Tue 14 Mar 2017
Stories I’m Reading: ANDREW KLAVAN “All Our Yesterdays.”
Posted by Steve under Stories I'm Reading1 Comment
ANDREW KLAVAN “All Our Yesterdays.” Lead story in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, March-April 2017.
The story begins with a horrific view of life (and death) in the army trenches in France in World War I, then tells the story of a survivor identified only as Brooks, as he recuperates in a make-shift hospital facility in Gloucestershire.
Suffering from uncontrollable blackouts, he finds a friend in Dr. William Haven, to whom he confides his fears that life will never be the same. Brooks believes that the Victorian era was the best time in the world to be alive. Standards have fallen. Women wear trousers now.
But then when a girl is found brutally murdered, Brooks also fears that he is the one responsible, and we have at last the reason this story was chosen as the lead for this issue, with the life of a young barmaid named Nancy at stake — a tale perfectly told.
Author of some 30 novels, Andrew Klavan has been nominated for the Edgar Award five times and has won twice, first for Mrs. White in 1984, which he wrote under the pen-name Margaret Tracy, as Best Paperback Original, then for The Rain in 1990 in the same category, a book he wrote as Keith Peterson.
March 14th, 2017 at 10:35 pm
Checking out some of the info I included in that last paragraph, “Margaret Tracy” was the joint pseudonym of Andrew Klavan and his brother Laurence Klavan.
MRS. WHITE was published by Dell and is about a suburban housewife who gradually learns that her husband is a serial killer. It was the basis for a film titled WHITE OF THE EYE starring David Keith and Cathy Moriarty. To tell you the truth, I’d never heard of either the book or the movie until today.
As for the Dell paperback, it’s kind of pricey on the used book market. I found one on Abebooks for $22.50 in Good condition, but the next cheapest was $60.