Richard Matheson | Tipping My Fedora

The Alphabet of Crime community meme over at the Mysteries in Paradise blog has reached the letter R, and my first nomination this week, also eligible under the guidelines of Bev’s 2011 Mystery Readers Challenge, is …

RIDE THE NIGHTMARE by Richard Matheson

“We’re going to Mexico but I had to stop and see you first, didn’t I, Chrissie boy?” said the man. “I been waiting a long time for this.”

A slender, slickly written paperback original that originally sold for 35 cents a copy, it is a breathlessly told tale of youthful rebellion gone sour. Chris Martin is 32, married and the father of a young girl. He runs his own small business, is a new member of the local Chamber of Commerce and he and his wife Helen are managing to save a little money towards buying a bigger place. He is content and seems to be living the Eisenhower-era dream – but this is all turned upside down and inside out within a matter of minutes by an anonymous phone call late one Wednesday evening. Chris has a deep, dark secret … Continue reading →

The Alphabet of Crime community meme over at the Mysteries in Paradise blog has reached the letter N, and my second nomination this week is …

NOW YOU SEE IT … by Richard Matheson

Sixty years after the publication of his first short story, ‘Born of Man and Woman’ in 1950, Richard Matheson is probably still best known for such tales of science fiction and fantasy as The Incredible Shrinking Man and the oft-filmed I Am Legend, as well as for his many television scripts for the original version of The Twilight Zone. But he is a varied and prolific writer with literally dozens and dozens of scripts, short stories and novels to his credit who outside of the fantasy genres has also written westerns, non fictions studies of metaphysics and philosophy – and several thrillers. One the most unusual of these is Now You See It … (1995), which combines mystery, suspense and magic and which, as we shall see, has a complex history all its own. Continue reading →