The Charlotte Armstrong Treasury

Title: The Charlotte Armstrong Treasury
Genre: Mystery/Suspense
Author: Charlotte Armstrong (1905-1969); preface by Alice Cromie
Designer: Janet Halverson
Publisher: Coward, McCann & Keoghan, Inc., New York, New York
Year: 1972
Pages: 473
Format: Hardback, with dust jacket
Provenance: "Marian Foote" written in ball-point pen on first page
Random Passage: "Jed was reading the floor plan of the hotel that lay in his head. He was counting off numbers, calculating. He had the kind of mind that carried maps and floor plans with him always." (Mischief)
Goodreads Review: "The Witch's House started off a bit slow but picked up speed; I didn't really understand why one teacher's anger was good and right until the back story was explained about page 20. The idea of a modern-day witch tale plus the utter frustration of citizens having to circumvent police boredom and bureaucracy was a good idea. Mischief showed a better sense of pacing and character development. I especially enjoyed the back-and-forth argument that a callous young man has with himself that results in some much-needed humbling out of shock, and the idea that insanity may be neither more nor less than the failure to anticipate consequences - just an ego based on the idea of the moment with no brakes. The Dream Walker failed to capture my attention by page 30, so I decided to finish it another time." — Linda, Aug. 24, 2016
Notes: Omnibus featuring Mischief (1950), The Dream Walker (1955) and The Witch's House (1963). Armstrong was a prolific suspense author who also worked as an ad-agency copy editor and fashion reporter. Her most famous novel, Mischief, formed the basis for the 1952 film Don't Bother to Knock, with Marilyn Monroe in her first starring role. Enjoy Alice Cromie's introduction below.