The Grandfather Rastin Mysteries

Lloyd Biggle, Jr. (1923-2002) is famous as a science-fiction writer who not only used genuine science but whose books emphasized human and cultural elements, including art and music. (He earned a Ph.D. in Musicology.) His detective stories about Grandfather Rastin in the Midwestern town of "Borgville" show this emphasis on the human element, especially as it interacts with place and time. Bill Rastin detects crimes in a nostalgic, Norman-Rockwell world of cantankerous sheriffs, schoolmarms, and con-men from the Big City. Rastin discovers how a human finger founds its way into a little girl s toybox. In another episode, he investigates a thief who stole a broach, a Bunsen Burner, a slide rule, and $68 in cash. And why does a visitor want to buy an apparently worthless violin -- and its bow? The Grandfather Rastin Mysteries, the 23d in Crippen & Landru s series of "Lost Classics," collects 12 stories originally published between 1957 and 1972, and it also includes 2 previously unpublished Grandfather Rastin cases. The cover painting is by Native American artist Barbara Mitchell.