The surprise party: Classic Book Guide and Free Edition
The surprise party: author and translator credits, catalogue synopsis, subjects and links to the Gutenberg reading formats.
The surprise party is catalogued by Project Gutenberg with author credits for Gardner, Erle Stanley (1889–1970).
Catalogue synopsis
Project Gutenberg supplies this automated synopsis of the opening text:
The surprise party by Erle Stanley Gardner is a crime fiction short story written in the late 1920s. It follows a lone-wolf gangster known as the High Collar Kid who senses a setup and must outwit an underworld “surprise party.” The piece centers on deception, a honey trap, and a razor-edged battle of nerves on a rain-lashed night. The High Collar Kid spots trouble as he leaves his rooming house, then roars out of town in a storm, where he encounters a striking young woman walking alone. After he coaxes her into his car, she pulls a gun and forces him to drive—just as a trailing car with Pete Pelton and Smile Dugan closes in to take him for a “ride.” The Kid quietly lifts a rain-damp letter from the woman’s purse, learns her name and hotel, and later bluffs the gunmen that he has already dropped the letter in town where a constable saw, tying them to the plot. Rattled, they pause to “ditch” the girl; in the scuffle the Kid shields her, snatches her hidden gun, shoots Pete, and holds Dugan at bay. He speeds off with the woman and the incriminating note, having turned their trap against them with quick eyes, smooth talk, and a faster draw.
Book and edition facts
- Title: The surprise party
- Author credits: Gardner, Erle Stanley (1889–1970)
- Catalogue language: English
Catalogue subjects
- Criminals -- Fiction
- Short stories
- Thrillers (Fiction)
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View the complete Gutenberg catalogue record. Project Gutenberg identifies this edition as public domain in the United States; that designation does not establish its copyright status in every country.
Source notes
Catalogue metadata is public domain and is supplied through Gutendex, which imports Gutenberg's machine-readable catalogue. The automated synopsis is source-supplied, not an independently verified review. Author dates above describe the credited people; no ebook release date is presented as the book's original publication date.
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