Book Report: Grifters & Swindlers edited by Cynthia Manson (1993)
No doubt, I picked this book up because I thought it was a compendium of true cases (back in the old days, I
hoped to write for DamnInteresting.com and expected I would need constant pointers to interesting cases). But,
no, this book is a collection of short fiction collected from
Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and was edited by the Director of Marketing for those two brands. Trying
to extend the brand, you see, into some hardcover publishing dollars since Ellery Queen aren't churning out the
books like they used to.
The anthology collects its stories from a number of decades, so some seem dated (not that I disprove), but
others are remarkably contemporary. As you might have noticed, gentle reader, I've returned to a fondness for
short fiction because it lends itself to easy truncation of a night's reading when I need to go to bed.
Forgive me that I don't enumerate the stories here, but I'm lazy. Overall, the book was entertaining and short
and worth the buck I paid for it. There you go.
Books mentioned in this review: