Crime fiction is generally better suited to the novel than to the short story, which is why it’s always refreshing to come across those rare writers who built their reputation primarily on short fiction. That is certainly the case with Stanley Ellin and his collection The Specialty of the House.
I had already encountered some of his work in various anthologies — You Can’t Be a Little Girl All Your Life, The Nine to Five Man, and The Question. The stories collected here are often quite strange. For example, The Orderly World of Mr. Appleby follows a man obsessed with his antique shop, while Broker’s Special is another standout, along with The Blessington Method, Day of the Bullet, and several others.
As H. R. F. Keating noted, Ellin’s stories are “enormously varied in plot and setting, linked first by clarity of style, and second by a fascinatingly bizarre view of the world and its people.”
But while these stories are generally well written, they seem to lack the kind of passion and obsession that reveal the writer’s soul.
The Crime Masterworks edition is well produced in hardcover, with an attractive dust jacket and an introduction written by Ellin himself.
