Women Crime Writers: Four Suspense Novels of the 1950s (LOA #269): Mischief / The Blunderer / Beast in View / Fools' Gold (Library of America Women Crime Writers Collection)

About this book

The Real Lolita author Sarah Weinman presents a landmark collection of 4 brilliant novels by the female pioneers of crime fictionwomen who paved the way for Gillian Flynn Tana French and Lisa Scottoline Though women crime and suspense writers dominate todays bestseller lists the extraordinary work of the mid-century pioneers of the genre is largely unknown. Turning in many cases from the mean streets of the hardboiled school to explore the anxieties and terrors lurking in everyday life these groundbreaking novelists found the roots of fear and violence in a quiet suburban neighborhood on a college campus or in a comfortable midtown hotel. Their work influential in its day and still vibrant and extraordinarily riveting today is long overdue for rediscovery. This volume the second of a two-volume collectors set gathers four classic works that together reveal the vital and unacknowledged lineage to todays leading crime writers. From the 1950s here are Charlotte Armstrongs Mischief the nightmarish drama of a child entrusted to a psychotic babysitter Patricia Highsmiths The Blunderer brilliantly tracking the perverse parallel lives of two men driven toward murder Margaret Millars Beast in View a relentless study in madness and Dolores Hitchenss Fools Gold a hard-edged tale of robbery and redemption. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nations literary heritage by publishing and keeping permanently in print Americas best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date authoritative editions that average 1 000 pages in length feature cloth covers sewn bindings and ribbon markers and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.