THE DEAD RINGER

An Ed & Am Hunter Mystery

“[Fredric Brown is] my favorite writer of all time.”
—Mickey Spillane

“[Ed & Am are] an engaging pair of detectives . . . [Fredric Brown is] a real pro—a natural storyteller.” —New York Times

Ed Hunter and his Uncle Am have left Chicago and hit the road, traveling with the carnival through podunk Midwestern towns—drinking, gambling, and fleecing the local rubes. Nineteen-year-old Ed is no closer to figuring out what he’s running from when a body turns up murdered on the midway. Next thing, he’s falling for the mercenary blonde showgirl who found the body. As more bodies pile up, Ed and Am are compelled to find the killer. But in the carney, there’s an unwritten code that makes investigating a crime as bad as, if not worse than, committing one. In The Dead Ringer, the sequel to Fredric Brown’s Edgar Award–winning debut, The Fabulous Clipjoint, trouble has a way of finding Ed and Am, no matter where they go.

This edition of The Dead Ringer includes the unabridged text, an informative introduction, and a detailed author bio.

“[E]nough good people put Brown on their must-read lists and then become evangelists to keep his name alive on the same high shelf as Hammett, Thompson, Ross Macdonald, and other crime icons.”
—Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Fredric Brown (1906–1972) was an American writer known both for his work as an author of mysteries and science fiction. He first gained prominence for his hundreds of short stories that ran in the crime and sci-fi pulps during the 1930s and ’40s. In 1947 he wrote his first novel, The Fabulous Clipjoint, a mystery that won that year’s Edgar Award. He would go on to publish 27 more novels, both mysteries and science fiction, including six more Ed & Am Hunter Mysteries.