Book Report - CRIME STORY COLLECTION

Book Report

The book I read is a

CRIME STORY COLLECTION

First published in 1989

Second Impression 1999

Illustration by Les Edward, Cover Photograph Addison Wesley

The stories are written by some of the finest British and American

mystery writers.

The authors are:

Margery Allingham (1904 -1966), Simon Brett, born as Anthony Lee in 1945,and Colin Dexter ,born in 1930 are British crime story writers.

Sue Grafton, born in 1940 in Kentucky, Sara Paretzky born 1947 in Iowa, Jack Ritchie(1922-1983),and

Patricia Highsmith (1921- 1995 ) are American crime story writers. P.Highsmith wrote also under the name of Claire Morgan, she was from Texas, although she lived in Europe for much of her later life. She is better known for her full length work. Her first book "Strangers on a Train' (1950) was very successful and was made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock. She too won many writing prizes and two of her stories are included in this collection:

"Slowly, slowly in the Wind " tells the story of an argument between neighbours that gets out of control.

In "Woodrow Wilson's Tie " a young delivery boy visits the waxworks and has a strange idea, but who will believe him ?

I will give you more details about these two stories after a little while.

Genre :As the name says, this book is a crime story collection, there are eight short stories written by different mystery writers.

All the stories take place in England and in the USA from 1940s - 1980s

Subject Matter :Most of these stories are about murder. Murder of a stranger or a relative, murder in a quiet English town or in a crowded American city.

Language and Style The English in this book is formal. The stories are written in prose. All stories are narrative .I had no difficulties reading the stories, because of the length of the stories, and although the content was so interesting and exciting.

Themes :

Every crime story has got a different theme. In one mystery story there is a man who marries rich women and then he kills his wives to receive their money. In an other crime fiction a man gets angry about the love between his daughter and a young man, so he kills the father of the young man. Another narrative tells us from a mentally disturbed man who kills just for fun.

Short Synopsis :"Slowly, Slowly in the Wind".

Edward Skipperton is very impatient, has a bad temper and feels angry most of his life. Two years ago he got divorced, a few months later he had a heart attack, so he decided to stop working and moved to a farm in Maine. But there is one thing that annoys him: his neighbour. Peter Frosby owns the land next to him, including the banks of the Coldstream and the right to catch fish in it. Skip wants to be able to fish a little also, but Peter Frosby says that he wouldn't sell the rights. So Skipperton gets angry about Frosby.Two weeks later his daughter visits him, Maggie meets Peter Frosbys son, falls in love with him, and even goes away with her boyfriend, although her father does not allow her to meet Peter .Angry again he invites his neighbour to his house and kills him.

After that Skip carries the dead body to the scarecrow and pulls it down and takes the clothes off the sticks. He dresses Frosby in the old coat and trousers, pushes the hat onto his head and stands the scarecrow up again- it almost looks the same as before.

But at Halloween .

Character of Edward Skipperton :

He is the main character in Patricia Highsmiths story

" Slowly, Slowly in the Wind " He spends most of his life

feeling angry. He has a bad temper, it is his nature. After his divorce and heart attack he stops working, drinking and smoking

and buys a little farm.

There the story takes place.

"Woodrow Wilson's Tie "

Clive Wilkes loves Madame Thibault'sHall of Waxworks. He likes the murder scenes best. Nearly every day he goes to the Waxworks and one day he stays over night. In the morning he wants to steel something  from the Waxworks, so he takes Woodrow Wilson's tie.

Clive wants that people notice that the tie from Mr.Wilson is missing, but none does, so he has another plan to make people look at him.

READING-EXAMPLE              Pages : 60 - 61

.Next day the ticket seller recognises that the dead bodies are real and calls the police. One day after the crime Clive buys a newspaper reading about the" Mystery Killer' in the Waxworks .

After two weeks the police hasn't found the murderer. That makes Clive angry. He goes to the police and says : " I' am the Waxwork - Killer." But the policeman doesn't believe him. So he planes to kill more people that they'll realise that he is a person.

Character of Clive Wilkes :

He is the main character from the story:" Woodrow Wilson's Tie". He works as delivery boy at a supermarket. I think that he has an inferiority complex because he kills people to show that he is a person.

Personal Comment:

I found this book very interesting and exciting.

It happens a lot in these eight Crime Stories and it is easy to see what can drive a person to murder and to kill. Almost all stories could happen in real life.

Extra Words:

Divorce - Scheidung

Inferiority complex - Minderwertigkeitskomplex

Scarecrow - Vogelscheuche