Win, Lose or Die: Stories from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine [Hardcover]

Cynthia Manson (Editor), Constance Scarborough (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1996

A unique anthology, featuring works from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine gathers together a page-turning collection of stories where the stakes are always life and death, and the games range from poker and chess to Scrabble and crosswords.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dangerous games are played out in this compilation of mystery stories taken from the pages of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Chess, offering an ideal analogy for the strategies between murderer and victim, is superbly represented in such tales as "Gentlemen's Agreement" by Lawrence Block and "King's Knight Gambit Declined" by R.L. Stevens. Card playing, another favorite of mystery writers, is the attraction in "Card Sense" by the lesser-known James Holding. Craps takes an unlucky roll in John Steinbeck's forgettable "The Crapshooter," but the art of trivia is played to its finest in "Life, Death and Other Trivial Concerns" by Robert Loy. Scrabble spells the solution in both H.R.F. Keating's masterful "Scrabble Babble Dabble" and John Philip Cohane's "The Scrabble Clue." Some esteemed detectives, such as Agatha Christie's Poirot ("Beware the King of Clubs") and Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski ("The Takamoku Joseki") don't fare as well as some of the newcomers, but the variety of talents thrown together here makes for a mystery lover's delight.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

All of the selections here involve games?bridge, poker, chess, crosswords, etc.?in a way central to plot or character. Published previously in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine or Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, they include stories by such writers as Paretsky, Chesbro, and Christie.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub; 1st edition (June 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786703172
• ISBN-13: 978-0786703173
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,285,977 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Luck of the Draw, February 25, 2002

By 

Author Bill Peschel "Writers Gone Wild" (Hershey, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Win, Lose or Die: Stories from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine (Hardcover)

Games of chance and skill are the unifying link among this collection of 26 short stories, drawn from the pages of Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock mystery magazines.

Editors Cynthia Manson and Constance Scarborough chose stories from a diverse cast of authors and styles. Classic cases from Agatha Christie and Anthony Boucher are laid alongside current popular favorites Sara Paretsky and Bill Pronzini. While Ellery Queen's "The Gamblers' Club" and " represents the old-fashioned who-done-it, Ruth Rendell's "The Man Who Was the God of Love" and Stanley Ellin's "Fool's Mate" are longer, psychologically driven tales involving shrewish wives and wormy husbands.

There are even stories with a sting in their tales, like H.R.F. Keating's "Scrabble Babble Dabble," about a wife whose husband's mania for the game drives her to murder. The story would have fit right into the old "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" television show. David Kaufman's "Mr. Hancock's Last Game" hints at a deal with, well, if not the devil, then someone in the same zip code, that would make it appropriate for "Weird Tales."

The collection's only major weakness is in the lack of explanatory introductions. Short-story collections can be a great introduction to an author's novels, and while John Steinbeck (whose "The Crapshooter" contains no mystery element at all but is included anyway) and Christie need no introduction, some of the lesser-known authors would have benefited from a few well-chosen words. But overall, "Win, Lose or Die" is a top-notch collection of puzzles and plot devices, an ideal break between chess moves, while the deck is being shuffled, or at halftime.