Alfred Hitchcock's the Best of Fiends

Alfred Hitchcock's The Best of Fiends is part of a series of short story collections released in the sixties and seventies. Alfred Hitchcock, as I understand it, was not even peripherally involved with these books (his introductions were ghost-written). Best of Fiends contains fourteen crime and suspense short stories by these authors: H. A. DeRosso, C. B. Gilford, Rog Phillips, Edwin P. Hicks, Richard Deming, Dick Ellis, Fletcher Flora, Neil M. Clark, Gilbert Ralston, Mary Linn Roby, Ed Lacy, Robert Colby, Jack Ritchie, and Richard O. Lewis. Some of these stories seem amateurish and a few are predictable, but two are three are quite good and all of them are entertaining to some degree. On the whole, this is one of the weaker entries in the series, but nevertheless is a quick and diverting read. RECOMMENDED