We love this cover for Fredric Brown’s 1949 thriller The Dead Ringer, with art by Robert Stanley. Brown wrote about 250 books, including The Fabulous Clipjoint. This one includes the same protagonists as Clipjoint, Ed Hunter and Uncle Ambrose, sticking close to Am’s circus roots (he was a carny pitchman before he became an amateur sleuth) as they try to solve a series of slayings plaguing a traveling carnival. This one may be worth a read solely for the bizarre fact that a chimp gets murdered. How many mysteries can say that?
1933—Franklin Roosevelt Survives Assassination Attempt
In Miami, Florida, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to shoot President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but is restrained by a crowd and, in the course of firing five wild shots, hits five people, including Chicago, Illinois Mayor Anton J. Cermak, who dies of his wounds three weeks later. Zangara is quickly tried and sentenced to eighty years in jail for attempted murder, but is later convicted of murder when Cermak dies. Zangara is sentenced to death and executed in Florida’s electric chair.