The Best Mysteries of Isaac Asimov is a collection of mystery short stories by American author Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...

. It was first published in hardcover

Hardcover

A hardcover, hardback or hardbound is a book bound with rigid protective covers...

 by Doubleday in 1986, and in paperback

Paperback

Paperback, softback or softcover describe and refer to a book by the nature of its binding. The covers of such books are usually made of paper or paperboard, and are usually held together with glue rather than stitches or staples...

 by the Fawcett Crest imprint of Ballantine Books

Ballantine Books

Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...

 in September 1987.

The book thirty-one stories by Asimov, including fifteen featuring his fictional club of mystery solvers, the Black Widowers

Black Widowers

The Black Widowers is a fictional men-only dining club created by Isaac Asimov for a series of sixty-six mystery stories which he started writing in 1971...

, nine of his Union Club

The Union Club Mysteries

The Union Club Mysteries is a collection of mystery short stories by American author Isaac Asimov featuring his fictional mystery solver Griswold...

mysteries, and seven others (one featuring his science fictional detective Wendell Urth and two featuring his boy detective Larry). Most were reprinted from mystery magazines.

Contents

• Black Widowers
  • "The Obvious Factor"
  • "The Pointing Finger"
  • "Out of Sight"
  • "Yankee Doodle Went to Town"
  • "Quicker Than the Eye"
  • "The Three Numbers"
  • "The One and Only East"
  • "The Cross of Lorraine"
  • "The Next Day"
  • "What Time Is It?"
  • "Middle Name"
  • "Sixty Million Trillion Combinations"
  • "The Good Samaritan"
  • "Can You Prove It?"
  • "The Redhead"
• Union Club
  • "He Wasn't There"
  • "Hide and Seek"
  • "Dollars and Cents"
  • "The Sign"
  • "Getting the Combination"
  • "The Library Book"
  • "Never Out of Sight"
  • "The Magic Umbrella"
  • "The Speck"
• Other
  • "The Key"
  • "The Problem of Numbers"
  • "The Little Things"
  • "Halloween"
  • "The Thirteenth Day of Christmas"
  • "The Key Word"
  • "Nothing Might Happen"

External links

• Review by John H. Jenkins