[nice copy, a single tiny dent in the bottom edge of each cover, light age-toning to edges of text block, faint trace of foxing to top edge; jacket shows very light surface wear only]. The fifth -- wait, wait (A, B, C, D, E...) -- yep, fifth in the author's popular and long-running Kinsey Millhone series. (No marks, full number line.) View More...
[nice clean copy, bottom corners a bit bumped but no other discernible wear, vintage price sticker from the noted San Francisco department store The White House on rear pastedown; jacket shows a bit of dog-earing and minor creasing along top edge, light soiling to rear panel The first of the author's thirteen mystery novels featuring the duo of Detective-Inspector Sims, a Scotland Yard man, and Professor Wells, "a scientist of international celebrity, with half an alphabet of letters after his name." In a 1935 essay, Grierson stated that the Professor was "founded on a very disti... View More...
[good sound copy, heavy foxing to top of text block but no other significant depredations; jacket lightly edgeworn and a bit rubbed]. "In recording the 50th Case of the redheaded private detective from Miami, Florida, and in celebration of his 25th year in print, Brett Halliday has diverged widely from the pattern set by 49 previous books. Here, the emphasis is upon character and motivation rather than detection and deduction, and in so doing Mr. Halliday has produced his finest and most powerful novel." Well, OK, two things: (1) while "Brett Halliday" might have only been i... View More...
[nice clean copy, very light handling wear only, slight fading at spine]. Trade PB This tale of political corruption and murder was Hammett's fourth (and, as it turned out, his next-to-last) novel. Originally published in 1931, it served as the basis for two pretty good films, a 1935 version starring George Raft, and a 1942 remake featuring Brian Donlevy and Alan Ladd. View More...
(no dust jacket) [solid copy, a bit of shelfwear to bottom edges of boards, very light soiling to top of text block]. Psychological suspense novel about the unlikely friendship between a Mexican furniture repairman and a German atheist, who both fall under suspicion when a woman they had each slept with is brutally raped and murdered. View More...
[nice clean copy with minor edgewear to covers, small bump and teensy creasing at top left corner of rear cover]. (Penguin Crime Fiction) Series Mass Market PB "Tom Ripley detested murder. Unless it was absolutely necessary. If possible, he preferred someone else to do the dirty work. In this case, someone with a criminal record, who would commit 'two simple murders' for a very generous fee." Basis for the 1977 Wim Wenders film THE AMERICAN FRIEND, starring Bruno Ganz and Dennis Hopper (as Ripley), to which the cover design of this printing is keyed. View More...
[a nice copy, no significant wear to book, tiny finger-smudge on top edge of text block, previous owner's name and date & place of purchase in ink at top of front endpaper; the jacket is very slightly rubbed, still bright and attractive]. INSCRIBED and SIGNED by editor Wright ("May the game always be afoot for you - ") on the half-title page, and by editor Hodel ("Best Mycroftian wishes") on the title page. In the vein of the considerably more successful "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution," this purports to be a posthumously-uncovered memoir by the older (and "no less intelligent") brother of Sher... View More...
[light shelfwear, a touch of soiling to covers, slight bump to bottom right corner of front cover; jacket torn at top of spine with some paper loss, various other small tears and nicks]. The scarce British issue of the novel which served as the basis for one of the best of Otto Preminger's early films (and a worthy follow-up to his classic LAURA). The first of five novels by this author, who apparently also dabbled in screenwriting without any notable success. (The only other film credit I've been able to uncover for her was a story credit for the 1950 noir THE FILE ON THELMA JORDON.) The m... View More...
(price-clipped) [bottom of book shelfworn (thin paper covering of boards worn through at numerous points), bottom front corner lightly bumped; jacket edgeworn, some shallow chipping along top edge (no loss of text or graphics), various other small tears, etc. The second (and last) novel published by Woolrich under the "George Hopley" pseudonym, which actually derived from his full name, Cornell George Hopley-Woolrich. The action is set, rather unusually for Woolrich, in 1915. View More...
[light bumping to spine ends, otherwise a nice clean copy; jacket shows moderate wear at edges and extremities, slight paper loss at top of spine (just nicking the first "S" in the title a bit), split along top rear foldover, front panel a little rubbed]. A New York detective who's supposed to be taking it easy, on vacation at "Joseph's Vineyard," runs into a murder case, in that way that vacationing detectives invariably do. "What could be the connection between an quiet, elderly male boarder, an indolent, middle-aged toper, a dim-witted youth who lived on the beach and w... View More...
(no dust jacket) [solid copy with moderate overall wear, some fading to spine cloth; ffep torn out, which has left the front hinge exposed but not separated]. Irish/Woolrich classic, which starts out with both a great dedication ("To Apartment 605, Hotel M----- / in unmitigated thankfulness (at not being in it any more") and a terrific first chapter title ("The Hundred and Fiftieth Day Before the Execution"). A terrific yarn, and the basis for the highly-regarded 1944 movie of the same name, directed by Robert Siodmak and produced by Joan Harrison, who cut her teeth as an assi... View More...
[nice clean book, slight bumping to base of spine, no other discernible wear; jacket a little bit scuffed on the rear panel]. SIGNED by the author (signature only) on the half-title page. Crime novel about a booster, "a top-notch thief who's always prided himself on his independence from the Mafia," and who takes on the job of stealing some mob-incriminating audio tapes from a vault in a 90th-floor suite in Chicago's Sears Tower. Signed by Author View More...
[binding solid, moderate wear to book at extremities, tiny vintage bookseller's label on rear pastedown; jacket has tiny tears and a bit of paper loss at most corners (Popular Fiction Series) Series Murder mystery set in Geneva, Switzerland; issued in this publisher's "Popular Fiction Series." Kauffman was a prolific author of all sorts of fiction, from serious social-issue material to magazine fluff. View More...
(no dust jacket) [good sound book, slight fading to spine cloth, one-time owner's signature on front pastedown, 1931 gift inscription (non-authorial) on ffep, light soiling to top edge]. Was there ever a Harry Stephen Keeler book that wasn't an "amazing web" of one sort or another? He was infamous for his astoundingly complicated and convoluted plotlines, rife with unusual characters and connections and coincidences that often defy not just logic but time and space as well. (In this instance, although much of the action takes place in contemporary Chicago, the trouble can be traced ... View More...
(no dust jacket, although the front panel of same has been trimmed and affixed to the ffep) [moderately worn copy, light bumping/fraying to bottom corners, portion of jacket text affixed to front pastedown, small stains on a couple of pages]. "This is Mr. Keeler's most breath-taking achievement....full of unexpected denouements in startling succession, so that the reader has the experience of waking up from dream within dream"; in amongst this fervid dreaminess unfolds "the legend of Bayard De Lancey, King of Thieves, whom lesser thieves feel honor to have known." "Here M... View More...
[suspected ex-library book, although no marking as such; however, the ffep has been removed (always a suspicious sign) and none too neatly, resulting in the half-title page also being partially detached and the weakening of the front hinge; otherwise a decent enough copy, with small tape marks at top and bottom of both covers, spine slightly turned; the jacket is quite nice, clean and attractive despite having been a little bit irregularly trimmed along the top edge, and consequently a tiny bit shorter than the book itself]. "When Artemus Baldwin knelt beside the bullet-ridden corpse in t... View More...
(no dust jacket) [moderately shelfworn, bumping to spine ends, front hinge a little weak, small piece torn away from fore-edge of title page, vintage bookplate on front pastedown, small label on ffep from Junior League of Washington D.C. Circulating Library (but no other markings to indicate ex-library status), tiny dent in top of rear cover, gilt spine lettering a little rubbed but fully legible]. Mystery novel about a young sailor who gets mixed up in a murder plot. Basis for the delirious 1948 Orson Welles film THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI. View More...
(no dust jacket) [a decent reading/reference copy only: spine a bit turned, light staining on front cover, spine cloth somewhat faded, surface deterioration to cloth at bottom edge of rear cover]. Hard-boiled mystery novel, the author's first. The jacket blurb (printed on the ffep; there is NO jacket on this book) name-drops like crazy, calling the author "as distinctly original as S.S. Van Dine and Dashiell Hammett," and noting that Klein had "formerly worked with Ben Hecht on a Chicago newspaper." By 1935, he had published two more mystery novels and a Hollywood-themed novel, "She Loves Me... View More...
(no dust jacket) [a solid book, very light wear at extremities, slight fading to spine cloth, minor dampstaining to bottom edge, colorful vintage bookplate on front pastedown]. "A hair-raising tale, set on a lonely headland of California, and solved by the same Huntoon Rogers," the "amiable but colorless amateur sleuth" (per Jon L. Breen) who debuted in the author's previous, Red Badge Prize-winning novel "The Affair of the Scarlet Crab," and went on to solve sixteen more "Affair" mysteries, mostly set in the American West or Southwest. The plot of this one con... View More...
[modest shelfwear, slight deterioration to cloth at spine ends; jacket has some paper loss at top of spine (taking part of the title with it) and at lower extremities]. The exploits of a female jewel thief, whose "brilliance and beauty make her a figure of power and distinction, no matter what company she moves in." Hot on her trail is one Jack Dering, "the master mind of Scotland Yard." This was apparently the first published novel by this author, who became better known in later years for her literary forays into spiritualism and the occult. Originally published (in England) in 1923 by H... View More...