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HAPPY NEW YEAR, HERBIE And Other Stories by Evan Hunter

HAPPY NEW YEAR, HERBIE And Other Stories

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Pub Date: March 25th, 1963
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

The bouquet garni- presumably from magazine appearance-puts between hard covers some assorted-to-varied short stories. They range from fantasy (in a reverse time travel episode a man loses 16 years; a trapeze artist in a circus risks his life to bargain for a soul) -- to the harsher reality of the asphalt jungle (a 16-year old youngster is knifed in a rumble and left to die on the street; a cop, as degraded as the by- products of his beat, still has the decency not to destroy a young girl)- to romantic, or less romantic, encounters. The title story which is the most developed as well as the longest, is by far the best and can qualify as more than just light entertainment which can be characterized as easy to read, harder to remember.