Fredric Brown

"In the rough edges of 1940s Chicago, the discovery of a corpse in an alleyway isn't always enough to cause a big stir--especially when the victim is killed in the midst of a night-long bender, caught between barrooms in what appears to be a mugging gone awry. Which is why the police don't take a huge interest in finding the murderer of Wallace Hunter, a linotype operator who turns up dead after a solitary drinking adventure that led through many...

"Yes, I'm Max Andrews. I'm one of the guys who fought and bled and worked to get to Mars. I figure what I gave up in those early years bought me the right to pilot the next big jump. I've lied and stolen for that right. I'd have killed, too, but I didn't have to. Instead, I let a woman give her life so I could have my chance, my door to space. You think I'd stop at anything, now? I'll be on that rocket, blasting away on America's biggest adventure,...

"Fourteen impossible crimes from the American masters of the form. For devotees of the Golden Age mystery, the impossible crime story represents the period's purest form: it presents the reader with a baffling scenario (a corpse discovered in a windowless room locked from the inside, perhaps), lays out a set of increasingly confounding clues, and swiftly delivers an ingenious and satisfying solution. During the years between the two world wars, the...

A collection of the best science fiction stories published between 1929 and 1964 as selected by Science Fiction Writers of America.