from PS Publishing (the nerve of the designer of this book cover, for reasons which will go unsaid!) |
from PS Publishing (the nerve of the designer of this book cover, for reasons which will go unsaid!) |
"the postwar, Roaring Twenties generation would call denizens of "cafe society, and today in the democratic social media era we simply term influencers."
"had gone at life with too much of a rush. Life, you know ... is made up of many chambers and a man or a woman cannot live in all of them. These people made the mistake of trying to do this. They rushed from room to room. They drank great gulps where they should have only sipped. They plunged head-foremost where they should have only paddled. Then, when they were still young, weariness came. They had tried everything. They were foolish enough to suppose that they had given everything a fair trial."
"come across a person whom we consider overburdened with this world's goods, and who shows no desire or design of doing anything else except spending his money upon himself and for his own gratification, we use our courage and our brains to make a pay a very legitimate fine."
In other words, they rob the wealthy of their jewels, using the proceeds of the sales to fund causes that benefit the poor, all anonymously of course. In this story, one of their "victims" is a known tyrant in his own country, while the other two are more or less arriviste, all of whom have the wealth that allows them access to the company and house parties of Society. The detective hired by Sophy just might turn out to be an issue, especially when things go very, very wrong during one such robbery. There are other forces at work as well among various individual members that may potentially threaten the group as a whole and certainly add uncertainty to the Ghosts' future.
from AbeBooks |
1945 first edition, from Abebooks |
"The author, Max Murray (1901-1956) began life in Australia as a bush boy. His first job was that of a reporter on a Sydney paper but after a year he set out to work his way round the world. During WW2 he wrote scripts for the BBC Overseas Programme. After the war, with intervals for travel, he devoted himself primarily to writing fiction. He published 12 novels during his life, most of which had the word 'Corpse' in the title."
"There's something in the atmosphere. There's something furtive about it: the way they look at each other as if they were wondering, suspecting; and then their eyes slide away as if they were ashamed of their thoughts. It is pretty awful."
"When somebody is writing anonymous letters and somebody is murdered, it's not hard to guess who was the author of the anonymous letters, is it?"
from Abebooks, 1947 First Edition |
1942 edition; from Abebooks |
1953 paperback cover, from Fantasic Fiction |
1954 Doubleday Crime Club edition, from Amazon |
"almost empathic identification with humanity at large, the slayer as well as the slain, the parents of each, the issue, the wives or husbands, the lovers, the friends, all those who had been encircled by the elastic radius of crime."
from Wikipedia |
"I can't pretend that I didn't know you were a tough guy. I was fool enough to allow myself to be attracted by that. But I thought there was something decent underneath. Now I know there isn't. You're nothing but a cheap, bullying hooligan."
from Movie Poster Shop |
1971 edition (in which the cover is much more relevant and given the story, downright creepy) from Amazon |
from blu-ray.com |