title: Murderous Schemes: An Anthology of Classic Detective Stories
author:  Donald E. Westlake 
description: "What is this drug anyway?" Westlake asks about the timeless attraction of detective stories. This anthology answers by breaking the genre into eight types, each illustrated by four splendid examples. In subgenres such as Locked Rooms, Armchair Detectives and Brilliant Schemes Gone Wrong, Westlake showcases outstanding writers of the last 100 years. In "The Blue Geranium," Agatha Christie's Miss Marple solves a murder with only the clues of dinner conversation. Ellery Queen is represented, as is Edward D. Hoch, the leading current contributor to Queen's namesake magazine. In Hoch's "The Leopold Locked Room," police captain Leopold is found in a closed room with his murdered ex-wife. Ballistics results show that Leopold's gun fired the fatal shot, but Leopold and readers know he's not the killer. Every bit of the solution is cleverly foreshadowed. "Someday I'll Plant More Walnut Trees" initially seems to be a predictable tract on spousal abuse, but the author is Lawrence Block, who turns the reader's expectations inside out with two clever twists. Other contributors include Raymond Chandler, Shirley Jackson, Chester Himes and Roald Dahl. Westlake provides sensible analyses, even if he does sound a bit guilty for thinking too much about the pure pleasure of it all. <BR>Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  # Christopher Bush  
  
  
  _The Case of the Platinum Blonde_
  
  
  
  
  
  _“It’s about a murder. . . . Here. Five Oaks, they call it. . . . A man, he’s
  murdered. . . . Oh, no, it isn’t a joke. I wish it was. . . . I said I wished
  it was. . . . You’ll send someone at once?”  
  
  
    
  _
  
  
  
  
  
  Ludovic Travers, still in the army, is obliged to combine his military duties
  with being an invaluable private sleuth on behalf of Scotland Yard. Now
  Inspector Wharton has asked Ludo to track down a man in a village rife with
  blackmail and skulduggery. A problem soon arises however—murder, and that of
  the very man Travers was sent to find. Travers eventually faces a moral
  quandary about what to conceal and what to reveal about his discoveries—which
  could lead to someone’s execution.
  
  
  
  
  
  This classic English village murder mystery involves a large number of
  suspects, and a breathtaking series of twists, some if not all involving the
  Chief Constable’s wife—the novel’s “platinum blonde”.
  
  
  
  
  
  _The C