RUSSELL H. GREENAN – The Secret Life of Algernon Pendleton. New York: Random House, hardcover, 1973. Paperback reprint: Fawcett Crest, 1974. Film: Marano, 1997, as The Secret Life of Algernon.

   Algernon Pendleton hears voices from unexpected sources — from philodendrons, for example. But his favorite voice source is Eulalia, a Worcester porcelain pitcher, and it is only with Eulalia that he carries on long conversations.

   In fact, this is pretty much the essence of Algernon’s existence — chatting with his pitcher and leading a quiet, contemplative life in his large old house in Brookline, Massachusetts. Of course he has to earn money occasionally, and this he does by selling, one by one, his late grandfather’s collection of Egyptian artifacts (his grandfather was a famed and eccentric Egyptologist).

   Still, Algernon is falling farther and farther into debt, and Eulalia fears the day may come when she, too, will be sold.

   Then one summer, outsiders begin to force their way into Algernon’s normally quiet and isolated fife. First comes an old navy friend who has left his wife, has a suitcase full of money, and has seriously considered suicide.

   Well, anything for a friend. At Eulalia’s urging, Algernon fulfills the suicide wish by blowing his friend’s brains out, helping himself to the money, and burying the body in a graveyard behind the house.

   Alas, two other people discover this secret and attempt to blackmail Algernon. A Turkish antique dealer wants money; and a beautiful, but pushy, female archaeologist wants access to all the treasures and secrets of Algernon’s late grandfather. The antique dealer is killed in a struggle (and also buried in the graveyard).

   And the beautiful archaeologist? Well, that would be telling.

   Suffice it to say that her fate fits in perfectly with Algernon’s voices, with her obsession for Egyptian lore, and with the whole ambiance of the strange old house in Brookline.

   Like Russell Greenan’s other novels — the highly acclaimed It Happened in Boston? (1968), Nightmare (1970), The Queen of America (1972), Heart of Gold (1975), The Bric-a-Brac Man (1976), and Keepers (1979) — this is a most unusual book with elements of black humor and underplayed horror.

   There is nothing else quite like a Greenan novel of suspense, as you’ll see if you read this one or any of the others.

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   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.