Opening Shots: A Fredric Brown Sampler

Late this morning I found a dead man in my backyard.

The Lenient Beast
by Fredric Brown
(Dutton, 1956)






Sudden terror in her eyes, Jenny backed away from the knife, her hand gripping behind her for the knob of the kitchen door. She was too frightened to scream and ayway there was no one to hear, no one but the man who came toward her with the knife--and he was mad, he must be mad. Her hand found the knob and turned it; the door swung outward into the night and she whirled through it, running. Death ran after her.

Eight years passed.

Then:

The Far Cry
by Fredric Brown
(Dutton, 1951)


You can never tell what a drunken Irishman will do.

The Screaming Mimi
by Fredric Brown
(Dutton, 1949)






Her name was Joyce Dugan, and at four o'clock on this February afternoon she had no remote thought that within the hour before closing time she was about to commit an act that would instigate a chain of murders.

His Name Was Death
by Fredric Brown
(Dutton, 1954)