The 2nd Golden Age of Mystery and Crime MEGAPACK ™: Ruth Chessman

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I first encountered Ruth Chessman’s work when browsing back issues of Manhunt magazine—and I was immediately intrigued Manhunt was a noir/hardboiled digest-sized mystery magazine, and female bylines were uncommon. A quick check showed that she also published stories in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine as well as a 1965 middle-grade novel called Bound for Freedom, which was adapted as a movie. She must have instilled her love of crime writing in her family, since her daughter turns out to be none other than mystery writer Jane K. Cleland—who was kind enough to grant us permission to reprint her late mother’s work. (Jane also supplied us with copies of hard-to-find stories.) Ruth Chessman was a very good, if far too infrequent writer. This collection assembles most of her published short fiction.