What Dread Hand?: A Collection of Short Stories

Christianna Brand

mar 2013 · Open Road Media

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Fifteen classic tales of murder, mayhem, and mystery from “one of the great masters of English detective fiction” (Francis M. Nevins, author of Cornell Woolrich).
  Mr. de Silva begins the day sipping his coffee, reading the Times, and trying to decide how to murder his wife. After two years of marriage, he’s simply fed up, and has decided to move on to someone younger, slimmer, and prettier. The trouble is, he wants to keep his wife’s money. Killing her is the neatest solution. So begins “The Rose,” a three-page masterpiece that was the first story Christianna Brand ever wrote for publication. Over the next half-century she would write dozens of novels and countless short stories, proving again and again her genius for crisp characterization, witty dialogue, and timely bits of violence. This collection holds some of her finest early work—tales of murders committed for money, jealousy, or simply for something to do. Though the crimes often go awry, there is nothing quite so charming as a vintage Brand homicide.    

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DIVChristianna Brand (1907–1988) was one of the most popular authors of the Golden Age of British mystery writing. Born in Malaya and raised in India, Brand used her experience as a salesgirl as inspiration for her first novel, Death in High Heels (1941), which she based on a fantasy of murdering an irritating coworker. The same year, she debuted her most famous character, Inspector Cockrill, whose adventures she followed until 1957. The film version of the second Cockrill mystery, Green for Danger, is considered one of the best-ever screen adaptations of a classic English mystery. /divDIV /divBrand also found success writing children’s fiction. Her Nurse Matilda series, about a grotesque nanny who tames ill-behaved children, was adapted for the screen in 2005 as Nanny McPhee. Brand received Edgar Award nominations for the short stories “Twist for Twist” and “Poison in the Cup,” as well as a nomination for her nonfiction work Heaven Knows Who.