A Century of Great Suspense Stories

Book excerpt: Bestselling master of suspense Jeffery Deaver’s enviable task was to select from the thousands of stories written over the past one hundred years those which best represented the classic form, as well as the celebrated authors whose ironic twists and stunning payoffs left a lasting and vivid impression. Delivering everything from the one-two punch of the detective story to the ingeniously precise trappings of the police procedural, from the disquieting corners of the criminal mind to sheer dread-inducing horror, A Century of Great Suspense Stories is a rich anthology of this popular literary genre, a stunning tribute to the art of storytelling, and to the men and women who have done it best.