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Title: The Prettiest Girl I Ever Killed

Author: Charles Runyon

Narrator: MIchael Kramer

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-10-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

Accidents happen, but the town of Sherman seems to have more than its fair share of the fatal kind. Someone falls into a well, another drowns, another is killed by an exploding stove. Curt Friedland comes back to town to clear his brother of murder, convinced there is more to all these deaths than mere coincidence. Enlisting the aid of Velda, whose sister was supposedly murdered by Curt's brother, the two of them gradually begin to attract the attention of a very ingenious killer, a man well versed in the game of Death.

Members Reviews:

Top-Notch Tale of Small-Town Southern Noir

Charles Runyon is best known as a science fiction writer, but it is unfortunate for us that he didnât write more crime fiction. He was quite good at it. âThe Prettiest Girl I Ever Killedâ has a title that grabs you from the paperback racks. It is a murder mystery about a serial killer and it is a real good one.

Make no mistake about it. This novel is excellent. Don't be fooled into thinking it is just another pulpy tale filled with the language and imagery of Southern noir.

The first part of the book is told from the killerâs point of view and it is quite a chilling point of view. Told in the most lushly pulpy way, it is reminiscent of the best of Gil Brewerâs Florida lust in the swamps tales. The killer explains that âBernice Struble thought she was playing the adultery game, but [he] taught her that it was only a variation of The Death Game.â Bernice is a lonely, horny housewife who while the husbandâs away, goes to town and sits there, smoking a cigarette, her lips âswollen and sensuous as they pursed and pulled on the white cylinderâ and her eyes âmoist and hot, measuring the men as they passed.â The narrator notes that, in five years, Bernice would be âcoarse and dumpy, but now she had no need to stretch and compress her flesh with latex and elastic. As she walked the town, he could see the âsoft rolling shape beneath Berniceâs dressâ and knew âshe was dealing it straight, letting you know in advance, and if you were disappointed later it was your own fault for not looking.â But, this portrait of this dame is not complete until the narrator finds her sitting in front of her house and asks if she wanted to take a ride. âPoor dumb broad, she had nothing working for her but an extra helping of hormones.â He explains that she had been sitting in her yard and it hadnât mattered who came by.

But what is most chilling here is not the narratorâs casual approach to adultery, but that, after killing her, he explained that he had only contempt for those who go out on a dark street and select a victim at random. Instead, this narrator is a professional, an expert, an artist, who is not crude and barbarous about killing. He works at his craft and he leaves few clues that it is even murder.

Most of the book is concerned with two folks in this small, homey little town who have picked up on the small clues â like the fact that there have been statistically way too many accidental deaths in this town. Velda runs the grocery and is a smart, clever woman. The other is Curt Friedland, who has been away for many years since his brother Frankie had been convicted of murder â the murder of Anne, Veldaâs sister, now dead twelve years. Amid small-town gossip, these two put together the clues.