Perfect Murders

Perhaps best known for editing the popular postWorld War II magazinesGalaxy Science FictionandBeyond Fantasy Fiction, Horace L. Gold also wrote comic-book scripts for DC Comics and penned numerous pulp adventures and science-fiction stories.Perfect Murders, a collection of seven of these stories, captures the timeless emotions evoked by pulp and science fiction for the twenty-first century. Though the main character is always called Gilroy, his identity shifts from story to story: the horserace handicapper fighting for his dame, the private eye sussing out the murderer, or the hard-boiled journalist exposing the mad scientist. And though Gold uses the traditional genrestime travel, Armageddon, science gone awry, murder, extraterrestrialsPerfect Murdersis nothing less than a horrific, page-turning, fictional thrill ride engineered by one of the leading science-fiction writers and editors of the mid-twentieth century. The Bison Books edition is introduced by Gold's son, E. J. Gold, offering a new perspective on these classic stories.

Horace L. Gold (1914–96) wrote for DC Comics during the early 1940s until he was drafted. After his discharge, he brought a fresh, more nuanced approach to the science-fiction genre as editor of Galaxy Science Fiction. During the post–World War II science-fiction boom, Gold was known for introducing new writers, hiring illustration pioneers, and publishing a beautiful, high-quality magazine. E. J. Gold is an artist, writer, and jazz musician who collaborated with his father, Horace L. Gold, on several novels in the 1960s and whose science-fiction stories and articles have appeared in several magazines, including Omni Magazine.