I had never heard of Henry Kuttner's short four-book Michael Gray mystery series before an omnibus of all four titles popped up as a recommendation for me from one of the major e-book retailers - I can't remember which one now. Usually these recommendations are bosh, but the omnibus with four titles is on sale for $1.99, so at $0.50 per title, I figured it was worth a look.
Imagine my surprise to find out, courtesy of
Fantastic Fiction, that Kuttner and his wife, CL Moore, were well-known and influential science fiction and fantasy authors in the 1940s. Again per
FF, in the early 1950s, he and his wife then both largely turned away from writing, enrolled at that evil school across town (USC), and earned psychology degrees. (It's interesting that Kuttner's mystery protagonist, Michael Gray, is a "psychoanalyst turned sleuth".) And then Kuttner died rather young. Wow!
Fantastic Fiction also says that it's not clear whether he actually wrote all of the Michael Gray titles - that he may have farmed out the later ones to other authors when he "found himself incapable of finishing them". In any case, with that rather wild background, I figured that at $1.99 (actually $1.79, since it's discountable at Kobo), the omnibus was worth the risk, and I snagged it for my TBR pile. Titles in the omnibus include:
The Murder of Eleanor Pope,
The Murder of Ann Avery (apa
Masked for Murder),
Murder of a Mistress, and
Murder of a Wife.
Kindle US:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NF49X5X/
Kindle US/Smile:
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07NF49X5X/
Kobo US (discountable):
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the...el-gray-novels
Spoiler:
Quote:
From “a neglected master”: All four murder mysteries featuring the psychoanalyst turned sleuth in 1950s San Francisco (Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451).
Dr. Michael Gray is constantly drawn into the lives, and murders, of his clientele. Fortunately, this unconventional detective’s eye for human behavior just might keep him out of mortal danger . . .
The Murder of Eleanor Pope: When a woman is killed in a foggy San Francisco park, the police suspect it was a robbery gone terribly wrong, but Dr. Gray’s troubled new patient may be the key to the truth.
The Murder of Ann Avery: Everyone thinks a juvenile delinquent murdered Ann Avery, but Dr. Gray has a whole list of potential suspects—if someone doesn’t kill them first.
Murder of a Mistress: When a call girl is murdered, four people confess to the deed. But the evidence points to one of Dr. Gray’s patients. Heiress Eileen Herrick may be a wild child, but Gray is out to prove she’s no killer.
Murder of a Wife: Dr. Gray’s new patient is housewife Karen Champion. He was warned she’s a pathological liar, but he finds it difficult to ignore her claim that her husband is trying to kill her . . .
“Kuttner is magic.” —Joe R. Lansdale, author of The Thicket
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