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Overview: Stanley Ellin was born in Brooklyn, New York, and educated at Brooklyn College. He worked as a teacher, a steelworked and a dairy farmer, and served in the US Army in World War 2, before becoming a full-time writer in 1946. His first published short story, ‘The Speciality of the House’ caused an immediate sensation and won him a special Ellery Queen Award. He won two Edgars for short stories, as well as one for The Eighth Circle, Le Grand Prix du Meilleur Roman Policier Etranger for Mirror, Mirror on the Wall and was made a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America in 1980.
Genre: Fiction > Mystery/Thriller
Dreadful Summit (1948) aka The Big Night
Every sports fan in New York knows Al Judge, the hard-bitten reporter whose column is the scourge of gamblers, gangsters, and corrupt players across the city. Sixteen-year-old George LaMain is Judge’s biggest fan – right up until the night he decides the writer has to die. George is in his father’s saloon, waiting for his dad to give him his birthday present: a trip to the fights at Madison Square Garden. They are about to leave when Judge demands George’s father strip and lie down on the barroom floor. George doesn’t know why, but his old man does it – and Judge beats him senseless in front of the whole bar.
When he’s finished crying, George takes his father’s gun and sets out into the night. To avenge his disgraced father, he plans to gun Al Judge down. But before he can become a killer, this birthday boy will have to grow into a man.
The Winter after This Summer (1960)
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. A novel that flirts with the mysteries of being human – from the comic to the sexual to the tragic – The Winter After This Summer is a singular work in the canon of a three-time Edgar Award–winning author, a late coming-of-age story written with a fierce and respectful regard for man’s fate.
House of Cards (1963)
Former prize fighter Reno Davis, an American at loose ends in Paris, takes a job as guardian and protector of young Paul de Villemont, son of an aristocratic family in decline. But things are not as simple as they first appear. The boy is withdrawn and fearful, while his mother is beautiful, neurotic, and perhaps dangerous. Within the barred and shuttered de Villemont mansion there are dangerous forces, secrets that threaten not only young Paul, but Davis as well. House Of Cards is a love story, a tale of self discover, a story of international intrigue, and a memorable thriller.
The Specialty of the House (1967) SSC
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 Valentine Estate (1968)
here 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. From a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, The Valentine Estate is a gripping thriller and was named an Edgar Award finalist for Best Novel.
The Bind (1970) aka The Man from Nowhere
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.
Stronghold (1974)
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.
Very Old Money (1985)
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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