One chance in 7,000,000 of getting away! Four hours to make good their escape! She had not the courage to go without him. He cannot go until he finds the person who committed the murder which can so “circumstantially” be traced to his door. And that person was one of 7,000,000 in New York City. Bricky, the small town girl, meets Quinn, a boy from her own Iowa town, a day too late. The long arm of coincidence brings them happily together — two lost “little” people in the vast city. The long arm of retribution reaches out to separate them forever. When Quinn, at Bricky’s behest, so that as free people they can take the morning bus back to Iowa, goes to return some money he has just stolen, he finds a dead man in the house. They spend the rest of the night finding the murderer. If they don’t the police will find Quinn! The story of the night’s adventure is fast moving and tense, building constantly to almost unbearable excitement

Otto Penzler rounds up the most cunning, ruthless, criminals in mystery fiction. The best mysteries — whether detective, historical, police procedural, cozy, or comedy-have one thing in common: a memorable culprit. For all the heroes in earnest pursuit, there are malefactors on the loose, determined to outfox their efforts and sow trouble in their wake. These are the rogues and villains who haunt our imaginations, but they often have more in common with their heroic counterparts than we might expect (and, as we shall see, some even moonlight as detectives or do-gooders themselves). The seventy-two handpicked stories in this collection introduce us to the miscreants who have schemed and slashed their way through the mystery canon over the past hundred and fifty years, captivating and confounding readers in the process. MEET DELINQUENT PSYCHES OF ALL STRIPES, INCLUDING gentleman thieves, calculating crooks, fearsome body snatchers, masters of disguise, morally-challenged lawyers, deceitful doctors, heinous hit men. charismatic con men, amoral adventurers, supernatural suspects, deviant detectives, vile villainesses, and cold-blooded killers IN UNFORGETTABLE TALES BY Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, Washington Irving, Jack London, L. T. Meade, 0. Henry, Sinclair Lewis, Edgar Wallace, Leslie Charteris, Erle Stanley Gardner, Edward 0. Hoch, David Morrell, Loren D. Estleman, and countless others

Anything can happen — and usually does — when a lying murderer tells the truth!