GUNSLINGING AND HISTORICAL DETECTION

Probably the most honored of all current mystery short story writers, Edward D. Hoch combines ingenious plotting with a strong sense of time and place. The Ripper of Storyville is the first book collection of one of Hoch’s most imaginative creations, Ben Snow, the nineteenth century gunman who wanders through the West—and occasionally the East as well. The book begins with seven rare stories about Ben Snow published more than thirty years ago in The Saint Mystery Magazine and continues with seven more recent tales. Ben solves such mysteries as— The steamboat that vanishes as it leaves Vicksburg, Mississippi; The stallion that can be seen only by the victim; Crime in a Sacramento waxworks; The patent medicine man who claims to be able to stop time itself; Serial killings in old New Orleans; A mysterious death near a temple in Yucatan; and The killing of The Flying Man.