Frederick Irving Anderson (1877-1947) "has shown perhaps the greatest mastery of the American short detective story . . . in ingenuity, command of plot, and the carefully integrated backgrounds of his work." So wrote the great mystery critic and historian, Howard Haycraft, in 1941. Ellery Queen added that "his style is rich in detail and double-rich in expression."Many of Anderson's stories take place in New York City during the 1920s and the 1930s, and they feature the manhunter Deputy Parr and the "extinct author," Oliver Armiston, who stopped writing ingenious crime stories because criminals were copying his gimmicks.The book is edited and introduced by the Anderson expert (and Poe scholar), Benjamin F. Fisher.This is the thirty-eighth volume in Crippen & Landru's "Lost Classics" series -- previously uncollected detective and mystery stories by great writers of the past. The cover is by Gail Cross, adapted from a 1935 photograph of New York City by Berenice Abbott for the WPA.