'Ellin consistently wrote the best mystery stories of his time' Lawrence Block
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James Flood, just released from a Florida prison, has a desperate scheme. He and his recruits, all hardened criminals, will move in upon a prominent upstate New York family, holding the Hayworth women as hostages while awaiting delivery of a four-million-dollar ransom. Marcus Hayworth, a leading member of the Quaker community, is convinced he can subvert Flood's plan. Instead of going to the police, he asks the Quaker community to back him in non-violent opposition.
Subsequent events isolate both hostages and captors within the Hayworth house, waging a war of nerves that involves more than a clash between good and evil. For Flood has an urgent and specific need for revenge. And Hayworth's principles have never been put to the ultimate test.
Stanley Ellin was born in Brooklyn, New York, and educated at Brooklyn College. He worked as a teacher, a steelworker and a dairy farmer and served in the US Army in World War Two before becoming a full-time writer in 1946. His first published short story, The Speciality of the House, won him a special Ellery Queen Award. He won two Edgar Awards for short stories, as well as one for The Eighth Circle, and the Grand Prix de la Littérature Policière for Mirror, Mirror on the Wall. In 1980 he was made a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America.
