num_pages: 336
description: 
  
    In these 23 stories, Brown never rails to surprise and delight. Time after time the reader anticipates the ending only to discover that once more the author has proved too clever. Yet Brown never “cheats,” never feeds false clues, and his endings are always plausible. His imag­ination is by turns puckish, grim, out­landish—but forever fresh.
     
    Brown’s stories run from the fifty-word “Mistake” to a novelette (“The Case of the Dancing Sandwiches”). In “Granny’s Birthday,” a two-page short short, with Granny supervising like a benign queen, the party goes splendidly, marred only by manslaughter and murder.
  
Contents:-Town Wanted-Little Apple Hard to Peel-A Little White Lye-Blue Murder-The Djinn Murder-Murder While You Wait-Mr. Smith Kicks the Bucket-The Dangerous People-The Night the World Ended-The Voice Behind Him-Don't Look Behind You-Miss Darkness-I'll Cut Your Throat Again, Kathleen-The Laughing Butcher-The Joke-Cry Silence-Cain-The Case of the Dancing Sandwiches-Witness in the Dark-Granny's Birthday-Hobbyist-Nightmare in Yellow-Mistake
language: English
title: Carnival of Crime: The Best Mystery Stories of Fredric Brown
titlecomplete: Carnival of Crime: The Best Mystery Stories of Fredric Brown
genres: Fiction, Short Stories
ratings_count: 24
publisher: Southern Illinois University Press