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The Unsuspected

Charlotte Armstrong

$26.95

Paperback

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English
Penzler
05 April 2019
To catch a murderous theater impresario, a young woman takes a deadly new role

The note discovered beside Rosaleen Wright's hanged body is full of reasons justifying her suicide—but it lacks her trademark vitality and wit, and, most importantly, her signature. So the note alone is far from enough to convince her best friend Jane that Rosaleen was her own murderer, even if the police quickly accept the possibility as fact. Instead, Jane suspects Rosaleen’s boss, New York theater impresario Luther Grandison. To the world at large, he's powerful and charismatic, but Rosaleen’s letters to Jane described a duplicitous, greedy man who would no doubt kill to protect his secrets. If Rosaleen stumbled upon one such secret, it could have led to an untimely demise—and Jane risks a similar end when she takes a job with Grandison’s company, tangling with one of Broadway’s deadliest actors in a desperate play for the truth.

A playwright before she turned to crime fiction, Charlotte Armstrong drew from her experience in the theater for her fourth novel, The Unsuspected. The book inspired the 1947 film of the same name.

By:  
Imprint:   Penzler
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 203mm,  Width: 135mm,  Spine: 18mm
Weight:   261g
ISBN:   9781613161234
ISBN 10:   1613161239
Series:   An American Mystery Classic
Pages:   240
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Charlotte Armstrong (1905-1969) was an American poet, dramatist, and author of mystery short stories and novels. She was born and raised in the mining region of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. After two years at the University of Wisconsin, she moved to New York and received a B.A. degree from Barnard in 1925. She had two plays produced on Broadway but neither was successful, so she turned to writing mystery fiction, beginning with Lay On, MacDuff (1942), the first of three detective novels featuring Professor MacDougal Duff. It was with The Unsuspected that she achieved outstanding success and moved to Hollywood while it was being filmed. The 1947 Warner Brothers feature starred Claude Rains, Joan Caulfield, Audrey Totter, and Hurd Hatfield; it was directed by Michael Curtiz. Otto Penzler, the creator of American Mystery Classics, is also the founder of the Mysterious Press (1975), a literary crime imprint now associated with Grove/Atlantic; Mysterious Press.com (2011), an electronic-book publishing company; and New York City's Mysterious Bookshop (1979). He has won a Raven, the Ellery Queen Award, two Edgars (for the Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection, 1977, and The Lineup, 2010), and lifetime achievement awards from Noircon and The Strand Magazine. He has edited more than 70 anthologies and written extensively about mystery fiction.

Reviews for The Unsuspected

Expertly handled -- The New Yorker Suspense enough to spare -- The New York Times Well tricked triple play -- Kirkus


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