"The only exception to his careful planning was plot; the best way to stop the reader guessing the end of a story, he …"

"The private detective of fiction is a fantastic creation who acts and speaks like a real man. He can be completely re…"

"The solution, once revealed, must seem to have been inevitable. At least half of all the mystery novels published vio…"

"There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountai…"

"To the memory of Mr. Stan Phillips. (...) Just another four-flusher."

"He snorted and hit me in the solar plexus. I bent over and took hold of the room with both hands and spun it. When I …"

"There are two kinds of truth: the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart. The first of these is…"

"Love interest nearly always weakens a mystery because it introduces a type of suspense that is antagonistic to the de…"

"There is something about the literary life that repels me, all this desperate building of castles on cobwebs, the lon…"

"When you read a story, you accept its implausibilities and extravagances, because they are no more fantastic than the…"