To content and style: A detective story from the perspective of a 18-year-old young man in Chicago who enlightens with his uncle father's death. The plot unfolds by the question of "Who dunnit?" while the pattern of that time; so leisurely, simple, linear, with no stylistic "Mäzchen" without rapid "action" effects without jazzed atrocities and without rapid cuts with new twists. Often a low, rhetorical irony; sometimes touching simply acting as. from a bygone time, but -as always in Fredric Brown with surprising "Twist", the unexpected twist at the end Facing today's disgust "Thriller". like the one Karin Slaughter (Nomen est omen) with its abundance of perverse blood orgies like "The Fabulous Clip Joint" for some be a recovery. To this end, a total of 5 points.
The scope: In contrast to today's style of the genre with his "Action" -prallen actions over many pages 500-700 and more, can be found here at Brown only 131 pages. You have to know before you pack the book as a holiday reading, because it is a relatively short pleasure. However, is housed on each side, so that one would apply in the now generally accepted set of books to approximately 200 pages for the larger format also more text. Nevertheless, who expects to quantity and price, for which the book would (relatively) very expensive. But even that scares the fan of the old master barely. Therefore another 4 points.
Regarding the presentation: The cover of the newly installed series is great success: The "Cover" is modern, contemporary and yet conveys with the designation of the former title image of the first Bantam edition still the breath of those old days. For this purpose it is robust and with its glossy, representative. The format is a little more cumbersome than a paperback, but that, after all, an unusual and appealing USP. The binding is very robust and therefore much more durable than the original editions of the period. It is the next 50 years, therefore, better survive than the former, now decaying Bantam paperbacks. All in all, promising for the collection of this series. Even this 5 points.
For Layout: What makes this book so outwardly promising and content so attractive, is not held by the sentence of the text inside: He is amazingly amateurish, opened amateurish. Chapter headings are squeezed directly above the too narrow margin; on the left side of the right edge disappears, the left margin has even after US standards in all dialogues disturbing, as far too large indentation. But since other works Browns are still bumbling, with ever new surprising layout errors, disfigured in this series (as are, for example, chapter headings without paragraph in the middle of text) there is for this type of "power" still 2 points.
In overall rating but still 4 points, even if only because the Neuaufflage such "goodies" is meritorious.
