Detective Fiction

Showing 217–252 of 485 results

£85



London, Cassell, 1949.

First UK edition. First UK edition. Small 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 8/6.

Attractive first UK edition of this Perry Mason title.

£60



London, Herbert Jenkins, 1952.

First edition. 8vo. Original red boards. Dust-jacket, priced 9/-.

A dramatic story of crime and detection featuring series character Inspector Gilbert Larose.

£425


First edition.
London, Herbert Jenkins, 1935.

Featuring serial character Gilbert Larose The Poisoned Goblet tells of the efforts by a gang to kidnap the child of Lady Ardane. Fabulous dustwrapper art. A desirable title.

£395


First edition.
London, John Long, 1937.

A Hubin-listed murder mystery. The only one written by the author whose real name was Richard Henry Horsfield. It is set in the Fraser Valley in British Columbia, Canada and features an Eskimo detective called Nootka. A wealthy mining prospector enlists the help of nine other claim-stalkers, four of whom are subsequently murdered by methods as novel as they are gruesome. Two of them take place in ‘impossible’ circumstances. Very rare in jacket.

£195



London, Collins Crime Club, 1944.

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

An uncommon '40s title, in better condition than normally found.

£75



London, Collins Crime Club, 1970.

Uncorrected proof copy. 8vo. Original wrappers. Dust-jacket, ?price-clipped.

Collins proofs are distinctly uncommon.

£150

Mills and Boon, London, 1937
First edition

£225



London, Mills & Boon, 1929.

First UK edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 2/6.

The first UK edition of this crime thriller; Mills & Boon today have a reputation for "romantic fiction", but they were early champions of several subsequently famous authors, including Jack London and P.G. Wodehouse.

£125



London, Jarrolds, 1936.

'First cheap edition' (i.e. second edition). 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 3/6.

A compelling 'true crime' collaboration between prolific crime fiction author George Goodchild and the biographer and critic Bechhofer Roberts, a.k.a. 'Ephesian'. First published in 1934.

£195



London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1930.

First edition. 8vo. Original light orange cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 3/6.

A very good copy of this uncommon Goodchild title, the second in his Inspector McLean series.

£225



London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1939.

First edition. 8vo. Original maroon cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 4/-.

A very good first edition of the further adventures of Goodchild's most famous character, Inspector McLean.

£225



London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1938.

First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 4/-.

A very good copy of this Inspector McLean title by prolific author Goodchild.

£225



London, Ward Lock, 1935

First edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket priced at 3/6 on front flap and also has tell tale 3 digits on spine indicating a slightly later issue.

Hubin listed title featuring the author's regular detective Insepctor Mclean and his rather fuller-witted assistant Sergeant Brook

£200



London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1941.

First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 4/-.

Non-stop Inspector McLean - what more could you ask for?

£175



London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1930.

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

A rather lovely copy of this non-McLean title by Goodchild.

£395



London, Herbert Jenkins, 1941.

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

Excellent jacket artwork on this the last criminous title by Goodwin; a fugitive tale and a rare book in the jacket.

£225



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.

£750



London, T. Fisher Unwin, [1925].

First edition. 8vo. Original black cloth lettered in red. Dust-jacket, correctly priced at 3/6.

The notoriously difficult first edition of the first book in the Blackshirt series, by a founding member of the Crime Writer's Association. Despite the chipping, the upper panel with its wonderful artwork is intact.

£160



London, Hutchinson, [1937].

First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, early issue priced 3/6.

A very good first edition, in early jacket, of what is widely held to be one of the best shipboard murder-mysteries ever written. By the author the original 'Blackshirt' books.

£550



London, T. Fisher Unwin Ltd (Ernest Benn Ltd), 1927 [but 1928?]..

First edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, second impression (stated, and priced 3s.6d., with Benn imprint to spine).

The second of the author's famous 'Blackshirt' series, nothing to do with Oswald Mosley (or Rodney Spode), rather a 'Raffles'-esque character, author by day, cracksman by night. Early issues of the first and second titles are both known scarcities, especially in the jacket. The book itself has no impression indicated, suggesting it is the first; however, the list of works by the same author facing the title-page includes Passion, Murder and Mystery, which was not published until 1928 (BL). Benn & Fisher Unwin merged in 1926, and this title seems to have been absorbed into Benn's 3/6 Library in 1928 or 1929.

The last time this title surfaced at auction was in 2019, when it made $1875.

£175



London, Harrap, 1933.

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

The first mystery written under the pseudonym "David Graeme", introducing Raoul de Rohan, an ancestor of the later Blackshirt character that first appeared in 1925.

£295

First edition, Collins, 1941. Edwy Searles Brooks was a UK novelist who wrote under a number of pseudonyms including Berkeley Gray and Victor Gunn. This is a rare work from his canon. From the library of Anthony Lejeune.

Detective Fiction

Gray (Ruth) The Mouse

£975

First edition, London, Alfred A. Knopf, 1929. Rare London Knopf imprint, in the remarkable striking dust-jacket designed by Shaw.

£90



London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1938.

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

'Takes us from Australia to Hollywood and provides us with plenty of exciting and hilarious incident in addition to a romance that has a proper ending.'

£125



London, John Hamilton, [1939].

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

That "debonair, monocled dude of South Africa", the Major, is back.

£150



London, John Hamilton, [1934].

First edition. 8vo. Original pale blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6 to inside front flap with later price-sticker of 1/- to spine.

A decent first edition of this story set in South Africa, by a British author who spent several years in Rhodesia working as a civil servant.

Detective Fiction

Grey (Cecil) Spindrift

£135



London, Herbert Jenkins, 1936.

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

A splendid first edition of this romantic novel about a young musical protégé's adventures.

£295



London, Philip Allan, 1937.

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

A collection of short stories, drawn from the case-book of Gribble's series character Superintendent Anthony Slade.

£275



London, Collins, 1940

First edition. 8vo. 3pp. advertisements. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7'6.

A very good first edition of this Ironsides title, distinctly uncommon in the original dust-jacket. Victor Gunn was one of several pseudonyms for Edwy Brooks, alongside his perhaps more well-known moniker 'Berkeley Gray'.

£150



London, Collins Crime Club, 1947.

First edition. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 3s.6d.

A pleasing first edition of the twelfth novel in the author's "Ironsides" Cromwell series.

£225

First edition.
London. Columbine Publishing Company, [?1940]
This is the correct first issue wrapper and rare as such. Titles published by this publisher are sought after due to their lurid jacket art of which this is a great example

£395

A Detective Story London, Heinemann, 1937. First UK edition. 8vo. Original black cloth lettered in gilt. Dust-jacket. A woman dead in the sleet at the bottom of an empty swimming pool, with two bullets in her body, but only one wound...

£100



London, Hutchinson, n.d. [c.1930].

Third edition (stated). Small 8vo. Original cloth, gilt. Dust-jacket, priced 2/- and stating '5th Thousand'.

An early edition of this collaboration between the Hanshews, scarce in the original dust-jacket - with artwork by the illustrator Joseph Abbey.

Detective Fiction

Hardy (William) Lady Killer

£75



London, Hamish Hamilton, 1957.

First UK edition. 8vo. Original red boards. Dust-jacket, priced 12s6d.

Maths meets murder in this crime fiction debut by an American author.

£120



London, Cassell, [1886].

First edition. 8vo. 16pp. publisher's catalogue at end, dated '3 G. 8.86'.

A creative and productive author, Julian Hawthorne never sadly quite lived up to the literary pedigree inherited from his father, Nathaniel Hawthorne, but his fiction is engaging and often incorporates the sort of weird and sci-fi elements on which later subgenre fiction was predicated. This novel sees the author dallying rather with crime fiction, including mob-like figures, a bank robbery and the curse of opium addiction...

£125



London, Cassell, 1945.

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

An intriguing psychological thriller by the author & philosopher H.F. Heard, author of The Ascent of Humanity (1929).