SEED ON THE WIND is a revealing dramatization of Lora Winter, who has had many lovers but only one beloved. The story opens when the father of Lora’s youngest child first betrays that he is disturbed by an incident from her past that has arisen to cloud the present; the author then proceeds, in a series of vivid scenes, to unfold the past before our eyes. To the reader this is not a novel — rather the living, breathing substance of reality. Not even in the magic pages of How Like a God did Mr. Stout reveal himself so completely a master of feminine psychology. As in his first work, the author has provided both an engrossing story and a deep, moving study of human motivation.When How Like a God was issued, critics and the public alike realized that a new and powerful novelist had arisen. SEED ON THE WIND generously fulfills the promise of Mr. Stout’s first book and goes far to sustain the contention of those critics who compared him to D. H. Lawrence.

Target Practice brings together for the first time the complete short works of fiction that Rex Stout wrote for All-Story Magazine, the famous journal which published the cream of his early writings. Including “Secrets,” the first crime fiction Stout wrote, and “Justice Ends at Home,” with a detective team foreshadowing Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, these are sixteen of his best stories.

Here is another topnotch mystery by the author of TOO MANY COOKS and SOME BURIED CAESAR. In this story of Wyoming, silver mining, politics and murder, Rex Stout has brought to vigorous life a group of new characters. Not all of them are nice, but all of them are memorable.When Delia Brand planned to murder Preacher Rufus Toale, she thought she would be meting out justice for the murder of her father and the suicide of her mother. But when she went to Dan Jackson’s office at ten o’clock that night she only wanted to keep Jackson from firing her sister. She found Jackson dead and she found her gun on the table beside him.Delia couldn’t murder Rufus Toale because she was arrested for a murder she didn’t commit. That was the beginning of a series of events that had great repercussions. It was almost too late when Wynne Cowles, divorcee, told Delia what Mountain Cat really meant.

Hillerman, author of the Joe Leaphorn mysteries, and Herbert, editor of The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing, trace this short-story genre from its beginnings in the hands of Edgar Allen Poe through its development by the likes of Erle Stanley Gardner, Mary Roberts Rinehart and Anthony Boucher to its current practice by such masters as Marcia Muller. Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," which established a great many of the whodunit conventions, is indispensable to such an overview. Raymond Chandler's "I'll be Waiting" emits a doom-laden atmosphere right from the first line; William Faulkner shows unexpected economy of language?and a transparent plot?in "An Error in Chemistry." Ed McBain scores high marks in "Small Homicide," in which the tiny details of a baby's untimely death resonate uncomfortably. As represented in this competent, unstartling collection, Linda Barnes ("Lucky Penny") easily outsasses Sue Grafton ("The Parker Shotgun"). Hillerman makes a solid appearance with "Chee's Witch," and in "Benny's Space" Muller captures the full subtle force of her novel-length vision.

In all his years of detecting, the unflappable Nero Wolfe has never encountered an investigation as damnably messy as this one. For what began as a clean case of larceny quickly sank into a quagmire of blackmail and broken promises, international scandal and cold-blooded murder.Now Wolfe and his assistant, Archie Goodwin must bridge eras and oceans to find the link between a Wild West lynching and a respected British peer. Only then can they save Wolfe’s beautiful young client—and a hotly disputed stake of a cool million dollars.