7 books by Stanley Ellin
Requirements: Epub reader, 7.72 Mb
Overview: Stanley Bernard Ellin was a mystery writer of short stories and novels. He won the Edgar Allen Poe Award three times and the Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere once, and in 1981 he was awarded with the Mystery Writers of America’s highest honor, the Grand Master Award.
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
House of Cards
A washed-up heavyweight with dreams of becoming a writer, Reno Davis is down to his last franc when he lands a job as a bouncer at a sprawling Paris discotheque. His first night, he saves a slumming beauty from a pair of café toughs, and she rewards him with a well-paid job tutoring her darling son. But what she really wants is a bodyguard to keep her precious baby safe from terrors real and imagined. Reno’s new boss is a mental case, paranoid and delusional, whose lovers have a bad habit of dying violent deaths. But in this case, her paranoia may be justified.
Protecting the boy draws Reno into an international conspiracy that stretches from Paris to Rome to the killing fields of northern Algeria. When the bullets start to fly, this ex-fighter begins to fear that he may be punching above his weight.
Stronghold
James Flood and his three partners get out of jail with a single number on their minds: $1 million, in cash, for each of them. To get it, they have a simple plan, a mixture of home invasion and kidnapping, with a brilliant twist: Their target is a wealthy family whose religion means they can’t possibly fight back.
Armed with enough guns and ammunition to take on an army, Flood and his men storm the house of Marcus Hayworth, the leader of a small Quaker community in upstate New York. Though the police advise Hayworth to pay whatever it takes to set his family free, he plans to retaliate using nonviolent methods. But his commitment to pacifism slips just a bit with every minute that his family remains in the sights of James Flood’s gun.
The Specialty of the House
In Sbirro’s restaurant, there is no electric lighting, no music, and no menu. The only sound is the contented sighs of the regulars, who come every night in hopes that Sbirro will treat them to his signature dish, the famed lamb Amirstan, which comes from a beast so rare, only Sbirro knows how to obtain it. Tonight, two diners at this spectacular relic of a forgotten age will find that lamb Amirstan costs more than they are willing to pay.
“The Specialty of the House” was the first story published by Stanley Ellin, who would go on to become one of the great short fiction authors of the twentieth century. From crime to horror to grim tragedy, every story in this collection is as delectable as a cut of meat prepared by Sbirro himself.
The Bind
Freelance private investigator Jake Dekker and his lovely assistant, Elinor, are kicking back in Biscayne Bay as they plan their next move on a new case: masquerading as newlyweds and insinuating themselves into the confidence of South Miami Beach’s highly respected Thoren family. Only weeks before, patriarch Walter Thoren died in a car accident after taking out a double-indemnity policy for a cool six figures, and the insurance company suspects fraud. They won’t have to pay if Jake can prove it was suicide.
Unfortunately for Jake, things don’t add up: Walter was healthy, sane, and prosperous. And given the particulars of the crash, it couldn’t have been murder. So what exactly are the Thorens concealing? To find out, Jake and Elinor will head down a twisting trail of blackmail, mob connections, kidnapping, family secrets, and sordid sexual indiscretions. But they, too, are being inveigled by a masquerade—and it’s hiding the most shocking scandal under the sun.
The Valentine Estate
There was a time when Davis Cup winner Chris Monte had it all. Now, down and out in Dade County, restringing racquets at a South Beach tennis shop and hiring himself out for an occasional lesson, he’s dead broke. Then, along comes Elizabeth Jones, a mousy student with an irresistible proposition: fifty thousand dollars in exchange for marrying her. As sole beneficiary of the Valentine estate, Elizabeth is set to inherit a fortune. There’s only one stipulation: She must be married. She’ll collect, they’ll divorce, and Chris will get paid off. Simple.
But there are a few details Elizabeth left out, including the other claimants who are ruthlessly scheming to get their shares; her former boss, a goon with shady connections; her institutionalized mother, the target of whispers and gossip; the syndicate representative behind the execution of the will; and the pressing question of the actual identity of the deceased. Before long, Chris is in over his head. And wondering what his real part is in this twisted game of family secrets, Chris has good reason to fear that in agreeing to marry Elizabeth, he’s set in motion the carefully drawn plans for his own murder.
The Winter After This Summer
After three years at Temple University, Dan Egan was still trying to find out who he was. Frustratingly unmoored, he moved from engineering to fine arts and finally to humanities, plowed under each time. He was the one in the back row, sleeping behind dark glasses—the “ivy beleaguered” dilettante soon to be adrift in the very real world of working men.
Now, following his expulsion after a tragic dorm fire, Dan has finally been defined. He’s the guy who failed to save his roommate—all-American football hero, Time magazine’s golden cover boy, and Dan’s best friend since childhood. Maybe Dan will take the midnight train to Philadelphia and weather the worst of the family storm. Maybe not. Wherever Dan’s headed, he’ll be carrying his buddy’s ghost.
Then he meets the Barbara Jean Avery, the dumb, sweet still-virginal child bride of a dangerous old crust named Michael. She reads movie magazines, flounces around Coney Island, and has Technicolor dreams that will never come true. Dan’s got a thing for her; maybe she can make his dreams come true. Without even trying, without even realizing, Barbara Jean and Michael are going to change Dan’s life.
Very Old Money
In dire financial straits, young couple Mike and Amy Lloyd—a former cab driver and a New York prep-school teacher, respectively—have signed away their independence to become live-in servants for one of the city’s wealthiest and most private families.
At first, the Durie home, a cavernous Gilded Age palazzo off Fifth Avenue, is a maze of intimidation: sixteen other employees, eight Duries in residence, forbidden rooms, and an exact and unbreakable set of rules. For Amy, personal secretary to the aged and blind Miss Margaret, that includes never broaching the subject of her employer’s “condition” or the tragic accident that caused it. On the other hand, Mike, an aspiring writer, is already taking notes for a Durie-inspired novel. A modern gothic, he’s guessing—part Rebecca, part Psycho. Most of the plot, he’ll soon discover, won’t require much imagining.
But Amy, bound to the servitude of the matriarch—a woman cut off from the world for fifty years—is growing more curious and unnerved by Miss Margaret’s demands: the sudden trips to the Plaza hotel, the mysterious bank transactions, and an extended invitation to a stranger for a private dinner. By the time Amy realizes the truth—that she and her husband have been enlisted as unwitting accomplices in a subtly played series of moves that could lead to something rather unspeakable—it could be too late.
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The Bind
The Valentine Estate
The Winter After This Summer
Very Old Money
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