With these words, B. A. Pike in Detective Fiction: The Collector’s Guide described the extraordinary novels and short stories of Helen McCloy (1904-1993). Beginning with Dance of Death (1938), her first novel about psychiatrist-detective Dr. Basil Willing, McCloy experimented with daringly imaginative concepts within the framework of the formal, fairplay detective story. Her short stories, for example, include "The Singing Diamonds," which combines death, detection, and apparently genuine sightings of flying saucers (in the shape of diamonds), and in her classic "Through a Glass, Darkly," McCloy deals with the issue of the doppelganger or the unknown double that we all (supposedly) have.

The Pleasant Assassin, the ninth volume in "Crippen & Landru Lost Classics," assembles in one volume all ten short stories about Basil Willing, including eight previously uncollected tales. The reader will soon discover why Helen McCloy was one of the finest authors of the Golden Age of Detective Stories.

New introduction by B. A. Pike. Cover illustration by Gail Cross. Lost Classics cover design by Deborah Miller.