Carnival of crime Book

I can't remember what tipped me off to Frederic Brown. I'd certainly never heard of him before. But I love a good mystery -- and by a good mystery I mean one that involves deduction and a clever twist, not something I don't have a chance to figure out myself. All these short works (ranging from a novelette to a 50-word short short) give you a chance to guess what's happened and get your mind rolling.

I'm also a huge fan of the pulps and Brown was a leading contributor to the cavalcades of these cheap magazines sold in the pre-television era. Even the titles of them thrill me -- Brown's work was published in a litany of dozens of titles with some combination of the words "Detective" or "Crime" or "Mystery". There's something immensely satisfying in a well-written short.

My favorite, I think, was the longest piece, though: "The Mystery of the Dancing Sandwiches". What a pleasure it was to go through with characters fleshed out just-enough, some playfulness with the storyline, and a good twist to solve the unsolvable crime. It seemed like a perfect story to adapt to screen and I'm surprised it never was. I love Donald Sobol's two-minute mysteries and Encyclopedia Brown stories, which like Frederic Brown, offer the reader a chance to feel like a real detective.

I generally like the "twist" endings of stories, whether for good or tragic ends, but if you're interested in seeing this done in a ham-fisted, ridiculously sloppy manner, check out the video for Best Coast's "Our Deal" directed by Drew Barrymore. So awful and hilarious.