York City, but can’t write a word of it for fear of his sources turning violent. This makes it impossible for him to hold a job, despite being one of the city’s finest reporters. But when he meets Kay Salisbury, heiress to the Salisbury cookie fortune and fiancée of one of the wealthiest bachelors in the city, Lynch stumbles on a story that’s too juicy to keep to himself. He finds her slumming in an underworld party, where her sweetness charms the hardened reporter. Soon after, he overhears two of his thuggish contacts planning to kidnap the young girl. To save Kay Salisbury will mean walking a tightrope between good and evil. One slip, and both will die.
205 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1951
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About the author
Charlotte Armstrong
159 books77 followersFull name Charlotte Armstrong Lewi. Wrote 29 novels, plus short stories and plays under the name Charlotte Armstrong and Jo Valentine. Additional writing jobs: New York Times (advertising department), Breath of the Avenue (fashion reporter).
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 10 reviews
March 11, 2026
Charlotte Armstrong Lewi wrote 29 novels and numerous short stories. The story, told in the third person, centers around one Sam Lynch, a news reporter, who kept his nose and ears so open that he often knew everyone’s business, but seldom reported much of it because that would leave him to open to danger. In other words, Lynch often hobnobs with the underside of society, with tramps and thieves if you will. “Violence attracted him. He was curious about people and especially about people reacting with violence to violent circumstances. He was always probing and prying to find out how such things had come to pass.”
At one party, he was leaning against a wall so that he was inside but seemingly outside the party when he noticed “her in the pale-blue frock.” He found the innocent young lady out of place and asks if she finds it interesting to be among thieves and swindlers and one or two professional killers. She, we later find, iss Lay Salisbury of the upper-crust blue-blood Salisbury family and her father runs Salisbury Biscuits. He urges her to just go home and stay out of trouble, but why he has such a soft spot for Kay he never wonders about.
It is about two months later when some dangerous types are seated in a restaurant and Lynch overhears a bit of their conversation about a dame and money and a clipping from a newspaper announcing her engagement to her boyfriend who also came from big money. Upon being invited to the table to say hello, Lynch sees the clipping and realizes what is up and that Kay is about to become the victim of a kidnapping plot. But he is afraid to let the characters seated there know he has caught on. “Sam thought a dog would have smelled fear on both of them who remained in the booth.”
Lynch wants for some reason to protect this innocent damsel and cannot go to the police and reveal he cannot be trusted by the characters he hangs out with. He decides to tell the girl’s family who does not take his warnings seriously, particularly when he refuses to reveal who is involved and how he knows. Frustrated by their inability to act carefully and to shield Kay from impending violence, Lynch suddenly without really thinking about grabs Kay and muffles her screams with a scarf and hides her in a mountain cabin, ostensibly for her safety, not knowing that while he hides her, others had used the opportunity to demand and get ransom payment.
The whole key to this tale is Lynch and how he, to protect he innocence, holds Kay prisoner in the mountain cabin, becoming the kidnapper himself. So for the reader the question becomes who is Lynch and whether he is a good guy or a bad guy himself. In other words, is Lynch becoming one of those characters he loved to write about? He explains: “There could be a hitch somewhere. Things don’t always go in order. It’s a slippery world.”
At one party, he was leaning against a wall so that he was inside but seemingly outside the party when he noticed “her in the pale-blue frock.” He found the innocent young lady out of place and asks if she finds it interesting to be among thieves and swindlers and one or two professional killers. She, we later find, iss Lay Salisbury of the upper-crust blue-blood Salisbury family and her father runs Salisbury Biscuits. He urges her to just go home and stay out of trouble, but why he has such a soft spot for Kay he never wonders about.
It is about two months later when some dangerous types are seated in a restaurant and Lynch overhears a bit of their conversation about a dame and money and a clipping from a newspaper announcing her engagement to her boyfriend who also came from big money. Upon being invited to the table to say hello, Lynch sees the clipping and realizes what is up and that Kay is about to become the victim of a kidnapping plot. But he is afraid to let the characters seated there know he has caught on. “Sam thought a dog would have smelled fear on both of them who remained in the booth.”
Lynch wants for some reason to protect this innocent damsel and cannot go to the police and reveal he cannot be trusted by the characters he hangs out with. He decides to tell the girl’s family who does not take his warnings seriously, particularly when he refuses to reveal who is involved and how he knows. Frustrated by their inability to act carefully and to shield Kay from impending violence, Lynch suddenly without really thinking about grabs Kay and muffles her screams with a scarf and hides her in a mountain cabin, ostensibly for her safety, not knowing that while he hides her, others had used the opportunity to demand and get ransom payment.
The whole key to this tale is Lynch and how he, to protect he innocence, holds Kay prisoner in the mountain cabin, becoming the kidnapper himself. So for the reader the question becomes who is Lynch and whether he is a good guy or a bad guy himself. In other words, is Lynch becoming one of those characters he loved to write about? He explains: “There could be a hitch somewhere. Things don’t always go in order. It’s a slippery world.”
February 23, 2016
Charlotte Armstrong was a prolific writer. She wrote twenty-nine novels, two plays and several original screen plays for television including one for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. She won an Edgar for best mystery in 1957 and was a finalist for the reward on two other occasions.
She is similar to writers like Margaret Millar or Ruth Rendell both of whom love to keep you guessing. As in: What are the protagonist real intentions? Who are the good guys/gals and who are the bad ones? You know, stories where things are often not quite like they seem on the surface. Something is going on, but you're just not exactly sure what. I would not put her in either Millar's or Rendell's class, but she always delivers a good story and sometimes an exceptional one.
This is one of her good but not great, leastwise for me, novels. It's one of those reluctant hero stories where somebody steps out of character, tries to do the right thing and then things go wrong.
Very wrong.
She is similar to writers like Margaret Millar or Ruth Rendell both of whom love to keep you guessing. As in: What are the protagonist real intentions? Who are the good guys/gals and who are the bad ones? You know, stories where things are often not quite like they seem on the surface. Something is going on, but you're just not exactly sure what. I would not put her in either Millar's or Rendell's class, but she always delivers a good story and sometimes an exceptional one.
This is one of her good but not great, leastwise for me, novels. It's one of those reluctant hero stories where somebody steps out of character, tries to do the right thing and then things go wrong.
Very wrong.
September 7, 2017
Took me a bit to get into the author's style, and to keep up with what was going on. But once I settled in I enjoyed it well enough, particularly the last quarter or so which was mesmerizing enough to keep me up past my bedtime.
July 23, 2010
Kay Hutchinson is a beautiful, sweet young heiress. Everyone loves her. Except that gangster dude who wants to kidnap and possibly murder her. Crime reporter Sam Lynch finds out about the plot and tries to warn her, but no one will listen. So he makes his own plan. Old-fashioned, but I still enjoyed it.
December 13, 2015
I love Charlotte Armstrong, although I don't always love her books. This one, I really enjoyed and read in one sitting (not terribly hard at just over 200 pages, but I've been having trouble getting into the stack of new books waiting for me, so it means something to me).
March 27, 2021
I have to say that I loved the twists and turns in this book and the suspense they created. The biggest disappointment was leaving the ending as a cliff hanger like Gone With the Wind. You want to believe the romance will turn out one way but there is no evidence that it will.
October 29, 2021
Early Bird Book Deal | Characters drawn terribly | Not a line of dialogue or an action taken in this book is compatible with reality.
July 23, 2022
Quite the literary “tough guy” thriller, written with dialogue that would fit nicely in a 1940s film noir production centered around a cynical existentialist.
June 16, 2009
I think the sinister, black-eyed stranger actually turned out to be the good guy. Armstrong does an even worse job of making her good guys look like bad guys than she does making her bad guys look like good guys.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 10 reviews