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Title: Spellbinders in Suspense
Series: ----------
Author: Alfred Hitchcock (Editor)
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 215
Words: 77K

Synopsis:

From the Inside Cover

These are mystery-suspense stories. Some will keep you on the edge of your chair with excitement. Others are calculated to draw you along irresistibly to see how the puzzle works out. I have even included a sample or two of stories that are humorous, to show you that humor and mystery can also add up to suspense. So here you are, with best wishes for hours of good reading. --Alfred Hitchcock

Includes the following 13 stories:

The Chinese Puzzle Box - Agatha Christie

The Most Dangerous Game - Richard Connell

The Birds - Daphne du Maurier

Puzzle For Poppy - Patrick Quentin

Eyewitness - Robert Arthur

Man From The South - Roald Dahl

Black Magic - Sax Rohmer

Treasure Trove - F. Tennyson Jesse

Yours Truly, Jack The Ripper - Robert Bloch

The Treasure Hunt - Edgar Wallace

The Man Who Knew How - Dorothy L. Sayers

The Dilemma of Grampa DuBois - Clayre and Michel Lipman

P. Moran, Diamond-Hunter - Percival Wilde

My Thoughts:

I must have read this back in the day because I recognized over 3/4's of the stories. Now, some of them have been in other anthologies so that would account for some of them, but not the number I remembered. I'd start reading and then it would be “Ohhhhh, I remember how THIS story ends”, etc, etc. I am very sure this is the collection where I was introduced to the Most Dangerous Game (in short story form), The Birds and The Man Who Knew How.

I still labeled this as crime fiction, because it has aspects of criminality involved, but unlike some of Hitchcock's other collections, this doesn't focus nearly so much on that. I wasn't sure what else to label it as, so inertia won out :-)

While this was not as thrilling or exciting as some of the others, I'd choose this one collection if I had to recommend one so far. With the authors and stories involved, it gives a very broad collection upon which to build a good literary foundation, even for a Hitchcock book. Let me put it another way. The first story was a Poirot story and while I HATE Poirot with a passion, I still went on and read the entire book. I don't know what higher praise I could give.

Oh wait.

If you read this book:

You will win the lottery

Your hair will be the style you always wanted but couldn't get because of Nature

You will be at your ideal weight

People of the opposite gender, complete strangers, will come up to you and tell you how amazing you are and how they wished they knew you better

Hollywood will pay you 100 million dollars to make a movie about your life, starring your choice of actor to play you

You will get a magic fridge that is always full of just what you want to eat, AT THAT MOMENT!

If none of that appeals to you, then you shouldn't read this book. I'm actually writing this post on my new Lear Jet while on my way to check out locations in the Bahamas for the movie “The Bookstooge Chronicles”. And I'm drinking a Pina Colada Bang. That I just took out of my magic fridge.

'nuff said.

★★★★☆ ( )