The So Blue Marble

by Dorothy B. Hughes, Gabrielle de Cuir (Read by)

Overview

An actress finds herself caught between her ex-husband and a pair of murderous twins

At the age of twenty-four, Griselda Satterlee has already lived two lifetimes. A star of the silver screen, she gives up Hollywood after a year and moves to New York to become a designer. While her ex-husband, Con, is out of town, she is staying in his apartment. Walking back one night, she meets two cheerful young men who want to go home with her—and won't take no for an answer.

David and Danny are twins, and they are the most beautiful men Griselda has ever seen. They are also the most dangerous. They want something from her: a lustrous blue marble, which they insist is in Con's apartment. Though they leave without hurting her, Griselda knows that next time, they won't be so amiable. To save herself, she must discover the secret of the marble—a secret with death at its core.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781483032573
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	08/19/2014
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 5.70(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Dorothy B. Hughes
(1904–1993) was a mystery author, award-winning poet, and literary critic. She published fourteen novels, the best known of which are In a
Lonely Place and Ride the Pink Horse. Both were made into successful films. Her work had a major influence on other mystery writers of the postwar era, and the movies they inspired remain among the most respected of their genre. She was especially influential on the next two generations of female mystery writers. In the early 1950s, she largely stopped writing fiction,
preferring to focus on criticism. She reviewed mysteries for the Los Angeles
Times, New York Herald Tribune, and other papers and earned an Edgar
Award for Outstanding Mystery Criticism. In 1978 the Mystery Writers of America presented her with the Grand
Master Award for literary achievement.

Gabrielle de Cuir, award-winning narrator, has narrated over three hundred titles and specializes in fantasy, humor, and titles requiring extensive foreign language and accent skills. She was a cowinner of the Audie Award for best narration in 2011 and a three-time finalist for the Audie and has garnered six AudioFile Earphones Awards. Her “velvet touch” as an actor’s director has earned her a special place in the audiobook world as the foremost producer for bestselling authors and celebrities.

Editorial Reviews

08/06/2018
First published in 1940, this delightful entry in Otto Penzler’s new American Mystery Classics series was the debut of MWA Grand Master Hughes (1904–1993), best known today for In a Lonely Place, which became a film starring Humphrey Bogart. After a brief stint as an actress in Hollywood, Griselda Satterlee has returned to Manhattan to pursue a career as a fashion designer. One night, while returning to her ex-husband’s East Side apartment, where she is staying, she is accosted by two frightening young men who demand that she give them the “blue marble.” What follows is nonstop action, with menace and daring exploits bursting through the smooth veneer of upper-class life. Students of cultural history will enjoy stepping back into a New York where gentlemen wear top hats when going out on the town, and ladies, when hastily packing to escape from psychopaths, remember to include in their suitcases “hats with tissue paper crumpled in their hollows.” That Hughes was a poet is clear from the jangling rhythm of her prose. Readers new to this forgotten classic are in for a treat. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"You will have to read [The So Blue Marble] for yourself, and if you wake up in the night screaming with terror, don’t say we didn’t warn you."

The New York Times Book Review

"Extraordinary . . . [Hughes’s] brilliant descriptive powers make and unmake reality."

The New Yorker