Rare and collectable Detective Fiction titles, including first editions and other significant editions, often with striking dust-jackets. Authors ranging from the obscure, the pseudonymous and the classic, such as Agatha Christie, with titles from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction and beyond.
Detective Fiction
A thrilling romance of the East and the Antipodes
London, Arthur H. Stockwell, 1935.
First edition, first impression. Signed presentation copy from the author. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
An uncommon romantic thriller, by an obscure imprint often associated with vanity publications (i.e. self-funded by the author and similar).
Detective Fiction
London, Wright & Brown, 1961.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 10/6.
Hubin-listed spy thriller.
Detective Fiction
London, John Hamilton, [1938].
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, rather clumsily price-clipped to front inside flap.
Serial character Inspector Jackson of Scotland Yard ranges from London to Liverpool in this complicated crime caper.
Detective Fiction
London, John Long, 1965.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
A stand-alone crime thriller set in a Nottinghamshire housing development, in which a doctor investigates the suspicious death of a disliked man apparently killed by wasp stings at his wife's birthday party.
Detective Fiction
London, The Cresset Press, 1958.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original baords. Dust-jacket, priced 15/- (though scored out by hand and changed to 2/6).
Set aboard a small passenger ship sailing from Liverpool to Barbados, the novel presents a series of fatal "accidents" among a mixed group of passengers, investigated by an amateur sleuth, a middle-aged conductor named Edgar Cantrell.
Detective Fiction
London, Methuen, 1930.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth.
One of two Hubin-listed titles by this author, featuring Inspector Digby. Seemingly rare.
Detective Fiction
Macdonald (John Ross, pseud. Kenneth Millar) The Barbarous Coast
London, Cassell, 1957.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
Lew Archer's attempt to locate a missing young woman associated with an upscale Malibu country club, an early foreshadowing of Macdonald's later treatment of cross-generational themes.
Detective Fiction
London, Chapman & Hall, 1904.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original pictorial cloth.
A collection of adventure stories featuring Don Quebranta Huesos, a fearsome Spanish bandit who operates as a kind of antihero.
Detective Fiction
An account of the hitherto unknown circumstances connected with the extraordinary affair of Charles Michael Haworth
London, Cassell, 1928.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth.
First published in the US the year before, this is the only novel by the actor Gillette, famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes. "The mystery addict who wants... horrors tempered by novelty and a good style will be entranced both by the originality of the plot and by Mr. Gillette's unfolding of it... a mystery that will puzzle the most seasoned reader of detective thrillers. It is a most amazing and baffling crime." (US jacket blurb)
Detective Fiction
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1947.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Contemporary library cloth with ex-libris stamp to upper cover. Dust-jacket, priced 8/6.
Bowers' fifth & final novel, concerns a series of apparent suicides in a quiet English village and the murder of a local business proprietress, investigated by Detective Inspector Raikes.
Detective Fiction
Hopley (George, pseud. Cornell Woolrich) Night Has a Thousand Eyes
New York & Toronto, Farrar & Rinehart, 1945.
First edition, first printing. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced $2.50. Housed in later drop-back cloth box (somewhat misleadingly stating 'signed', which the book is not).
The novel centres on a con man haunted by a genuine clairvoyant ability - an unusual blend of noir and the supernatural. Cornell Woolrich (1903-68), who also wrote as William Irish, is a foundational figure of noir fiction whose work inspired numerous films including Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954). First edition copies in dust jacket are scarce.
Detective Fiction
London, Geoffrey Bles, 1939.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
An uncommon bibliomystery by this British detective fiction writer of the Golden Age, who authored some thirty mystery novels, many featuring Detective Inspector William Austen.
Detective Fiction
London, Hammond, Hammond, 1951.
First edition, first impression. Inscribed presentation copy from the author. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Author's first book, uncommon, especially thus warmly inscribed.
Detective Fiction
Robinson (B. Fletcher) and J. Malcolm Fraser. The Trial of the Dead.
The strange experience of Dr. Robert Harland
London, Ward, Lock, 1904.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth with inset illustration to upper cover.
Seven thrilling tales by Fletcher & Fraser, the former who had inspired in large part Conan Doyle with the idea for The Hound of the Baskervilles: "This story owes its inception to my friend, Mr. Fletcher Robinson, who has helped me both in the general plot and in the local details." (ACD, in The Strand)
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1960.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
Father Joseph Bredder, a Franciscan priest in Los Angeles - formerly a professional boxer and decorated Marine - investigates.
Detective Fiction
London, Chapman & Hall, 1904.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original pictorial cloth.
A collection of adventure stories featuring Don Quebranta Huesos, a fearsome Spanish bandit who operates as a kind of antihero.
![Alternative view of "Trill" [pseud. Harry C. Liebart]. The Sickle Murders](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/88115_2-300x300.jpg)
Detective Fiction
London, Lincoln Williams, 1935.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 3/6.
According to the Bear Alley blog the book is listed in the English Catalogue of Books as having appeared in February 1935 and it was listed under the pen-name "Trill". The publisher Lincoln Williams went into administration in July 1935 so the book probably wasn't reprinted. Trill was a pen name for Harry C. Liebart. Hubin listed.
Detective Fiction
A Murder Mystery
London, Hutchinson, [1930].
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
Inspector Rae Norse investigates the murder of a controversial judge in a Southern American setting where voodoo practices create an atmosphere of menace.
Detective Fiction
London, Ward, Lock, 1899.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original pictorial cloth.
A collection of short detective and mystery stories by one of the most prolific crime writers of the late Victorian period.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1945.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, unpriced suggesting intended for export.
An attractive edition of this later title by "the American Agatha Christie."
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1964.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 10/6.
A popular US author, writing twenty-two crime novels between 1942 and 1962, today best known for her thirteen-novel Gridley Nelson police detective series, about an empathetic Princeton-educated, private-income-blessed, prematurely white-haired New York City cop.
Detective Fiction
London, Pilot Press, 1945.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7s6d.
A mystery novel featuring Audemars's early series detective Hercule Renard, set in France. The second in the short-lived Renard series.
Detective Fiction
London, John Murray, 1926.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A highly collectable title and edition from the author of Unleavened Bread (1900), featuring attractive jacket artwork by noted interwar illustrator Helen McKie.
Detective Fiction
London, T.V. Boardman, 1946.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
The author's third novel, distinctly uncommon in the jacket, albeit supplied (but excellent) in this case.
Detective Fiction
New York & Toronto, Farrar & Rinehart, 1937.
First US edition, first printing. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket.
The fourth Pym novel and the title chosen by Farrar & Rinehart to launch Morland in America, with publisher's ballyhoo claiming that Edgar Wallace had "trained a young man to follow in his footsteps" and given him the germ of the Pym character, unsubstantiated but effective PR. The supplied jacket is in excellent condition.
Detective Fiction
London, Macdonald, 1951.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
"The Hungry Spider is in the best tradition of Man Running and The Golden Dart, and it re-introduces many old friends including Detective-Inspector "Ordinary" Smith, Billy Bull, that tough but ingenuous young gentleman known as the Boy, and of course Eve herself presiding." (jacket blurb)
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1959.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 10/6.
Attractive hardback edition of this crime thriller.
Detective Fiction
London, Ward, Lock, 1930.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, publisher's number '264' to spine.
An author best known for The Wheel Spins (1936), which Alfred Hitchcock filmed as The Lady Vanishes (1938), and Some Must Watch (1933), filmed by Robert Siodmak as The Spiral Staircase (1946), this is her third novel and her final mainstream novel before she turned to crime fiction. Features supernatural elements.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1960.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 10/6.
One of the scarcer Rutledge titles, potentially one of two titles published only in the UK.
Detective Fiction
Robinson (B. Fletcher) and J. Malcolm Fraser. The Trial of the Dead.
The strange experience of Dr. Robert Harland
London, Ward, Lock, 1904.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth with inset illustration to upper cover.
Seven thrilling tales by Fletcher & Fraser, the former who had inspired in large part Conan Doyle with the idea for The Hound of the Baskervilles: "This story owes its inception to my friend, Mr. Fletcher Robinson, who has helped me both in the general plot and in the local details." (ACD, in The Strand)
Detective Fiction
London, Ward Lock, 1937.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
The fourth novel by Robertson, a British crime writer whose series characters included Peter Grayleigh, Superintendent Bradley, Inspector John Martin, Vicky McBain, Edward North, and Alan Steel.
Detective Fiction
London, John Lane The Bodley Head, 1941.
Cheap edition, third impression. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, with price sticker '4/6' to inside front flap.
Fourteen short stories featuring Hercule Poirot and Hastings, Christie's first short story collection. Scarce when still with the attractive dust-jacket by Abbey.
Detective Fiction
London, Foulsham, 1951.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A popular US author, writing twenty-two crime novels between 1942 and 1962, today best known for her thirteen-novel Gridley Nelson police detective series, about an empathetic Princeton-educated, private-income-blessed, prematurely white-haired New York City cop.
Detective Fiction
London, Foulsham, 1960.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 10/6.
A popular US author, writing twenty-two crime novels between 1942 and 1962, today best known for her thirteen-novel Gridley Nelson police detective series, about an empathetic Princeton-educated, private-income-blessed, prematurely white-haired New York City cop.
Detective Fiction
Jay (Charlotte, pseud. Geraldine Mary Jay) The Knife is Feminine
London, Collins, 1951.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 8s6d.
The author's scarce first book, and the only one of her works set in Australia.
Detective Fiction
A novel of epic revenge
New York, Stonehill Publishing, 1979.
First edition, first printing. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced $10.95.
The former teen heart-throb and actor's first book.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1972.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
"There were overtones of witchcraft at work when the body of Mrs. Lovibond, a vicious-tongued cleaning woman, was discovered at the bottom of the Guy Fawkes bonfire in a Sussex village." (jacket blurb)
Detective Fiction
London, Wright & Browne, 1965.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 8/6 but with publisher's price sticker '9/6' overlaid.
"A strange, deadly black rust is slowly creeping through the grain crops of Northern India. Geoff Fennell, ace reporter, is sent out to investigate." (jacket blurb)
Detective Fiction
Being some further adventures of the admirable Tinker, child of the world
London, Hodder & Stoughton, [1906].
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original pictorial cloth with inset illustration to upper cover, rebacked preserving original backstrip.
A sequel to Jepson's earlier The Admirable Tinker: Child of the World (1904), continuing the Edwardian comic adventures of Tinker, a preternaturally resourceful and charming boy described repeatedly as an angel child. Jepson shared the pseudonym "Tod Claymore" with the crime writer Hugh Clevely, with whom he co-wrote The Man With the Amber Eyes.
Detective Fiction
from the Memoirs of Hudson of Harley Street
Glasgow, Fraser, Asher, 1923.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth.
The first edition in book form of these medical crime stories, which originally appeared in The Sunday Mail.
Detective Fiction
London, Wright & Brown, 1964.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 10/6.
A letter that could trigger a new world war is the latest headache for Major "Brains" Cunningham.
Detective Fiction
London, Wright & Brown, 1966.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 12/6.
A Cuban crisis leads to Haitian horror for Major "Brains" Cunningham.