Description: Edward D. Hoch was and is the undisputed master of the mystery short story. His total output of published short fiction hovers just under 1,000 stories. Hoch is best remembered for his fair-play and impossible crime short stories, particularly the series featuring Dr Sam Hawthorne, a small-town physician who unraveled seemingly impossible 'problems' in 1920s New England. His other popular series characters included British Intelligence codebreaker Jeffrey Rand and thief-for-hire Nick Velvet. While a vast majority of Ed Hoch's stories were mysteries, he enjoyed horror and science fiction. Of his 900-plus output, he wrote several handfuls of horror and sci-fi stories that appeared in various magazines and anthologies. Here are 29 tales of the future, the fantastic, and the improbable by a master of the craft.

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