The Screaming Mimi

About This Book

Published in 1949, The Screaming Mimi is a noir thriller by Fredric Brown (1906–1972). A Chicago reporter named Bill Sweeney, drinking himself into oblivion after a personal crisis, stumbles onto a connection between a series of knife attacks on blonde women and a small statuette called the Screaming Mimi. Brown weaves the investigation through the seedy nightlife of postwar Chicago with his trademark economy of prose and dark humor. The novel was adapted into a 1958 film directed by Gerd Oswald and is also cited as an influence on Dario Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970). Brown is celebrated for his mastery of both mystery and science fiction. The Screaming Mimi is a classic of mid-century American noir.

Excerpt

You can never tell what a drunken Irishman will do. You can make a flying guess; you can make a lot of flying guesses.— Opening of The Screaming Mimi

What Critics Say

Brown put together a classic, yet original hardboiled detective whodunit mixed successfully with a serial killer plot— Crimeways

Publication Details