Hardcover. NY, Thomas Dunne Book/St. Martin's Press, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 356 pages. SIGNED BY CRABBE on the title page. August, 1889. A man lies dead in a darkened construction site near Madison Square Park. The murderer, Jim Tupper, a Mohawk of the Iroquois nation, flees back to the vast Adirondack wilderness. But he has left a trail of death behind, pointing north, straight to where Tom Braddock and his family are vacationing. Worlds collide when Tom's son is caught up in the murder of a young maid at the hotel. To clear him, Tom must capture the killer, whom he believes to be Tupper, launching an epic chase across more than a hundred miles of lakes, rivers, and forest. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Coward McCann & Geoghegan, 1st, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. SIGNED BY PRONZINI on the title page. Discussion of the really bad English and American crime novels of 20th century. Introduction by Ed McBain. Index, bibliography. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Modern Library, reprint, 1934, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket with light tanning to edges, blue flexible cloth covers with gilt stamping. Blue top edge stain. Introduction by author copyright 1934. Price 95 cents on dust jacket flap. 246 titles on reverse of dust jacket, so NOT the first printing of this edition. Clean copy.
Softcover. NY, Carroll & Graf, reprint, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, mass market paperback, 192 pages. The Woman-Chaser has one of the most interesting plots ever for a crime thriller. Richard Hudson, a crooked, arrogant and vicious car salesman who is really good at his job panics at a meeting of aspiring young reps. He realizes that he is wasting his life in the 9 to 5 grind. It dawns on him that we are on this planet to be creative. So he writes a script with help from his step-father and decides to direct a film based on the script. But when his edited film fails to meet the six reel 90 minute length standard, the studio tries to interfere in the film's future. The crazed car salesman/movie director embarks on a rampage of destruction. Bookseller's stamp on inside front cover, otherwise a clean, bright copy.
Hardcover. NY, Henry Holt, 1st, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, price-clipped dust jacket. Author's fourth novel, set in the steamy bayou town of St. Bruno. Woodrell reunites the three Shade brothers with their dissolute father. Aged rake and reprobate John X. Shade returns to his native Louisiana bayous, where he reviews his checkered past. Vengeful sociopath Lunch Pumphrey is hot on his trail, bent on recovering $47,000 stored in John X.'s safe, but Shade's young wife has absconded with the money in order to launch her singing career, leaving their daughter, toughly precocious Etta, in her father's care. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Harcourt Brace World, 1st US, 1968, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 148 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, tight copy. With minor wear to covers and dust jacket edges.
Hardcover. NY, Hyperion, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. SIGNED BY COCKEY title page.
Hardcover. NY, Doubleday, 1st , 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. SIGNED BY CRAIS on title page.
Softcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, colorful wraps with a retro-style illustration by Robert McGinnis. Putting his plan in motion to target other hitmen, Quarry follows one from steamy Florida to the sober Midwest. But this killer isn't a man at all--she's a sloe-eyed beauty, as dangerous in bed as she is deadly on the job. Has Quarry finally met his match? Like new.
Hardcover. NY, Bloomsbury USA, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The third installment to Downie's Roman Empire series--the second-century saga of a witty and courageous army surgeon, Gaius Ruso, and his smart and loyal lover, Tilla, a barbarian woman from Britannia--continues in gripping fashion. Ruso returns to his family home in southern Gaul, summoned by a forged letter pleading for his immediate return. Once Ruso and Tilla return, Ruso is thrust into a dangerous quagmire involving a missing ship, huge family debts and, before long, the murder of the family's principal creditor--a crafty phony named Severus--who is poisoned in Ruso's home. While Ruso and his family are quickly suspected of the murder, Ruso and Tilla's attempts to solve the crime are hampered by interfering family members, a lying politician, a greedy banker and a pair of too-eager investigators sent from Rome. Ruso and Tilla must also deal with prejudice, envy and a new religion, Christianity. The plotting is clever and suspenseful, with subtle clues and lots of action, while the setting and supporting cast are vividly drawn. Clean copy.
Softcover. Cape Town SA, Umuzi, 2nd pr., 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover. A crime thriller set in Cape Town, South Africa. INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR5 on the title page. Bright, clean copy.
Hardcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, colorful dust jacket with a retro-style illustration by Glen Orbik. The year is 1977, and America is finally getting over the nightmares of Watergate and Vietnam and the national hangover that was the 1960s. But not everyone is ready to let it go. Not aging comedian Koo Davis, friend to generals and presidents and veteran of countless USO tours to buck up American troops in the field. And not the five remaining members of the self-proclaimed People's Revolutionary Army, who've decided that kidnapping Koo Davis would be the perfect way to bring their cause back to life. Remainder dot on bottom edge otherwise like new.
Hardcover. NY, Bantam Books, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. SIGNED BY DAVIDSON on the title page. This fifth culinary novel filled with 'five-star' recipes finds Caterer Goldy Schulz called on to prepare a banquet for a cosmetics company who induced animal rights protestors. Clean, like new.
Hardcover. New York, George H. Doran Co, 1st, 1924, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 294 pages. Hardcover with orange stamped lettering. Clean copy. Covers show moderate wear. Gutter cracks throughout.
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 , Delacorte Press, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 386 pages. SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page. White covers with grey band and silver lettering on spine. Dust jacket pristine. Comes with an acrylic cover for jacket.
Hardcover. London, Orion, 1st UK, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 295 pages. SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket.
Softcover. Berkeley, Black Lizard, reprint, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Paperback, tight and square, clean and bright. Unread mass market reprint of the 1954 Goodis classic. A nice copy of this Black Lizard reprint.
Softcover. Ashland OR, Blackstone Publishing, reprint, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, pictorial wraps. Fletch's newfound son Jack has just heard from an old flame who's about to marry a billionaire's son -- that is until her future father-in-law suffers several near-fatal accidents. The potential victim -- the inventor of the perfect mirror, which allows people to see themselves exactly as others do -- lives in his own secluded compound, so Jack gets a job as pool hand on the estate to get closer to the action. Now Jack's life may be in danger, and he will need his inimitable father's help to discover -- before it's too late -- whose reflection hides a killer's heart.
Softcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, colorful wraps with a retro-style illustration by Ken Laager. Mavis St. Paul had been a rich man's mistress. Now she was a corpse. And every cop in New York City was hunting for the two-bit punk accused of putting a knife in her. But the punk was innocent. He'd been set up to take the fall by some cutie who was too clever by half. My job? Find that cutie--before the cutie found me. The MWA Grandmaster's first novel--published for the first time ever under the title he originally intended it to have! When originally published as THE MERCENARIES, the book was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel Westlake has won three Edgar Awards and received numerous other honors, including an Academy Award nomination for the screenplay of "The Grifters". Like new.
Hardcover. NY, Donald I. Fine, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The second mystery featuring maverick lawyer Steve Winslow. Clean, like new. This is the sequel to THE BAXTER TRUST, continuing the story of New Yorker Steve Winslow, a lawyer with only one client.
Hardcover. NY, Little, Brown and Company, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Francis X. Loughlin is an aging police detective haunted by a twenty-year-old homicide involving a young female doctor. A man named Julian Vega was put away for that crime, possibly without sufficient evidence, when he was seventeen. As Blauner's novel opens, Vega has just been released from prison, on a technicality, when Loughlin is called to investigate a crime that bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the earlier murder. Though the book sometimes takes the easy way out (the climactic twist feels both generic and arbitrary), it is elevated by Blauner's surefooted characterization of Julian. Newly free, struggling to find his way, dependent on the (somewhat tenuous) kindness of strangers, he is both sympathetic and tough; his portrait has a complexity that few authors could achieve. Clean, bright copy.
Hardcover. NY, Bantam Books, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Like new. Investigating the mysterious death of the local librarian, Ellie Haskell is entranced by the arrival of romance cover model Karisma, whose muscle-bound fund-raiser is upended by second and third murders.
Hardcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket featuring a retro-style illustration by Michael Koelsch. On the border between El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico, five lives are about to collide--with fatal results. You'll meet MARTY--the professional gambler who rolls the dice on a night with... MEG--the bored divorcee who seeks excitement and finds... LILY--the beautiful hitchhiker lured into a live sex show by... CASSIE--the redhead with her own private agenda... and WEAVER--the madman, the killer with a straight razor in his pocket, on the run from the police and determined to go down swinging! This is MWA Grand Master Lawrence Block at his rawest and most visceral, a bloody, bawdy, brutal story of passion and punishment--and of lines that were never meant to be crossed. Small remainder dot on bottom edge otherwise like new.
Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1st, 1976, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. $8.95 on front flap; Higgins 5th novel; minor shelf rubbing at extremities of dust jacket. Deke Hunter is a Massachusetts State Police plainclothesman. He proves that through hard work, bumbling and pure luck, he can sometimes, surprisingly, produce justice. Clean copy.
Hardcover. New York, Mysterious Press, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 181 pages. Minor wear to dust jacket protected by mylar cover. Overall, a tight clean copy.
Softcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, colorful wraps with a retro-style illustration by Robert McGinnis. At the time of his death, Erle Stanley Gardner was the best-selling American author of the 20th century, and world famous as the creator of crusading attorney Perry Mason. Gardner also created the hardboiled detective team of Cool and Lam, stars of 29 novels published between 1939 and 1970--and one that's never been published until now. Lost for more than 75 years, THE KNIFE SLIPPED was meant to be the second book in the series but got shelved when Gardner's publisher objected to (among other things) Bertha Cool's tendency to "talk tough, swear, smoke cigarettes, and try to gyp people." But this tale of adultery and corruption, of double-crosses and triple identities --however shocking for 1939--shines today as a glorious present from the past, a return to the heyday of private eyes and shady dames, of powerful criminals, crooked cops, blazing dialogue, and delicious plot twists. Like new.
Hardcover. New York, Mysterious Press, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 339 pages. SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page. Lovely copy with only minor edgewear to dust jacket.
Softcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, colorful wraps with a retro-style illustration by Paul Mann. It isn't easy going to jail for a practical joke. Of course, this particular joke left 20 cars wrecked on the highway and two politicians' careers in tatters--so jail is where Harold Kunt landed. Now he's just trying to keep a low profile in the Big House. He wants no part of his fellow inmates' plan to use an escape tunnel to rob two banks. But it's too late; he's in it up to his neck. And that neck may just wind up in a noose. HELP I AM BEING HELD PRISONER is Donald E. Westlake at his funniest and his most ingenious, a rediscovered crime classic from the MWA Grand Master returning to stores for the first time in three decades. Like new.
Softcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, colorful wraps with a retro-style illustration by Glen Orbik. When last we saw Max Fisher and Angela Petrakos, Max was being arrested by the NYPD for drug trafficking and Angela was fleeing the country in the wake of a brutal murder. Now both are headed for eye-opening encounters with the law--Max in the cell blocks of Attica, Angela in a quaint little prison on the Greek island of Lesbos. Like new.
Hardcover. Tucson AZ, Dennis McMillan, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Firmly rooted in the hard-boiled tradition, these 13 stories from Phillips showcase the cool exuberance of black Los Angeles PI Ivan Monk, whose family connections tend to prod him into taking cases no one in his right mind would investigate. Nostalgia is a recurrent theme, as in "Through the Fog Softly," which introduces Monk's father, Josiah Monk, as a soldier in Korea, and in Monk's love of 1950s and '60s cars. Some tales verge on fantasy, such as "The King Alfred Plan," which imagines a scheme to round up blacks into concentration camps. A pseudo-screenplay, "Bring Me the Head of Osama Bin-Laden," is the weakest effort in an otherwise strong collection. At his best, Monk displays something of the cockiness of Robert Parker's Spenser and the racial awareness of Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins. Monk has a toughness all his own, however, and a noir sensibility shines brightly in stories like "Lowball" and "The Raiders." Clean copy.
Hardcover. New York, Norton, 1st, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 272 pages. in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The third Easy Rawlins mystery.
Softcover. NY, International Polygonics, reprint, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 312 and 302 pages, two mystery novels in one volume. Clean, like new. Reprint of two mysteries first published in the 1930s.
Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 403 pages. Light shelf-wear to dust jacket and light foxing to edges, else a clean, tight copy.
Hardcover. NY, Random House , 1st, 1963, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust wrapper. Previous owner's initials front end paper.
Hardcover. NY, Mysterious Press, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The sixth Joe Gunther mystery.
Hardcover. NY, Scribners, 1st US, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket.1st published in England as "Disposal of the Living".
 "Hearse You Came in On, The (SIGNED COPY)by: Cockey, Tim")
 "Last Detective, The (SIGNED COPY)by: Crais, Robert")
 "Double Shadow, Theby: Le Queux, William")
 "Black Bettyby: Mosley, Walter")
 "HELP I AM BEING HELD PRISONERby: Donald E. Westlake")
 "White Butterfly: An Easy Rawlins Mysteryby: Mosley, Walter")
 "Closers, The by: Connelly, Michael")
 "Void Moonby: Connelly, Michael")
 "Man Who Liked Slow Tomatoes, Theby: Constantine, K. C.")
 "Last Client of Luis Montezby: Ramos, Manuel")
 "Player on the Other Side, Theby: Queen, Ellery")
 "No Exit From Brooklynby: Randisi, Robert")
 "Reflecting the Skyby: Rozan, S.J.")
 "The Dark Rootby: Mayor, Archer")
 "D.A. Calls It Murder, Theby: Gardner, Erle Stanley")
 "Corkscrew - A Reid Bennett Mysteryby: Wood, Ted")
 "Fete Fataleby: Barnard, Robert")
 "Good-bye, Chicagoby: Burnett, W.R.")
 "Blood Relatives: An 87th Precinct Mysteryby: McBain, Ed")
 "A City Solitaryby: Nicolas, Freeling")
){kind=link}