Tales for a Rainy Night

by David Alexander (Editor, Foreword), Stanley Ellin (Contributor), Edogawa Rampo (Contributor)

CONTENTS
▪️"Forward" - David Alexander

▪️"Robert" - Stanley Ellin
▪️"The Human Chair" - Edogawa Rampo
▪️"Pressure" - Morris Hershman
▪️"The Murder of George Washington" - Richard M. Gordon
▪️"The Widow of Ephesus" - Margaret Manners
▪️"Lost Leader" - Michael Gilbert
▪️"Doctor's Orders" - John F. Suter
▪️"Walking Alone" - Miriam Allen deFord
▪️"The Twenty Friends of William Shaw" - Raymond E. Banks
▪️"Inspector's Lunch" - Donald A. Yates
▪️"Reflections on Murder" - Nedra Tyre
▪️"West Riding to Maryland" - Maurice Procter
▪️"The Pink Caterpillar" - Anthony Boucher
▪️"Flash Attachment" - Dell Shannon
▪️"Death and the Compass" - Jorge Luis Borges
▪️"Have You Lost Your Head?" - Joseph Commings
▪️"The Child Watcher" - Ernest Harrison
▪️"View from the Terrace" - Mike Marmer

Genres: Short Stories, Anthologies, Horror

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

David Alexander (1907-1973) was an American newspaperman, horse-racing journalist and prolific novelist with an idiosycratic style. He was born and educated in Kentucky and at Columbia University. He ran tours in France and Belgium and married Alice Le Mere in Europe in 1930 before returning to a journalism career in the US. He wrote seven novels about a Broadway editor called Bart Hardin. Alexander served in the US Army during World War II. He was a freelance writer from 1945 to his death.

Reviews

[Shawn]

This (the 14th MYSTERY WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA anthology) is, atypically, un-themed - unless the theme is the vast variety of authors (despite the name, some not even American) and what they have written under the generalized genre tag of "mystery." So we get thrillers, creepy suspense, the crime tale, the oddball historical mystery, etc.

Is it good? Well, even with my general disdain for the "mystery story", I liked more of it than I disliked, so maybe that says something for flexibility - I imagine those who dig "mystery" fiction in general, and maybe were only looking for "detective" stories, may be a little disappointed, as I'd call a lot of what's here "crime" fiction instead.

But, on to the stories - and honestly three of them can be discarded pretty quickly. I'll be honest, I bailed after a page or so of "West Riding To Maryland" by Maurice Procter, as it's a historical mystery set in England during the Reign of Charles The First. If that sounds like your thing, go for it! A nanny nurses a grudge against her boss, and thus against the baby she protects, in "The Child Watcher" by Ernest Harrison. Flash length - effective but forgettable. In "‌Inspector's Lunch" by Donald A. Yates - a police detective explains how he solved a puzzling series of robberies. Perfectly fine for what it is - but a good example of why I don't generally read this stuff.

A little better, if still pretty weak, were: "Pressure" by Morris Hershman in which an aging gangster is facing another stretch in the pen (sure to be his last) and the police would like him to grass on all his corrupt associates and enter witness protection. But he doesn't feel as if he has anything in common with the average man (as his world is the Underworld) and so refuses... and the cops apply pressure... Not bad, a short little crime piece, utterly disposable. Meanwhile, during World War II a former insurance investigator tells his fellow soldiers about his assignment to check why a man in Mexico (who had died and left a policy) claimed to be a doctor when he wasn't in "The Pink Caterpillar" by Anthony Boucher. The details he uncovers lead to a rather far-fetched assumption on the investigator's part. Okay, so, this story (along with "The Human Chair") appeared on my "to read" list, but unfortunately, I found it pretty weak - mostly because it's just not very well-constructed after a promising start. There's an early discussion of South Pacific shamanistic magic among some soldiers that leads our main character - Fergus O'Breen - to recite his story (because, as he sees it, private investigators are not hard-boiled realists of fiction but instead must often run into strange things when investigating crimes - he himself has met a werewolf - although he doesn't tell that story) but the story falters when the separate discussion at the start (which turns on some unlikely time travel!) reveals itself to be very important to the solution of his mystery, which happened half a world away and years ago. Very low-level pulp, honestly.

Solid but a little flawed: A letter from 1776 is found hidden in a chimney, which sketches a plot by a cook to poison George Washington because he's a traitor to the crown - to be followed by the poisoner's immediate suicide in "The Murder Of George Washington" by Richard M. Gordon. But we all know Washington was never poisoned - so what happened? A cute little trifle playing on forgotten historical beliefs. "The Twenty Friends Of William Shaw" by Raymond E. Banks has the butler of a wealthy man visit twenty people who the man had saved from poverty, asking their help in disposing of a set of picnic baskets, while the wealthy man's wife has gone missing.... I was enjoying this as a ghoulish little thing but what starts out as a rather darkly comic macabre piece (great scene at the junk yard), loses a bit of momentum by turning into a "surprise mystery" at the end. Finally, in Nedra Tyre's "Reflections On Murder," an essay about murder in fiction (and how it reflects on real life) gradually reveals itself to be the main character attempting to explain to us his strange relationship with his unseen neighbor and how events ended up where they are for him now. An odd story - it starts as essentially a monologue about the various forms of detective/crime fiction, then develops into the thoughts of a somewhat isolated man who does not desire company, before he begins to tell us about his shut-in neighbor and what happened when she finally made contact with him. Interesting.

There were seven absolutely solid/good reads here (the book has a number of short-short stories, so crams a lot in). In Stanley Ellin's "Robert" a teacher, nearing retirement and following on a trying year in which her mother died, confronts a formerly reliable grade-school student as to why he seems so distracted recently, only to have him confess he was thinking of killing her - which escalates into him turning the class against her in a case of psychological warfare. This is a solid little piece full of growing suspense and Ellin nails the sociopathic psychology of the boy (although such things were not really known, or at least explicated, at the time - so the story contains a small plot caveat at the end that weakly gestures towards possible motives). Good stuff, overall. An author receives a large letter/ms in the mail which purports to be the story of an ugly, self-loathing man who (due to his skills at furniture making) created a large chair for the lobby of a hotel, inside of which he could reside. While originally intended for robbery motives, he finds a certain satisfaction in the close contact he has with unknowing strangers (especially women) and starts to rethink his plans in "The Human Chair" by Edogawa Rampo. I was happy to finally read this classic by the Japanese author (whose pseudonym, pronounced phonetically, replicates "Edgar Allan Poe" as said with a Japanese accent), which touches on a number of "horror" concepts - self-loathing, unknowing intimate contact with strangers, a distrust of inanimate objects. Even the climax (which would have certainly played out in a more obvious and melodramatic way in the hands of a lesser writer) is satisfying. "The Widow Of Ephesus" by Margaret Manners features a gold-digger with his eye on a wealthy widow discovering a secret during their drunken spree (following his proposal), which convinces him that blackmail, instead of marriage, is his best path - but the story is more complicated than that, and involves one character's misunderstanding of a classic tale from THE SATYRICON. A solid little crime tale, engagingly written. Petrella (a London police officer, so the story is something like a British DRAGNET episode) follows the clues that eventually point to a gang of young men armed with air guns who are robbing those they consider "criminals" (like conniving shop owners) and then ("Robin Hood"-style) giving their scores to "those in need" in the story "Lost Leader." This is an interesting "police procedural" story by Michael Gilbert - you don't get *much* of a sense of Petrella as a character, but the story itself - which touches on squandered character strength in underpriviliged youth, is not bad, with an exciting ending.

Good reads continue in "Walking Alone" by Miriam Allen deFord, as a man plays hooky from his tedious job/nagging wife and takes a bus out into the rural suburbs to waste the day walking by himself. But he sees a girl abducted and doesn't act to report it to the police, fearing his boss and wife will find out where he was. And then the girl turns up dead, and the man eventually caught for the crime looks nothing like the abductor he saw.... This is a solid little thing, coming across as almost Cornell Woolrich stylistically (without as much internal, agonized anguish - but not by much!) - as the man's conscience and cowardice fight within him. Quite good.
A man returns (after 17 years in the jungles of Borneo) to the small New England town which rejected him as a youngster, bringing alone his native bride in Joseph Commings' "Have You Lost Your Head?". Soon, after a couple are beheaded, he admits that his native rival, a death-crazed head-hunter, has followed him back... Not a bad little pulpy murder yarn (modern sensibilities may not be able to make it past the description of the new bride and some racial assumptions of the plot) - compact but effective. And, in "View From The Terrace" by Mike Marmer, a husband's plunge to his death from a balcony leads to his wife's interview by police, as she privately considers alibis and confessions and the family-bonding "Game" she played with the children (which her husband never took part in). Well-done.

There are three really excellent pieces here: "Death And The Compass" by Jorge Luis Borges has the death of a prominent Hebrew scholar initiate a series of murders which can only be solved in an abstract way. It's Borges and, so, inherently great, as a detective story that is also a meta-textual deconstruction of the rational "promise" of detective stories. In John F. Suter's "Doctor's Orders" a woman barely recovers from a traumatic birthing experience, while her husband discusses the details with the doctor. This is a nasty little bit of crime writing, notable also for being a "short short" - about two pages long - which seems to be what "Flash" was called before it was called "Microfiction," which the intro claims was a primarily American style from 1925-1945 (which makes sense as mags always liked to have shorts to fill space - although that "American" statement conflicts with "short short Feuilleton" of French Newspapers at the turn of the century. A good read. Finally, a boy (homebound and recovering from the measles) reflects on his father (separated by a recent divorce) and his flighty/alcoholic mother - who has recently vanished and been replaced by one of her dubious boyfriends who states she had to leave on an emergency - in "Flash Attachment" by Dell Shannon. But why does the boyfriend want the kid out of the house so badly, even though doctor's orders mean he should stay inside? This is a really strong story - suspense in the anguished Cornell Woolrich mode - and Shannon does a great job capturing the voice and thinking of a young boy agonized by divorce and worried about his untrustworthy mom. Really enjoyable stuff with a powerful "seconds counting down" ending!

And that's all there is - there ain't no more!

[Derek Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Editor David Alexander has chosen a fine collection of short mystery stories (some especially short) from the last 1950s that wanders the full landscape of mystery, including psychological horror and such atypical approaches as Jorge Luis Borges' "Death and the Compass." My favorite is the opener, "Robert," by Stanley Ellin. I'm always found of warped-child stories, and this one's particularly eerie. I doubt this collection is available anywhere today except in the back of a friend's closet.

[Nancy Boyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

The perfect collection of short stories, just the right length for reading before bed & very creepy. I appreciated that it was a collection of stories I'd never read before; usually I'll have read at least one before somewhere, but all of these were brand new. Well-written & suspenseful, very enjoyable!

[Jodi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice, compact collection of spooky/mysterious stories, published in 1961. A fun, quick read.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

CONTENTS


▪️"Forward" - David Alexander

▪️"Robert" - Stanley Ellin
▪️"The Human Chair" - Edogawa Rampo
▪️"Pressure" - Morris Hershman
▪️"The Murder of George Washington" - Richard M. Gordon
▪️"The Widow of Ephesus" - Margaret Manners
▪️"Lost Leader" - Michael Gilbert
▪️"Doctor's Orders" - John F. Suter
▪️"Walking Alone" - Miriam Allen deFord
▪️"The Twenty Friends of William Shaw" - Raymond E. Banks
▪️"Inspector's Lunch" - Donald A. Yates
▪️"Reflections on Murder" - Nedra Tyre
▪️"West Riding to Maryland" - Maurice Procter
▪️"The Pink Caterpillar" - Anthony Boucher
▪️"Flash Attachment" - Dell Shannon
▪️"Death and the Compass" - Jorge Luis Borges
▪️"Have You Lost Your Head?" - Joseph Commings
▪️"The Child Watcher" - Ernest Harrison
▪️"View from the Terrace" - Mike Marner


This is one of the more-or-less annual anthologies issued by the Mystery Writers of America. Tales for a Rainy Night is the fourteenth volume. Most of the anthologies have a theme; this one does not. Many of them have stories original to the anthology, but these were all published elsewhere previously.

I think that this is one of the best selections of stories in any of these anthologies that I have read. There is only one of the eighteen stories that I don't like and that, strangely, is the one by the most highly respected author in the book, Jorge Luis Borges. "Death and the Compass" is about a series of murders, each with some connection to Judaism.

Why don't I like it? I will quote a typical passage:

"Three years ago, in a gambling house on the Rue de Toulon, you arrested my brother and had him sent to jail. My men slipped me away from the gun battle in a coupé, with a policeman's bullet in my stomach. Nine days and nine nights I lay dying in this desolate, symmetrical villa; fever gripped me, and the odious two-faced Janus, who watches the twilights and the dawns, lent horror to my dreams and to my waking. I came to abominate my body; I came to sense that two eyes, two hands, two lungs are as monstrous as two faces."

I think the section about "the odious two-faced Janus, who watches the twilights and the dawns" is extremely unlikely dialogue. Even more so is the "desolate, symmetrical villa."

I realize that part of the problem might be the translation from Spanish by Donald A. Yates, but Yates is an experienced writer of mysteries, who, in fact, has a story of his own in this book.

I will reluctantly confess that I have a problem with another story here, one by my favorite author of mystery short stories, Stanley Ellin. I don't get the ending of Ellin's story "Robert." Has Robert just been echoing his parents' behavior or are they getting it from him? Surely he is meant to be evil, but what do his parents' actions mean? This is such a good story up until the last page that I suspect that I may be missing something obvious.

Three of the stories are very short. "The Child Watcher" by Ernest Harrison builds to a very effective surprise ending. "The Murder of George Washington" by Richard M. Gordon tells of an attempt to poison Washington, that does not go as planned. John F. Suter has one of my favorite stories in the book, "Doctor's Orders," about an example of true evil.

Anthony Boucher's tale "The Pink Caterpillar" has a skeleton as one of the central characters. Keep in mind that not all Boucher's stories are mysteries.

The most straightforward mystery in the book is "Inspector's Lunch" by Donald A. Yates, mentioned earlier as the translator of the Borges story. This is a simple problem which, as usual, I didn't solve.

Gangsters come in all ages. "Pressure" by Morris Hershman is the story of an aging gangster whom the police want to testify about gang activities.

Michael Gilbert's series character, Detective Sergeant Petrella, is confronted with a very much younger gang in "Lost Leader."

The central character in "West Riding to Maryland" by Maurice Procter is another boy, accused of a crime that he did not commit. This takes place in Yorkshire in the time of Charles I, when theft was a capital crime.

"The Human Chair" by Edogawa Rampo is a story about a man in Japan hiding in a chair. This is probably the most unusual story in this book.

But human chairs (and pink caterpillars) are not the only out of the ordinary things in the book. There are head-hunters from Borneo in, of all places, Vermont in "Have You Lost Your Head?" by Joseph Commings.

"The Widow of Ephesus" sounds like the title of a tale set in an exotic land, but not so. The wealthy widow in this story by Margaret Manners speaks English and is able to outsmart a perfidious suitor. Maybe.

The narrator of Raymond E. Bank's story "The Twenty Friends of William Shaw" has a serious problem. He has something to dispose of; in fact, he and nineteen other people each have something to dispose of. I have come across several stories by Banks recently and have enjoyed them all.

The central character in "Walking Alone" by Miriam Allen deFord also has a terrible problem. Perhaps if he just ignores it, it will go away. Perhaps not.

Mike Marmer's story "View from the Terrace" tells of a children's game. Marmer, the story introduction says, was a writer of comedies. Obviously, not always.

Dell Shannon seems to be largely forgotten now, but she was once quite well-known for her police procedural books. Her story "Flash Attachment" is quite different. A ten year old boy living with his mother finds himself alone with a male friend of his mother, who tells the boy that his mother has gone out and repeatedly urges the boy to do so as well. But the boy doesn't believe that his mother would really have gone out without telling him.

In "Reflections on Murder" by Nedra Tyre, the narrator is a man who is a mystery fan, who makes notes about committing a perfect murder. This eventually causes a problem. Other mystery fans reading this story will probably understand the reference in the last sentence of the story to "The Hands of Mr. Ottermole or The Two Bottles of Relish." These are both much-praised mystery short stories, "Ottermole" written by Thomas Burke and "Relish" written by Lord Dunsany. However, they are short stories, and reading one of them is not likely to fill a "few hours."

A fine and warmly recommended anthology!

[Jeff Hobbs]

Read so far:

*Robert / Stanley Ellin
The Human Chair / Edogawa Rampo --2
Pressure / Morris Hershman
The Murder of George Washington / Richard M. Gordon
*The Widow of Ephesus / Margaret Manners
*Lost Leader / Michael Gilbert
*Doctor's Orders / John F. Suter
Walking Alone / Miriam Allen de Ford --2
The Twenty Friends of William Shaw / Raymond E. Banks
*Inspector's Lunch / Donald A. Yates
Reflections on Murder / Nedra Tyre --3
*West Riding to Maryland / Maurice Procter
*The Pink Caterpillar / Anthony Boucher
Flash Attachment / Dell Shannon
Death and the Compass / Jorge Luis Borges --2
Have You Lost Your Head? / Joseph Commings
The Child Watcher / Ernest Harrison
View from the Terrace / Mike Farmer

[Esthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Get ready to curl up in a comfy chair...And shiver! Without exception, the writers in this collection are brilliant in their chosen literary nook. Surprising, but absolutely appropriate guests include Borges. The Human Chair, by Edogawa Rampo, is a feat of skin-crawling brilliance. And at the end you breath a big sigh of relief and still feel cozy in your comfy chair as the rain beats against your window. Well ordered, well chosen, elegant representatives of their genre, one and all.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found an old copy of this when I was a kid and these stories TERRIFIED me!!! Especially the one about the chair, and the one about the revenge of the headhunter from New Guinea (I think?). Of course I read it about 1,000 times anyway, but lost my copy years ago. Just ordered one, will be interesting to see how the stories read now, compared to my memories of them..!

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this little gem lurking in the stacks of my local library. Published in 1961, it is an anthology of short stories primarily originally published in the 1950s. An interesting group of stories dealing with the dark underside of life.

[Halifaxfriends · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book, published in 1961, is available at the Halifax branch. This is a collection of short stories, primarily published in the 1950s. Some of the stories seem dated, but they are all well-written and interesting.

[Joann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mysterry writers of America anthology. I want to read more.

[May Ling · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was really a descent set of short stories. I like the little set up paragraph that starts each one.

[Lew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm mainly a fan of older science fiction but I have started reading older mysteries/crime stories. I enjoyed reading this collection of stories from the late 50s.

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read the story called The Human Chair. You won't forget it!