Detective Fiction
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1941.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 8/3.
Inspector French investigates a poisoning in this uncommon first edition. The handwritten note to the jacket spine refers to the American edition.
Detective Fiction
New York, Wilfred Funk, 1940.
First edition. 8vo. Original green cloth. Dust-jacket, priced $2.00.
The last of seven crime thrillers by psychologist C. Daly King; this time the protagonist Walter Lord is all at sea, in several senses, as he tries to resolve a double murder, kidnap and matters of the heart simultaneously, bewildering even his stalwart companion Dr L. Rees Pons.
Detective Fiction
New York, Harrison Smith & Robert Haas, 1935.
First edition. 8vo. Original green cloth. Dust-jacket, priced $2.00.
Aeronautical crime-thriller featuring King's series character Michael Lord, investigating murder aboard a transcontinental flight. An intricate plot combined with "locked room" element, the mystery was praised by The New York Times as "a very thrilling story." Very much in the S.S. Dine vein, and one of only seven genre titles recorded by this author.
Detective Fiction
London, Ward, Lock & Co., 1943.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original pale blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 5/-.
A very good first UK edition of this non-series title by the often under-appreciated Harry Stephen Keeler, deviser of the "webwork" plot concept.
Detective Fiction
London, Constable, 1955.
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 10s6.
Equestrian murder mystery.
Detective Fiction
London, Constable, 1935.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
Suitably ominous jacket artwork on this uncommon first edition; one of at least three works by Scottish author Curle, better known today for his friendship with and works about Joseph Conrad.
Detective Fiction
Stansbury (Alec, pseud. Alec Stansbury Higgs) Cupid Painted Blind
London, Alston Rivers, 1929.
First edition. 8vo. Original green cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
Attractively jacketed 'twenties title; a tale of financial dishonesty and torrid passion that comes good.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1970.
Uncorrected proof copy. 8vo. Original wrappers. Dust-jacket, ?price-clipped.
Collins proofs are distinctly uncommon.
Detective Fiction
and other Tales of Adventure
London, Hodder & Stoughton, n.d. [c.1930].
Early edition. 8vo. Original red decorative cloth. Dust-jacket, no price.
A lovely copy of this compilation of stories by American novelist, playwright, and Olympic water polo player Rex Beach.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1958.
First edition. 8vo. Original dark orange boards. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 10s6d.
Architecture + murder = classic stuff.
Detective Fiction
London & Glasgow, Blackie & Son, 1939.
First edition. 8vo. Original dark orange cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6.
The first edition in book form of a story that was made famous by a successful West End play.
Detective Fiction
London, Herbert Jenkins, 1939.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth blocked in black. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6.
Attractive jacket artwork by a prolific jacket artist of the period, Eugene Hastain. A tale of a proposal of marriage as a business deal, that leads to jealousy and hate...
Detective Fiction
Lees (Hannah, pseud. Elizabeth Head Fetter) and Lawrence Bachmann. Death in the Doll’s House
London, John Murray, 1944.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 8/6.
Psychological elements in a murder mystery involving a six-year-old child... basis for the 1950 film Shadow on the Wall.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1979.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original black boards. Dust-jacket, priced £3.95.
Harder-boiled than most, PI Matt Scudder gets to grips with a death of an unlikely couple in Greenwich Village.
Detective Fiction
a Demon
London, F.V. White, 1900.
First edition. 8vo. Original dark brown cloth lettered in gilt and with inset red image to upper cover.
A first person account by John Ferguson of his friend Edwin Lawrence's brutal murder, the beautiful woman who dropped through his window on the same night and the subsequent quest to solve the murder.
Detective Fiction
London, Herbert Jenkins, 1939.
First edition. 8vo. Original dark orange cloth blocked in black. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6.
Classic whodunnit murder-mystery by an author often better remembered for his spoonerisms and malapropisms, unfairly perhaps.
Detective Fiction
London, Putnam, 1932.
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket,
Scotland Yard is baffled by a series of deaths climaxing in that of an oil magnate.
Detective Fiction
Jerome (Owen Fox, pseud. Oscar Jerome Friend) The Red Kite Clue
London, Skeffington, [1929].
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, with publisher's 3/6 price-sticker to spine.
An attractive first edition and an uncommon book in the jacket. Detective Philip MacCray is on the case to solve the murder of an archaeologist recently returned from the Orient.
Detective Fiction
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1931.
First edition, stamped 'Publisher's file copy' on prelim. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6.
An attractive mid-period mystery novel by the author and journalist Valentine Williams, creator of 'Clubfoot'. Distinctly uncommon in the original dust-jacket. Murder and royal intrigue.
Detective Fiction
London, Stanley Paul, 1957.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, clipped but with price 6/6 present on inside flap.
Further Frampton frolics, the jacket here showing a few suspiciously red finger marks itself...
Detective Fiction
London, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1967.
First edition. 8vo. Original purple boards. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
A very good first edition of the first book by Lemarchand, introducing CDI Tom Pollard and his assistant Sergeant Toye of Scotland Yard.
Detective Fiction
London, Stanley Paul, [1947].
First edition. 8vo. Orriginal blue cloth. Dust-jacket.
Frampton of the Yard is back on the case following the mysterious disappearance of a friend in 'Dead End'.
Detective Fiction
London, Hodder & Stoughton, [c.1930].Early reprint. 8vo. Original yellow cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 3/6.A very good early printing of this key title by Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace, aka The King of Mystery Fiction.
Detective Fiction
London, Rich & Cowan, [1948].
First edition. 8vo. Original blue boards. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
Stephen Conway keeps a promise to a dead army buddy to show Alexander Dean, the renowned playwright and mystery writer the manuscript of his play.
Detective Fiction
London, Hutchinson, [1925].
First edition. 8vo. Original dark red cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
Seemingly a bizarrely scarce edition of this crime fiction title, with the BL and WorldCat only recording the Tauchnitz edition. It first appeared in serial form in Hutchinson's Magazine, 1924.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1940.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
An uncommon first edition, featuring Marsh's series character Chief Detective-Inspector Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard.
Detective Fiction
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1926.
First edtion, 'file copy'. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6.
"The Alps - an ex-spy - and Edris!"
An uncommon 'twenties title to find in the original jacket, this the publisher's file copy.
Detective Fiction
Johns (Foster, pseud. Gilbert Vivian Selders) The Victory Murders
London, Harrap, 1927.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original green cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 2/6.
'Armistice Night Murders in Paris, London, and New York' (jacket). An uncommon title in the jacket, from the pen of a prolific American author and cultural critic.
Detective Fiction
Frome (David, pseud. Zenith Jones Brown) The Body in Bedford Square
London, Longmans, 1945.
Third edition. 8vo. Original grey/green cloth. Dust-jacket, with 5/- price-sticker to inside front flap.
An attractive reissue of this classic London-based murder mystery.
Detective Fiction
London, Bles, 1935.
'Popular Edition', second printing. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 2/6.
Originally published in 1926, this attractive early edition in the Abbey jacket is a hard find; Dilnot was a journalist associated with true crime stories, in particular through his editorship of the Famous Trials series also published by Geoffrey Bles.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1945.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original dark orange cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6.
A very good UK first edition of this Asey Mayo novel.
Detective Fiction
Courtney (John, pseud. John Cournos) Grandmother Martin is Murdered
London, Skeffington, [1930].
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
Crime fiction by an intriguing author: born in Russia with Yiddish as his first language, Cournos moved to London in 1912 where he engaged in anti-communist activism, notably via his pamphlet London under the Bolsheviks: A Londoner's Dream on Returning from Petrograd (1919); he also enjoyed some success as an Imagist poet, but garnered more renown for his novels and short stories under the Courtney pseudonym - today he is perhaps best known for his failed relationship with Dorothy L. Sayers, an unhappy experience recounted by both authors (Strong Poison by Sayers (1930) and The Devil Is an English Gentleman by Cournos himself in (1932)).
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, n.d..
Collins 2/- issue. 12mo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket.
A neat early edition of this Agatha Christie classic.
Detective Fiction
London, Herbert Jenkins, 1922.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue pictorial cloth. Dust-jacket, with publisher's overlaid price 2/6 on spine.
An early title by the author and journalist Valentine Williams, distinctly uncommon in the original dust-jacket. Murder in the library gets the ball rolling.
Detective Fiction
London, Michael Joseph, 1969.
First edition. 8vo. Original black boards. Dust-jacket, priced £1.50.
One of Mitchell's crime capers featuring architect Timothy Herring.
Detective Fiction
London, Michael Joseph, 1972.
First edition. 8vo. Original black boards. Dust-jacket, priced £2.20.
Macabre May-Day rites in Norfolk...Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley investigates.
Detective Fiction
London, Michael Joseph, 1978.
First edition. 8vo. Original black boards. Dust-jacket, priced £4.25.
Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley investigates in a crime thriller set in Cornwall.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1948.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 8s6d.
An interesting collaboration, recounting the misadventures of a Jekyll & Hyde New York socialite.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1935.
Sixth impression. 8vo. Original black cloth lettered in red. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 2/6.
Classic Dr Priestley territory here courtesy of genre master Rhode.
Detective Fiction
London, Longmans, 1937.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
Murder and political intrigue at the Home Office...
Detective Fiction
London, Cassell, 1926.
First edition. 8vo. Original black cloth blocked in red.
An uncommonly good example of this highly collectable Father Brown first edition: Father Brown 'unravels the tangled skein of crime with entire success, and does it with convincing common-sense logic' (dust jacket).
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1952.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket.
An attractive first UK edition, packed with thrills, romance, mystery, and suspense.