Due to his research into the lives of geniuses, Dr Julius Conrad of the Wellington Institute for the Study of the Humanities has developed a radical hypothesis: Namely, that the work of most geniuses, past and present, has been directed by minds from a ruthless future which take possession of either the unstable geniuses themselves or else of unstable people who are in a position to change the course of the geniuses' work. When Conrad is murdered on the eve of announcing his theory, journalist Henry Sanford and the Institute's brainy Liza Drew investigate. Soon the pair discover their own lives are in jeopardy, for the people of the future are determined that no one of our era will ever reveal their existence or the role they play in human history.

As critic Groff Conklin wrote in Galaxy, Killer to Come has "a sharpness and authority in the writing, plotting and characterization that makes it soar high. Entertains in an expert and colorful fashion. A fast-moving tale with a wry and uncomfortable payoff."

Published
1953
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Author

Sam Merwin, Jr.

Samuel Kimball Merwin Jr. (1910–1996) was an American mystery fiction writer, science fiction author and editor. He mostly published fiction as Sam Merwin, Jr., but his pseudonyms included Elizabeth Deare Bennett, Matt Lee, Jacques Jean Ferrat and Carter Sprague. Sam Merwin, Jr. is probably best remembered today for the alternate world novel The House of Many Worlds (1951) and its sequel, Three Faces of Time (1955).