The Screaming Mimi, 1949 in the Bantam Books 1955 2nd printing
Cover art by Charles Binger

Fredric Brown (1906-1972), one of my favourite crime - pulp fiction writers from the 1940's - 1950's also
wrote science fiction. He debuted in 1947 with the Edgar Prize awarded The Fabulous Clipjoint and he
had some unorthodox sleuths/problem solvers in the form of the Circus workers Ed Hunter and Uncle Am.
Yes, he also wrote some science fiction as What Mad Universe (1949) and crime short stories as the Laughing
Butcher and The Djinn Murder, but my favourite Brown is The Screaming Mimi from 1949.
With a plot so fascinating and unusual that Dario Argento used it in his Giallo masterpiece The Bird with the
Crystal Plumage from 1969. The Novel was also filmed in 1958 in a late B-ish but fun Film Noir by Gerd
Oswald with our great swede Anita Ekberg in the main role as a nightclub stripper, and this gem was finally
released on DVD in 2010 by Columbia Pictures

US DVD