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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  # Homemade Murder
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### By Rodney Worth
  
  
  This page formatted 2005 Munsey's.
  
  
  http://www.munseys.com
  
      
  
  EText from pulpgen.com
  
  
  _
  
  
    
  10-Story Detective
  
  
  _, October 1947
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _
  
  
    
  The ballistics boys were helpless when they found the slaying bullet
  
  
  matched no known caliber. And it was left to Detective Logan to trigger
  
  
  the killer who rolled his own.
  
  
  _
  
  
  THE street was quiet, dark, and almost deserted. Jack Arnold walked
  
  
  quickly, keeping his face straight ahead, but glancing up at the top
  
  
  floor of the three-story building across the street out of the corner
  
  
  of his eye. In one of the center windows a man could be seen sitting,
  
  
  facing the window with a newspaper in his hands, his body outlined by
  
  
  the lights of the room. Arnold's eyes were cold and hard as they
  
  
  furtively studied the man in the window.
  
  
  It was almost twenty years since he had last seen the man, but he
  
  
  still remembered him. His na