BITE INTO THE BIG APPLE…

…for the best in detective fiction. Uncover a premeditated murder in the Garment District…a jewelry heist on 57th Street…and a violent death in Greenwich Village.

Follow suspects through elegant hotel lobbies, into vest-pocket gardens, behind historic brownstones, and onto the seedy streets of the Bowery.

Best of all, meet the finest sleuths and shamuses ever created: the incomparable Nero Wolfe, the sophisticated Mr. and Mrs. North, the hard-boiled Lt. Trant, and that genius of deduction, Ellery Queen…

It’s a Big City treat of whodunits, conundrums, and masterful mysteries that will make New York, New York into your kind of town.

ISAAC ASIMOV • AVRAM DAVIDSON • EDWARD D. HOCH • FRANCES AND RICHARD LOCKRIDGE • STUART PALMER • Q. PATRICK • HUGH PENTECOST • ELLERY QUEEN • CLAYTON RAWSON • R. L. STEVENS • REX STOUT • CORNELL WOOLRICH • JAMES YAFFE

As usual, it’s difficult for me to evaluate this anthology, a collection of mysteries quintessentially set in New York City, largely because I’m not a mystery buff. Asimov is here in the form of “The Good Samaritan,” which I consider one of the weaker Black Widower mysteries, so it has little interest on that ground. (It is, however, a very good example of a “Big Apple mystery.”)

Since last reading the book, however, I was finally able to visit New York, and I will confess that I felt a certain je ne sais quoi there which I’ve never experienced in any of the other major world cities I’ve been fortunate enough to visit. One of the reasons why I’ve been so lukewarm about this volume in the past is that I had trouble seeing what the big deal was about New York (as opposed to, say, San Francisco, which has the advantage of being the future headquarters of Starfleet). Now that I’ve been there, however, I can understand why people get so excited. Perhaps when I next read the book, I’ll have a more charitable assessment of it. We’ll see.

Contents

“The Good Samaritan”