In the Still of the Night

With stories published when the author was in her seventies and eighties, this collection proves that after five decades writing crime fiction, Dorothy Salisbury Davis has lost none of her edge. In “Christopher and Maggie,” based on Davis’s own experiences during the Great Depression, a traveling magician stumbles upon a murder victim. In other stories, a woman picks up the wrong hitchhiker, an ex-detective decides to make some money by getting rid of his wife—forever—and a man gets involved in a road accident from which he simply cannot drive away. The Manhattan gossip columnist and part-time sleuth Julie Hayes from A Death in The Life appears in two stories, “The Puppet” and “Justina.” Intelligent, chilling, and beautifully written, these stories are a reminder that in crime fiction, there is no substitute for the Grand Master’s touch.