GREAT STORIES OF SUSPENSE

New York: Knopf/Readers Digest, 1993. Hardcover. Fine/Very Good. Ross MacDonald, creator of arguably the greatest series of mystery-detective stories of the 20th century featuring California private detective, Lew Archer, believed that while detective stories move backward, searching for a solution, suspense stories moved forward toward catastrophe. However, he rightly included one of his Lew Archer novels, "The Far Side of the Dollar," in this extra large anthology of suspense, which also includes novels by Kenneth Fearing, Agatha Chiristie and Dick Francis as well as short fiction by Greene, Hammett, Cain, Ellin, Gilbert, Highsmith and Millar. Also, surprises by Cheever, Robert Louis Stevenson and Flannery O'Conner, with an introduction by MacDonald that lays out the history of two centuries of suspense. This copy is from the Book Club Edition, issued in 1993. 6 1/4 x 9 1/4 inches, 823 pages, plus notes about the editior and the type face, in black cloth-covered boards with silver lettering on spine. Basically black pictorial dustjacket with pink and white lettering shows a half-inch, closed tear in top edge of front panel, other minimal surface and edge wear, o/w clean and whole with no creasing or chipping. Boards and text are clean, complete and unmarked, binding tight and squre. No bumped corners. A whole lot of good reading at a very economical price. [Sorry, due to book's size and weight, we cannot accept priority/express orders or orders outside the U.S. without additional postage.].