The Horizontal Man

Helen Eustis’s The Horizontal Man (1946), an Edgar Award-winning debut novel, masterfully weaves together elements of detection, satire, and psychological insight. The story unfolds after a poet within an Ivy League faculty is murdered, igniting a wave of anxiety and suspicion among the members of an English department steeped in discussions of Freud and Kafka. This captivating work is part of The Library of America's collection, Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s & 50s, edited by Sarah Weinman.