The Night People: and Other Stories

By Edward D. Hoch

Twenty tales of deceit, murder, and madness from the king of short mysteries.

They find the third body facedown in the wet grass, its head nearly split in half by the axe. The psychopath has claimed three in twenty-four hours -- a sickening toll that forces the police department to let the aging Inspector Fleming stave off retirement for one more case. The cop races to catch the axe maniac before he kills again, lest this final assignment become the one that ruins his career.

There are killers in many of the stories in this collection, and a few great detectives, too. There is a gang of old war buddies who have decided to pick up their guns again, a scientist murdered in the wilds of Canada, two hundred miles from civilization, and a young office worker convinced she's being followed by a man with bushy eyebrows. Edward D. Hoch understands crime, and knows that evil often lurks behind the kindest smiles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Head of Zeus
• Release date: Jun 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781784085520

Edward D. Hoch

Edward D. Hoch (1930–2008) was a master of the mystery short story. Born in Rochester, New York, he sold his first story, “The Village of the Dead,” to Famous Detective Stories, then one of the last remaining old-time pulps. The tale introduced Simon Ark, a two-thousand-year-old Coptic priest who became one of Hoch’s many series characters. Others included small-town doctor Sam Hawthorne, police detective Captain Leopold, and Revolutionary War secret agent Alexander Swift. By rotating through his stable of characters, most of whom aged with time, Hoch was able to achieve extreme productivity, selling stories to Argosy, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, which published a story of his in every issue from 1973 until his death. In all, Hoch wrote nearly one thousand short tales, making him one of the most prolific story writers of the twentieth century. He was awarded the 1968 Edgar Award for “The Oblong Room,” and in 2001 became the first short story writer to be named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America.