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Tales of Obsession: Mystery Stories of Fatal Attractions and Deadly Desires
Fourteen spine-tingling stories of suspense include P. D. James's ""The Victim,"" in which a gorgeous celebrity uses her infatuated ex-husband as a murder weapon, and tales by Ruth Rendell, Patricia Highsmith, and other authors.
CONTENTS
A Man Around the House by Nancy Pickard
A Glowing Future by Ruth Rendell
Catalyst by Evan Hunter
Death of a Romance Writer by Joan Hess
By the Time You Read This by Larry S. Hoke
All At Once, No Alice by Cornell Woolrich
I Don’t Do Divorce Cases by David Justice
Killing Howard by Ralph McInerny
The Victim by P.D. James
The Brothers by Lawrence Treat
Breakfast Television by Robert Barnard
A Letter Too Late by Henry Slesar
The Betrayers by Stanley Ellin
The Perfect Alibi by Patricia Highsmith
CONTENTS
A Man Around the House by Nancy Pickard
A Glowing Future by Ruth Rendell
Catalyst by Evan Hunter
Death of a Romance Writer by Joan Hess
By the Time You Read This by Larry S. Hoke
All At Once, No Alice by Cornell Woolrich
I Don’t Do Divorce Cases by David Justice
Killing Howard by Ralph McInerny
The Victim by P.D. James
The Brothers by Lawrence Treat
Breakfast Television by Robert Barnard
A Letter Too Late by Henry Slesar
The Betrayers by Stanley Ellin
The Perfect Alibi by Patricia Highsmith
- GenresShort Stories
256 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published February 1, 1994
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38 people want to read
About the author
Cynthia Manson
53 books13 followersCynthia Manson is a literary agent, formerly Director of Marketing at Davis Publications, publishers of Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazines. She has also edited several anthologies.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 27, 2017
Hated it!
September 3, 2014
As usual recently, I only got this anthology from inter-library loan to read the Cornell Woolrich story in it.
That story is "All At Once, No Alice" - it is perhaps fitting that as I near the end of my Woolrich reading, I hit a story that comprises aspects (and attendant problems) from the first Woolrich story I read in this general overview (the vast conspiracies and attendant problems of dismantling same in "Graves For The Living") and also closely replicates a plot of a mid-point read ("I Won't Take a Minute" aka "I'll Just Be a Minute" aka "Wait for Me Downstairs" aka "Finger of Doom"). Much like that latter story, we open with a happy couple (newly married in this case) who arrive in town on their honeymoon to find no rooms available to rent. The hotel finds a makeshift cot and small room and the husband spends the night at the YMCA, only to return the next morning to find his wife missing and everyone at the hotel adamant that they've never seen her and never met him before....
Woolrich handles this nightmarish scenario with a bit more aplomb than the aforementioned "I Won't Take A Minute" - charting the downward spiral of desperation and anguish as every possible avenue of proof leads to a dead end. Finally, . It's very satisfying and as usual Woolrich is more interested in the emotional anguish of his main character and the ease with which the normal, sane world can slip out from under you than in logically selling the reader on how the plot could have occurred as stated. Still, a good, solid read.
That story is "All At Once, No Alice" - it is perhaps fitting that as I near the end of my Woolrich reading, I hit a story that comprises aspects (and attendant problems) from the first Woolrich story I read in this general overview (the vast conspiracies and attendant problems of dismantling same in "Graves For The Living") and also closely replicates a plot of a mid-point read ("I Won't Take a Minute" aka "I'll Just Be a Minute" aka "Wait for Me Downstairs" aka "Finger of Doom"). Much like that latter story, we open with a happy couple (newly married in this case) who arrive in town on their honeymoon to find no rooms available to rent. The hotel finds a makeshift cot and small room and the husband spends the night at the YMCA, only to return the next morning to find his wife missing and everyone at the hotel adamant that they've never seen her and never met him before....
Woolrich handles this nightmarish scenario with a bit more aplomb than the aforementioned "I Won't Take A Minute" - charting the downward spiral of desperation and anguish as every possible avenue of proof leads to a dead end. Finally, . It's very satisfying and as usual Woolrich is more interested in the emotional anguish of his main character and the ease with which the normal, sane world can slip out from under you than in logically selling the reader on how the plot could have occurred as stated. Still, a good, solid read.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews