The Specialty of the House and Other Stories: The Complete Mystery Tales, 1948-1978

The speciality of the house
The cat's paw
Death on Christmas Eve
The orderly world of Mr. Appleby
Fool's mate
The best of everything
The betrayers
The house party
The moment of decision
Broker's special
The Blessington method
The faith of Aaron Menefee
You can't be a little girl all your life
Robert
Unreasonable doubt
The day of the bullet
Beidenbauer's flea
The seven deadly virtues
The nine-to-five man
The question
The crime of Ezechiele Coen
The great persuader
The day the thaw came to 127
Death of an old-fashioned girl
The twelfth statue
The last bottle in the world
Coin ot the realm
Kindly dig your wall
The corruption of officer Avakadian
A corner of paradise
Generation gap
The family circle
Reasons unknown
Stanley Bernard Ellin (October 6, 1916 – July 31, 1986) was an American mystery writer. Ellin was born in Brooklyn, New York. After a brief tenure in the Army, at the insistence of his wife, Ellin began writing full time. While his novels are acclaimed, he is best known for his short stories. In May 1948, his first sale, and one of Ellin's most famous short stories, "The Specialty of the House" ("Speciality of the House" in England), appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.
In the years to come, Ellin's fame as an author grew. He was awarded three Edgar Allan Poe Awards (Edgar Award). His first Edgar was for the short story "The House Party" in 1954, the next for the short story "The Blessington Method" in 1956, and his third for the novel The Eighth Circle in 1959. Several episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents were based on Ellin short stories, and his novels Dreadful Summit, House of Cards, and The Bind were adapted into feature films. Charles Silet writes that Ellin "did much toward erasing the distinctions between traditional genre and mainstream fiction by writing novels more concerned with character and locale than with plot."