The Fabulous Clipjoint

About This Book

Published in 1947, The Fabulous Clipjoint is the first novel by Fredric Brown (1906–1972) and the debut of Ed and Am Hunter, a nephew-and-uncle detective team who would appear in seven books. When teenager Ed Hunter's alcoholic father is found beaten to death in a Chicago alley, the police dismiss it as a random mugging. Refusing to accept their verdict, Ed enlists the help of his Uncle Ambrose — Am — a wily, streetwise former carnival worker who has just arrived in town.

Together they work the bars, flophouses, and clip joints of wartime Chicago, following a trail of small-time grifters and broken lives to find out who killed a man the world considered expendable. The novel is as much a coming-of-age story as a mystery: Ed's Chicago is a dangerous education in the ways adults lie, cheat, and survive.

The Fabulous Clipjoint won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel in 1948. Brown, who was also a celebrated science fiction writer, is remembered for taut, inventive plotting and an ability to evoke atmosphere in a few sharp sentences. The novel is in the public domain.

Excerpt

In my dream I was reaching right through the window of a hockshop.— Opening of The Fabulous Clipjoint

What Critics Say

You're about to make the acquaintance of a man who never fails to be excellent company— Lawrence Block, introduction

I don't know that anything I read was more engaging or entertaining than Fredric Brown's fiction— Lawrence Block, CrimeReads

Publication Details