I’ve been a fan of Fredric Brown’s science fiction work for years. I discovered him at a young age when SF was my primary reading genre and that’s what I looked for. As books are shelved by genre, I wasn’t really aware of his crime novels and had no idea what I was missing. Then the internet came along and as i moved into that, exploring right along, my ignorance began to change in the last few years. I ran across a clip of Mickey Spillane on some talk show and he mentioned THE FABULOUS CLIPJOINT as a favorite book and led to me posting on it Here.
Then Ed Gorman blogged about this book Here and I had to run this one down. A truly different novel and the ending took me completely be surprise. As I neared the end of this quick read, I was trying to figure where Brown was headed.
I missed by a bit.
I have THE SCREAMING MIMI and a couple of shorter works waiting in the computer on my Kindle app. I thing I’m moving them up a bit on the books to get at soonest.
Not The Baseball Pitcher 
He was a brilliant flash fiction writer. Perhaps the first. Thanks, Randy.
I’ve enjoyed every Fredric Brown book I’ve ever read (and I’ve read a dozen of them). Excellent choice!
Cullen Gallagher introduced me to his stories. I need to read more!
Thanks to the enthusiastic recommendation by you and Ed, I’m definitely putting this one on the TBR list. Like Ed, I’m sad that Fredric Brown’s career didn’t take off as it perhaps should, but Brown’s legacy lives on nonetheless.
I am a major Brown fan and I always enjoy finding other people in agreement. I believe he wrote 23 mystery novels, of which I’ve read 21. This is certainly one of his best but there are others I think are even better, especially MADBALL and THE WENCH IS DEAD (and NIGHT OF THE JABBERWOCK, which is a very good comic mystery). On the other hand, WE ALL KILLED GRANDMA and FIVE-DAY NIGHTMARE are pretty bad.
BTW, if anyone would like to buy me either (or both) of the two novels I haven’t read, MRS. MURPHY’S UNDERPANTS and THE CASE OF THE DANCING SANDWICHES, both of which are impossible to get at a reasonable price, just let me know.
Not the first vignette specialist, no, but he certainly loved the form. And he loved every other form of fiction…
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