The Pleasant Assassin and Other Cases of Dr Basil Willing PDF Download

Author: Helen McCloy
Publisher: Orion
ISBN: 1471912590
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 182

View

Book Description
From one of the best-loved authors of the Golden Age of detective fiction, this collection of short stories by Helen McCloy features psychiatrist-sleuth Dr Basil Willing. Beginning with her classic, Through a Glass, Darkly, which she later expanded into a full-length novel, McCloy experimented with daringly imaginative concepts within the framework of the formal, fairplay detective story. From doppelgangers to flying saucers each story demonstrates the author's masterful combination of style, content and technique to produce some of crime fiction's finest work.

Author: Helen McCloy
Publisher: Orion
ISBN: 1471912493
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 169

View

Book Description
Psychiatrist-sleuth Dr Basil Willing is in a tobacconist's in Manhattan when another customer follows him into the shop, buys cigarettes, and leaves in a hurry. The man hails a taxi to take him to 51st street with the instruction: 'Come back and call for me; I am Dr Basil Willing.' Intrigued, the real Basil Willing hails a second taxi and finds himself at a formal dinner party given by a psychiatrist for his patients, who do not really seem at ease there - and later he discovers the horrifying reason why ...

Author: Helen McCloy
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 147191237X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 219

View

Book Description
When Dr Basil Willing rents a small shack for a vacation on Long Island he becomes embroiled with his landlady, Claudia Bethune. Claudia wants to learn the secrets of her relatives and friends, so she steals a truth serum and holds a dinner party for her nearest and dearest. In the early morning hours, as Dr Willing returns to his cottage, he sees what he thinks is a fire and investigates. He finds Claudia near death at the table and hears footsteps fading up the stairs. Someone didn't want Claudia to learn the truth about them, and soon Dr Willing finds himself a suspect in murder.

Author: Howard Brody
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527564800
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 375

View

Book Description
This is the first book to offer a critical analysis of one variant of the mystery story or novel—the use of a physician as the major detective. There is little difference between a medical “case study” and a mystery story. The book reviews the works of major authors, from R. Austin Freeman, Helen McCloy, Josephine Bell, and H.C. Bailey, to Patricia Cornwell, Kathy Reichs, Aaron Elkins, and Colin Cotterill, with briefer reviews of minor authors. It also addresses historical (fictional) physician detectives, psychological detectives, and physician detective nonfiction. Physicians and health workers are avid readers of detective fiction and will welcome this volume, which addresses their specific interests. Its critical analysis of books that have long been viewed as central to detective fiction will also appeal to fans of the mystery story.

Author: Helen McCloy
Publisher: Orion
ISBN: 1471912752
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 174

View

Book Description
In this collection of eight stories by one of America's most gifted writers, Helen McCloy takes the reader into a world of mystery and imagination. In the signature story - 'The Singing Diamonds' - Mathilde Verworn enlists the help of Basil Willing, a psychiatrist-sleuth, to answer the question of whether there is such a thing as collective hallucination. Six people from six different locations testify to seeing diamond-shaped objects in the sky, and four of those six have died in peculiar circumstances in the past twelve days ...

Author: Helen McCloy
Publisher: Orion
ISBN: 1471912779
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 135

View

Book Description
Lydia Grey, an American returning to London after many years, is woken by footsteps in the night. There is someone in her room - of that she is sure. But that is also impossible. There is only one door and it is bolted shut. The windows are eight floors up, and are locked against the winter night. As the noise recedes she switches on her bedside lamp. No one is there. Was it a dream? An illusion of a half-awakened state? Or is someone out to get her?

Author: Laird R. Blackwell
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476646708
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 249

View

Book Description
The detective story--the classic whodunit with its time-displacement structure of crime--according to most literary historians, is of relatively recent origin. Early in its development, the whodunit was harshly criticized for its tightly formula-bound structure. Many critics prematurely proclaimed "the death of the whodunit" and even of detective fiction altogether. Yet today, the genre is alive, as contemporary authors have brought it into modern times through a significant integration of elaborate character development and psychology. With the modern psychological detective story emerging from the historical cauldron of detective fiction and early psychology, the genre continues to develop a complexity that reflects and guides the literary sophistication needed. This book, the first of its kind, analyzes over 150 whodunit novels and short stories across the decades, from The Moonstone to the contemporary novels that saved the genre from an ignominious death.

Author: Helen McCloy
Publisher: Orion
ISBN: 147191285X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 196

View

Book Description
Tatiana 'Tash' Perkins, a brilliant young journalist, is sent by her paper to interview the State Governor's wife, and a strange interview it is: the woman behaves like a zombie, and when they are alone together she slips a letter to Tash and asks her to post it. But before Tash can do so, her handbag is snatched and the letter with it. Yet the governor charms her, and soon she is accepting a job as his campaign speech-writer. But Tash is soon drawn into a frightening sequence of events, ranging from the killing of a canary to murder by arson, and an assassination at a political rally.

Author: Helen McCloy
Publisher: Orion
ISBN: 1471912353
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 240

View

Book Description
In the second case featuring psychiatrist-sleuth Basil Willing, he is called to a university campus to help investigate the death of a scientist. It looks like suicide, but with local scandal aplenty, more murders in the mix and a dose of Nazi espionage, all may not be as it appears.

Author: Helen McCloy
Publisher: Orion
ISBN: 1471912884
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 181

View

Book Description
Adam Endicott did not want Sam Joel as a husband for his young daughter, Kate. His past was sketchy and, as a reporter on a small-town newspaper, his assets were meagre. Yet when Kate is abducted by a terrorist group, Sam is able to produce a large part of the ransom. But paying the terrorists' demand does not bring back Kate. It only leads to another murder. When Sam decides to look for Kate himself he indeed finds a girl, but is it her? Can her experience have changed her this much? Is this the girl he loves, or a changeling?