Hardcover. London, Allison and Busby, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 1857. Only when the bonfire finally dies down, the charred remains of his body are found. Who would possibly want to murder a man so universally liked? It's the question Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck and Sergeant Victor Lemming ask when they arrive in Exeter at the request of the South Devon Railway. Yet, as they investigate the stationmaster's life, they realize he is not as popular as they first believed. With a scorned jilted lover, a resentful colleague and a violent elder brother among the many suspects, the detectives must use all their skill and wit to solve the case. Clean copy.
Softcover. London, Bloomsbury, 1st UK, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, illustrated card wrappers. What better place to hide a collection of priceless jewels than among the glitter and ostrich feathers of Rio's Carnival parade? The film-director narrator suddenly finds himself the custodian of such a valuable horde after the nocturnal visit of a young dancer who is soon found murdered. First published in 1988, the novel was a bestseller in Fonseca's home country of Brazil, as well as in Italy and Mexico. The English edition I read was published in 1997 in Britain, translated by Clifford Sanders.
Hardcover. NY, Viking, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Like new. Ellie Haskell has had her ups and downs with housekeeper Mrs. Malloy, but she misses her when the corpulent, caustic cleaning lady starts moonlighting in a private detective's office--nosing into his homicide files as she dusts them. The ninth Ellie Haskell mystery.
Hardcover. NY, Charles Scribner's, 1st US, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Set in a windblown resort in Cornwall, a tale of passion, greed, and murder unfolds as Lennox Kemp is drawn to a beautiful, mysterious women, a gruesome killing takes place, and he searches for clues. Clean copy.
Softcover. Johannesburg, Jonathan Ball, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover. SIGNED BY ORFORD and dated 2009 on half-title page. When a beautiful young woman is found murdered on Cape Town's Seapoint promenade, journalist and part-time police profiler Dr Clare Hart is drawn into the web of a brutal serial killer. As more bodies are discovered, Clare is forced to re-visit memories of the brutal rape of her twin sister and the gang ties that bind Cape Town's crime rings. Is her investigation into human trafficking linked to the murders or is the killer just playing a sick game with her? Like Clockwork is a dark and compelling crime story which exposes the underbelly of porn and prostitution in today's South Africa.
Hardcover. NY, HarperCollins, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. SIGNED BY WINSPEAR on tipped in prelim page. Clean, like new. Maisie Dobbs returns in a powerful story of political intrigue and personal tragedy: a brutal murder in the British garrison town of Gilbraltar leads the investigator into a web of lies, deceit and danger.
Hardcover. NY, Doubleday Crime Club, 1st, 1952, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Poor, Hardcover in a fair to poor dust jacket. Tommy Hambledon joins the chase when an innocent Londoner flees to Paris, pursued by Soviet agents convinced he has secret plans. 192 pages, bound in blue gray cloth, spine lettering white, pages tanned due to cheap postwar paper used. Dust jacket is worn, chipped wit a big chunk of spine gone.
Hardcover. NY, Mysterious Press, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, price-clipped dust jacket. SIGNED BY MCCARRY on the title page. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Random House, 1st, 1969, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Eleven stories of suspense illustrated by Arthur Shilstone, 208 pages. Collected are the following: The Day the Children Vanished by Hugh Pentecost, Through a Dead Man's Eye by Cornell Woolrich, The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim by Agatha Christie, Green Ice by Stuart Palmer, The Grave Grass Quivers by MacKinlay Kantor, The Case of the Irate Witness by Erle Stanley Gardner, Adventure of the Grice-Paterson Curse by August Derleth, The Headmaster by Michael Gilbert, The Adventureof the Seven Black Cats by Ellery Queen, The Wicked Cousin by Leslie Charteris, The Footprint in the Sky by John Dickson Carr. Clean, bright copy.
Hardcover. Roslyn NY, Walter J. Black, reprint, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, illustrated boards. Three complete unabridged mysteries in one volume. Detective Book Club Edition. Clean, bright copy.
Hardcover. NY, William Morrow & Company, 1st, 1942, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, brown cloth with orange stamping on spine, 284 pages. Faint lean to spine, mild shelf wear. Clean, tight copy. A captivating mystery novel featuring the brilliant detective Sir Henry Merrivale. Set in a remote English village, the story revolves around the mysterious death of a man found burned to death in a locked room, with gold paint covering his body. Merrivale is called to unravel the perplexing puzzle, delving into the lives of the villagers and their secrets.
Hardcover. Boston, Little Brown & Company, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Burke pits a land-hungry oil company against a Blackfeet Indian reservation in a stunning novel that takes detective fiction into new imaginative realms. His Cajun sleuth, Dave Robicheaux, an ex-New Orleans cop featured in two previous novels, attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, has recurrent nightmares about his murdered wife, and cares for an adopted El Salvadoran refugee girl. When two American Indian activists disappear, Robicheaux's dogged investigation not only sets him on a collision course with Mafia thugs and oil interests, but also leads him into a romance with Darlene American Horse, his ex-partner's girlfriend. Clean copy.
Softcover. NY, Little, Brown & Company, reprint, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 271 pages. San Diego in the years before World War II. James Dillon is barely scraping by working a menial job in manufacturing, trying to raise a family and support his elderly mother and sister Frankie at the same time. He drinks too hard -- just like his father and nearly everyone in his extended family. With so many people crammed into one home, sometimes there's so much fighting he can barely stand it. But if James can survive the chaos of everyday life long enough, maybe -- just maybe -- there's a chance it'll all get better. Now and on Earth, Jim Thompson's first novel, draws on personal experience to depict a hardscrabble life in the sun-soaked streets of mid-20th century California. Chronicling the birth of a writer and the plight of the working man, it prefigures the American classics that followed, in a deeply-felt, autobiographical tale that shows a writer just coming into his own. Clean, unread copy.
Hardcover. NY, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Shuggie Akins is a lonely fat boy of thirteen. His mother, Glenda, teases him with her sexual provocations. His father, Red, is a brutal man with a short fuse who mocks and despises his son. Into this mix comes Jimmy Vin Pearce with his shiny green T-bird and his smart city clothes. It isn't long before he and Glenda begin a torrid affair. What follows is violent, shocking, and totally unpredictable - except that it is totally foreordained. Author's seventh novel. Slight slant to spine.
Hardcover. NY, William Morrow, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The fifth mystery featuring tough Boston PI Patrick Kenzie, his 'connected' partner Angie Gennaro and sometimes sidekick Bubba. Clean copy.
Hardcover. New York, Mysterious Press, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 292 pages, SIGNED BY DONALD WESTLAKE(STARK) on title page.
Hardcover. New York, Mysterious Press, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 266 pages, extremely clean, dust jacket unclipped in protective mylar cover. SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR.
Hardcover. New York, Mysterious Press, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 295 pages. SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page. Lovely copy with only minor edgewear to dust jacket spine.
Hardcover. New York, William Morrow, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 295 pages, SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page. Spotless and tight copy. John Keller is everyone's favorite hit man: a new kind of hero for a new, uncertain age. He's cool. Reliable. A real pro: the hit man's hit man. The inconvenient wife, the aging sports star, the business partner, the retiree with a substantial legacy. He's taken care of them all, quietly and efficiently. Keller's got a code of honor, though he'd never call it that. And he keeps the job strictly business. "What happens is you wind up thinking of each subject not as a person to be killed but as a problem to be solved. Now there are guys doing this who cope with it by making it personal. They find a reason to hate the guy they have to kill. I don't know what's a sin and what isn't, or if one person deserves to go on living and another deserves to have his life ended. Sometimes I think about stuff like that, but as far as working it all out in my mind, well, I never seem to get anywhere." But while Keller might be a pragmatic and crack assassin, he's also prone to doubts and loneliness just like everybody else. There was a psychotherapist once. A dog. Even a woman. And though he's got Dot, his wisecracking contact and sometimes confidante, and his precious stamp collection, these days, it doesn't seem to be enough.
Hardcover. New York, HarperCollins Canada / Fiction, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 246 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Previous owner's embossed stamping on front-fly leaf. SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR ON TITLE PAGE. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket.
Hardcover. New York, World Publishing, 1st, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 358 pages. Ink stain (printers flaw?) at edge of text on page 215. Otherwise clean, tight copy. Clear acetate cover has very minor chips missing at top of spine. Author's first book.
Hardcover. New York, Arbor House, 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 269 pages. SIGNED BY AUTHOR ON TITLE PAGE. Clean, tight copy. A novel of terror set during Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1st, 1931, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 256 pages. Previous owner's inscription front fly leaf. U. S. O. stamp inside front and back covers. Remnants of label on back end papers. Black cloth covers with green lettering on front and spine. Some white spots on covers. Clean. Scarce. No dust jacket.
Hardcover. NY, Atlantic Monthly , 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Remainder line bottom edge.
Hardcover. New York, St. Martin's Press , 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 1st book, SIGNED BY ERMELINO. Stamped #s on front end paper, & half-title page.
Hardcover. New York, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover. SIGNED BY BURKE on title-page. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket.
Hardcover. NY, Delacorte, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. It's 9:00 A.M. in an unnamed Midwestern city. Bank Arbaugh and Mack Steiner have just come off a typical night shift--patrolling the city, scaring off prostitutes, shaking up the usual suspects. Sitting in Denny's, waiting for bacon and eggs, they get a call over the radio: A teenage girl is missing. With a glance, the two cops--best friends since childhood, as close as brothers-- know their lives have shifted off balance, because seven years before, Bank's own daughter went missing and has not been found to this day. Two parallel stories: two girls from opposite sides of town, seven years separating them. As evidence mounts, one case begins to illuminate the other, until finally, the inevitable conclusion is revealed. Craig Holden takes us on a harrowing journey into the night, and exposes not only the heart of a tattered American city, but also of two men whose lives are intertwined in loss, envy, and love.
Hardcover. NY, Armchair Detective Library, reprint , 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Pseudonym of Gore Vidal. 1st published in 1953. with a new introduction by him.
Hardcover. London, Hutchinson, 1st UK, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Black cloth covers with silver titles, silver metallic dust jacket with black graphic illustration and black titles, acetate protective covering to dust jacket. Slight rubbing to dust jacket, covers and pages clean, crisp and unmarked; a very clean, tight copy. Adopted off the streets as a child by a policeman's family, NYC policewoman Kathleen Mallory had never shaken the wild nature of her youth, and when her adoptive father is murdered during a series of stabbings, she is driven to find the truth. A first novel.
Hardcover. New York , Morrow, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover. SIGNED BY SANTLOFER on title page. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket.
Hardcover. New York, Simon & Schuster , 1st, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, SIGNED on front end paper by Simon. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket.
Hardcover. NY, Morrow, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. INSCRIBED BY BLOCK on title page.
Softcover. NY, Ace Books, 1st, 1959, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Paperback, Two mystery novels bound back-to-back. D-367, 120, 136 pages. Small ink notation to first leaf on both titles. Excellent condition.
Hardcover. New York, Grosset & Dunlap, 1st, 1951, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 213 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Dust jacket shows moderate wear and light small tearing. Covered in plastic bro-dart. Clean, tight copy with light foxing to fore edge text block.
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