Detective Fiction

Showing 109–144 of 485 results

£395

London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1935. First edition. 8vo. Original black cloth with yellow spine label. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6. The first of two Buchanesque thrillers by Cannan, right down to the style of the jacket artwork. The author was well known for her detective fiction and children's stories.

£275



London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1935.

First edition. 8vo. Original black cloth with yellow spine label. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.

The first of two Bunchanesque thrillers by Cannan, right down to the style of the jacket artwork. The author was well known for her detective fiction and children's stories.

£295



London, Collins Crime Club, 1958.

First edition. 8vo. Original dark orange boards. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 10s6d.

Architecture + murder = classic stuff.

£120



London, Harper & Brothers, 1930.

First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth.

A solid first edition of Carr's first novel, of the locked-room subgenre. The work introduced his series character Henri Bencolin: "an impossible murder in a gambling club - the victim, seen to enter an empty room with all entrances under observation, is subsequently found there, beheaded" (Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers, p.146)

£150



London, Arthur Gray, [1934].

First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 3/6.

Great jacket artwork on this rare, Hubin-listed title.

£295



London, Victor Gollancz, 1939

First edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.

A superb first edition of one of this prolific author's crime/thriller titles.

£295



London, Hamish Hamilton, 1953

First edition (preceding the first US edition by a few months). 8vo. Original burgundy boards. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 10s.6d.

Chandler's hard-boiled noir classic, defined by the author himself as "my best book". In 1955, the novel received the Edgar Award for Best Novel. It was later adapted as a 1973 film of the same name, updated to 1970s Los Angeles and starring Elliott Gould.

£175



London, Hamish Hamilton, [1965].

First edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.

Fourteen stories by US writer Chandler which originally appeared in the American magazine Black Mask, including the first book appearance of The Pencil.

£495



London, James Bowden, 1898.

First edition. 8vo. Advertisements. Original brown pictorial cloth lettered in gilt to spine.

A great first edition by a writer best remembered perhaps as the author of The Lost Continent: The Story of Atlantis (1899). This collection is the second book he published under the pseudonym Chesney.

£495



London, Cassel and Company Ltd, 1929.

First edition. 8vo. Original brown cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.

An attractive first edition of this compilation of Chesterton's famous Father Brown stories.

£1,800



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).

£140

First edition. London. Collins, 1941

£185



London, Collins Crime Club, 1953.

First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket.

A poisoned nursery rhyme leads detective Miss Marple to untangle a web of deceit and murder within a wealthy family, uncovering dark secrets along the way.

£250


[The Under Dog; Blackman's Wood.]
London, The Readers Library, n.d. [1929].

First edition thus. Small 8vo. 2pp. adverts. Original cloth, gilt. Dust-jacket.

A rare pre-1930s Readers Library title, combining a title by Agatha Christie and another by E. Phillips Oppenheim.

£125


Issue 1
New York, Avon Book Company, March 1947.

Large 8vo. Original pictorial wrappers, priced 26c.

The first issue of this short-lived magazine published by the Avon Book Company, New York in 1947. It was a bi-monthly magazine carrying reprints of crime stories and the occasional original story (in this case 'The Missing Vice-President' by Paul R. Rickens). The Agatha Christie story here is 'The Tape-Measure Murder' featuring Miss Marple. The magazine ceased after three issues. Scarce.

£50



Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1948

First Penguin edition. 8vo. Original green & white wrappers.

£50



London, Collins Crime Club, n.d..

Collins 2/- issue. 12mo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket.

A neat early edition of this Agatha Christie classic.

£750



London, Collins, 1929.

First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original near black cloth blocked in red.

A thrilling tale of deception and intrigue unfolds as a group of young adventurers stumble upon a deadly secret connected to the enigmatic Seven Dials Club.

£60



London, Collins Crime Club, 1952.

8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 6s.

Attractive edition of this murder-mystery with supernatural elements.

£325



London, Collins Crime Club, June 1932.

First edition, second impression. 8vo. Original dark cloth.

A group of friends known as the Tuesday Night Club gathers together regularly to share and solve mysterious cases. Each member takes turns presenting a baffling puzzle or crime for the others to unravel. Miss Marple, a seemingly frail and unassuming elderly lady, surprises everyone with her keen observation skills and sharp intuition as she uncovers the truth behind each enigma...

£225



London, Collins Crime Club, 1951.

First edition. 8vo. Original dark orange cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.

A very good first edition of this tale of international intrigue and deadly peril.

£225



London, Collins Crime Club, 1951.

First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original dark orange cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.

A very good first edition of this tale of international intrigue and deadly peril.

£295



London, Collins, 1946.

First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth lettered in gilt to spine. Dust-jacket, priced 10s. 6d.

The first edition of Agatha Christie's personal memoirs about her travels to Syria and Iraq in the 1930s with her archaeologist husband Max Mallowan, where she worked on the digs and wrote some of her most evocative novels.

£65



London, Robert Hale, 1983.

First edition. 8vo. Original black boards. Dust-jacket.

A fine copy of this later work by the novelist and screenwriter T.E.B. Clarke (1907-89), one of the few Brits to win Best Original Screenplay Oscar, for his script for The Lavender Hill Mob.

£225



London, Longmans, 1937.

First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.

Murder and political intrigue at the Home Office...

£125

London, Hutchinson, 1937. One of the Inspector Williams novels, by an author also known for writing Sexton Blake titles.

£125



London, Collins Crime Club, 1945.

First edition, third impression. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 4s6

Mrs Warrander uncovers the truth behind a murder during an undergraduates' dance.

£395



London, Collins, 1923.

First edition. 8vo. Original dark blue cloth blocked in orange. Dust-jacket, priced 3/6 (later issue).

The first edition of the author's first novel, in an early issue jacket (1930s), introducing Superintendent Henry Wilson. Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone.

£195



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.

£225



London, Herbert Jenkins, 1933.

First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, second issue priced 2/6.

A superior example of this Secret Service thriller from the pen of the inimitable Corbett, "King of the one-line gaffe" (Rod Collins).

Detective Fiction

Corbett (James) Gallows Wait

£55



London, Herbert Jenkins, [1947].

First edition. 8vo. Original dark orange cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 8/6.

An attractive first edition by the productive James Corbett, from Jenkins' 'House of the Green Label' series.

£250



London, Herbert Jenkins, [1932].

First edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, with publisher's 3/6 price-sticker on top of original 2/6 price.

A scarce early title by this prolific author, who wrote over forty novels, often with a flair for unusual phrasing that would be lucky to escape the editor's blue pencil these days.

£295



London, Herbert Jenkins, 1941.

First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6.

'"The case of the century" was how the Press described the weird mystery that centred around "The Bat" - a ghoul of the air who, in his efforts to perfect an almost incredible invention, swooped down to kill without mercy". (jacket). A very good first edition, uncommon in the jacket.

£60



London, Herbert Jenkins, [1949].

First edition. 8vo. Original orange boards, lettered in black. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.

Quite a lovely dust-jacket.

£295



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.

£295



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)).