Description

THE PERFECT MURDER - FIRST HARD COVER.

by Five masters of mystery and suspense present their ideas of the perfect murder in a collection of tales by Lawrence Block, Sarah Caudwell, Tony Hillerman, Peter Lovesey, and Donald E. Westlake. Reprint.

REVIEW:

A man named Tim needs help. Seems his rich wife (whom he married only for her money) plans to cut him out of her will; worse, she is having an affair with his best friend. What Tim needs help with is the perfect murder: he wants to kill his wife and make it look as if the boyfriend did it. Since he is something of a perfectionist, Tim wants this crime "so beautiful in construction and so ingenious in practice that it aspires to the condition of art." Seeking counsel from the experts, Tim writes Block, Caudwell, Hillerman, Lovesey and Westlake, and asks each to design him a blueprint for a fail-safe scheme. Each carefully wrought reply in this droll how-to for the discriminating hitman is a small masterpiece of cunning and deception. Count on Westlake and Block for their usual dark humor; Hillerman for his keen sense of human nature; Caudwell and Lovesey for the wry British perspective. And count on every one of them to be very annoyed to find out that he/she was not the only expert consulted. Westlake, for example, observes of Block's plan of attack: "Not merely kitsch, but sordid kitsch." Devotees of the genre will feast on this smorgasbord of treats. -- Publishers Weekly

First Printing,  ARCHIVED and SEALED in an acid-free protective book cover upon receipt here and then sealed in plastic for complete archival protection.

Harper Collins, 1991. First Edition. 6 X 9. As New / As New. ISBN: 0-06-016340-2. Original novel of suspense.