A Moment on the Edge: 100 Years of Crime Stories by Women

by George, Elizabeth A.

• ISBN13: 9780060588229
• ISBN10: 0060588225
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

This collection of 26 crime stories is from some of the best practitioners of the genre, who also happen to be some of the most successful female writers of all time.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION:
ELIZABETH GEORGE	xi
A Jury of Her Peers
SUSAN GLASPELL	1	(26)
The Man Who Knew How
DOROTHY L. SAYERS	27	(18)
I Can Find My Way Out
NGAIO MARSH	45	(30)
The Summer People
SHIRLEY JACKSON	75	(18)
St. Patrick's Day in the Morning
CHARLOTTE ARMSTRONG	93	(26)
The Purple Is Everything
DOROTHY SALISBURY DAVIS	119	(14)
Money to Burn
MARGERY ALLINGHAM	133	(14)
A Nice Place to Stay
NEDRA TYRE	147	(14)
Clever and Quick
CHRISTIANNA BRAND	161	(16)
Country Lovers
NADINE GORDIMER	177	(12)
The Irony of Hate
RUTH RENDELL	189	(18)
Sweet Baby Jenny
JOYCE HARRINGTON	207	(22)
Wild Mustard
MARCIA MULLER	229	(12)
Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave
ANTONIA FRASER	241	(38)
The Case of the Pietro Andromache
SARA PARETSKY	279	(30)
Afraid All the Time
NANCY PICKARD	309	(18)
The Young Shall See Visions, and the Old Dream Dreams
KRISTINE KATHRYN RUSCH	327	(22)
A Predatory Woman
SHARYN McCRUMB	349	(14)
Jack Be Quick
BARBARA PAUL	363	(36)
Ghost Station
CAROLYN WHEAT	399	(18)
New Moon and Rattlesnakes
WENDY HORNSBY	417	(20)
Death of a Snowbird
J.A. JANCE	437	(22)
The River Mouth
LIA MATERA	459	(16)
A Scandal in Winter
GILLIAN LINSCOTT	475	(30)
Murder-Two
JOYCE CAROL OATES	505	(28)
English Autumn American Fall
MINETTE WALTERS	533

Excerpts

A Moment on the Edge
100 Years of Crime Stories by Women

Chapter One

A Jury of Her Peers

Susan Glaspell

When Martha Hale opened the storm-door and got a cutof the north wind, she ran back for her big woolen scarf.As she hurriedly wound that round her head her eye made ascandalized sweep of her kitchen. It was no ordinary thing thatcalled her away—it was probably further from ordinary thananything that had ever happened in Dickson County. But whather eye took in was that her kitchen was in no shape for leaving:her bread all ready for mixing, half the flour sifted and half unsifted.

She hated to see things half done; but she had been at thatwhen the team from town stopped to get Mr. Hale, and then thesheriff came running in to say his wife wished Mrs. Hale wouldcome too—adding, with a grin, that he guessed she was gettingscary and wanted another woman along. So she had droppedeverything right where it was.

"Martha!" now came her husband's impatient voice. "Don'tkeep folks waiting out here in the cold."

She again opened the storm-door, and this time joined thethree men and the one woman waiting for her in the big twoseatedbuggy.

After she had the robes tucked around her she took anotherlook at the woman who sat beside her on the back seat. She hadmet Mrs. Peters the year before at the county fair, and the thingshe remembered about her was that she didn't seem like a sheriff 'swife. She was small and thin and didn't have a strong voice. Mrs.Gorman, sheriff 's wife before Gorman went out and Peters camein, had a voice that somehow seemed to be backing up the lawwith every word. But if Mrs. Peters didn't look like a sheriff 'swife, Peters made it up in looking like a sheriff. He was to a dot the kind of man who could get himself elected sheriff—a heavyman with a big voice, who was particularly genial with the lawabiding,as if to make it plain that he knew the difference betweencriminals and non-criminals. And right there it came into Mrs.Hale's mind with a stab, that this man who was so pleasant andlively with all of them was going to the Wrights' now as a sheriff.

"The country's not very pleasant this time of year," Mrs. Petersat last ventured, as if she felt they ought to be talking as well asthe men.

Mrs. Hale scarcely finished her reply, for they had gone up alittle hill and could see the Wright place now, and seeing it didnot make her feel like talking. It looked very lonesome this coldMarch morning. It had always been a lonesome-looking place.It was down in a hollow, and the poplar trees around it werelonesome-looking trees. The men were looking at it and talkingabout what had happened. The county attorney was bending toone side of the buggy, and kept looking steadily at the place asthey drew up to it.

"I'm glad you came with me," Mrs. Peters said nervously, asthe two women were about to follow the men in through thekitchen door.

Even after she had her foot on the doorstep, her hand on theknob, Martha Hale had a moment of feeling she could not crossthe threshold. And the reason it seemed she couldn't cross it nowwas simply because she hadn't crossed it before. Time and timeagain it had been in her mind, "I ought to go over and see MinnieFoster"—she still thought of her as Minnie Foster, though fortwenty years she had been Mrs.Wright. And then there was alwayssomething to do and Minnie Foster would go from her mind.But now she could come.

The men went over to the stove. The women stood closetogether by the door. Young Henderson, the county attorney,turned around and said, "Come up to the fire, ladies."

Mrs. Peters took a step forward, then stopped."I'm not—cold," she said.

And so the two women stood by the door, at first not even somuch as looking around the kitchen.

The men talked for a minute about what a good thing it wasthe sheriff had sent his deputy out that morning to make a firefor them, and then Sheriff Peters stepped back from the stove,unbuttoned his outer coat, and leaned his hands on the kitchentable in a way that seemed to mark the beginning of official business."Now, Mr. Hale," he said in a sort of semi-official voice,"before we move things about, you tell Mr. Henderson just whatit was you saw when you came here yesterday morning."

The county attorney was looking around the kitchen.

"By the way," he said, "has anything been moved?" He turnedto the sheriff. "Are things just as you left them yesterday?"

Peters looked from cupboard to sink; from that to a small wornrocker a little to one side of the kitchen table.

"It's just the same."

"Somebody should have been left here yesterday," said thecounty attorney.

"Oh—yesterday," returned the sheriff, with a little gesture asof yesterday having been more than he could bear to think of."When I had to send Frank to Morris Center for that man whowent crazy—let me tell you, I had my hands full yesterday. I knewyou could get back from Omaha by today, George, and as longas I went over everything here myself—"

"Well, Mr. Hale," said the county attorney, in a way of lettingwhat was past and gone go, "tell just what happened when youcame here yesterday morning."

Mrs. Hale, still leaning against the door, had that sinking feelingof the mother whose child is about to speak a piece. Lewis oftenwandered along and got things mixed up in a story . . .

A Moment on the Edge
100 Years of Crime Stories by Women. Copyright © by Elizabeth George. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from Moment on Edge: 100 Years of Crime Stories by Women by Elizabeth George
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