Vintage & Collectible Mystery Books

Hardcover. London, Faber & Faber, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, BOOKPLATE SIGNED BY DIBDIN on front fly leaf.

Hardcover. NY, St. Martins, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket.

Hardcover. NY, Morrow, 1st, 1942, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, gray cloth covers. No dust jacket. Clean.

Hardcover. NY, Fawcett, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket.

Hardcover. New York, Delacorte Press, 1st , 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. SIGNED BY PRONZINI on title page.

Hardcover. NY, Marcaulay, 1st, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in light green cloth, b&w frontispiece.

Hardcover. NY, St. Martin's , 1st US, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Light edgewear to dust jacket with light stain on top edge.

Hardcover. New York, Scribners, 1st, 1966, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Dust jacket price clipped.

Hardcover. Franklin Center, PA, Franklin Library, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 217 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Blue covers with silver gilded decoration and page block edges. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Morrow, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. SIGNED BY BLOCK on title page.

Softcover. NY, Dagger House, 1st pbk, 1946, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Paperback, 128 pages, color wrappers. Light shelf wear.

Softcover. New York, Ace Books, 1st, 1957, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Paperback. Double Novel. 164/156 pages. Ace Double Novel #D-225. Previous owner's markings on first pages of each side. Light wear to pictorial wrappers. Pages lightly tanned. Creasing and wear to spine.

Softcover. Greenwich, Gold Metal Book/Fawcett Publications, 1st, 1957, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 192 pages. Paperback. Gold Metal Book # 703. Moderate wear to pictorial wrappers. Pages tanned. Ink notation on frist page. Small bump on spine and light chipping to spine and edges.

Softcover. New York, A Signet Book, 1st, 1956, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 144 pages. Paperbook. Signet Book #1434. Light wear on edges. Light creases on wrapper corners and spine.

Softcover. New York, Popular Library Mystery, 1st, 1946, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 219 pages. Popular Library Mystery # 69. Notation in pencil on front cover and first page. Spine lightly cocked. Light wear to paper wrappers.

Softcover. New York, Dell Publishing, 1st, 1956, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 192 pages. Paperback. Dell Book #914. Minor wear to paper wrappers. Cover art by Robert Stanley. Light spine cock. Notation on first page.

Softcover. New York, Dell Publishing, 1st, 1955, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 192 pages. Paperback. Dell Book #901. Minor wear to paper wrappers. Light crease and fade to spine. Cover art by Victor Kalin.

Softcover. New York, Dell Publishing, 2nd, 1947, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 288 pages. Paperback. Dell Book #137. Minor wear to paper wrappers. Light crease to front cover. Map on rear cover. Front hinge/gutter cracked. Rubbing to laminate on top front.

Softcover. New York, Dell Publishing, 1st, 1943, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 240 pages. Paperback. Dell Book #122. Minor wear to paper wrappers. Creasing to covers and spine. Hinge cracked in front.

Softcover. Greenwich, CT, Fawcett Gold Medal Publishing, 1st, 1959, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 158 pages. Paperback. Gold Metal Book #901. Small ink notation on 1st page. Light creasing to paper wrappers.

Softcover. Greenwich, CT, Fawcett Gold Medal Publishing, 1st, 1959, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 140 pages. Paperback. Gold Metal Book #909. Small ink notation on 1st page. Light creasing to paper wrappers.

Softcover. New York, Popular Library, 1st, 1946, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 219 pages. Paperback. Popular Library Mystery #80. Light crease along spine and top corner worn. Light creasing to paper wrappers.

Softcover. New York, Pocket Books/Permabooks, 1st, 1956, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 150 pages. Paperback. Pocket Book #1109. Cover art by James Meese. Crease along spine.

Softcover. NY, Pocket Books, 1st pbk, 1940, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Paperback, #69. Stated first printing, July 1940. VG to VG+ in black pictorial wraps with orange & white lettering & cover art picturing a suit with a knife in his chest. World War II spy story featuring Richard Hannay, basis for the film starring Robert Donat. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Mystery House, 1st, 1946, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 288 pages. Turquoise cloth binding with titling in red on the spine and front cover. Author's first book, A Jigger Moran mystery.

Hardcover. NY, Bantam, 1st US, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket.

Hardcover. NY, Harper & Brothers, 1st, 1933, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 295 pages, blue cloth with green design featuring greyhound racer. Novel about a compulsive gambler trying to quit with little assistance or understanding from his wife, was made into a movie in 1934 starring Edward G. Robinson and Genevieve Tobin, remade as "Wine, Women and Horses" in 1937. Spine has major fading, otherwise a clean, square copy.

Hardcover. NY, Dutton, 1st, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in an unclipped dust jacket with light fading along spine edge. Clean. The eighth literate mystery featuring English professor/sleuth Kate Fansler.

Hardcover. NY, Pantheon Books , 1st US, 1980, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket.

Hardcover. NY, Walker & Co., 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. SIGNED BY PRONZINI on title page. Pronzini is at the top of his game with this work. Set in a desert community in Nevada, the story lives up to the author's fine storytelling ability.

Hardcover. NY, Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1st, 1940, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, Hardcover in putty-color cloth stamped in dark blue. Dust jacket fair with edgewear and a big chunk gone fron bottom of spine. Stated First.

Softcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, colorful wraps with a retro-style illustration. In the aftermath of a bloody heist, Nolan and Jon find themselves flying home to count their ill-gotten gains--but a skyjacker taking the same flight has other plans. Meanwhile, in Des Moines, someone is offing members of the Mob-connected DiPreta family and the Mob thinks maybe Nolan can make it stop. Maybe he can--for a six-figure fee. Originally published as two separate novels (and unavailable in bookstores for 40 years!), DOUBLE DOWN finds Nolan and Jon pursuing the American dream in their inimitable criminal fashion. Flying high off his recent return after more than three decades in SKIM DEEP, Nolan is one of MWA Grand Master Max Allan Collins' most unforgettable characters, and DOUBLE DOWN is Nolan at his hard-boiled best. Like new.

Softcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, colorful wraps with a retro-style illustration by Robert McGinnis. It begins on Death Row, with a condemned man refusing the services of the lawyer assigned to defend him. It begins with a beautiful woman dead, murdered--Vassilia Caroline Baird, known to all simply as V. That's where this extraordinary novel begins. But the story it tells begins years earlier, on a struggling farm in the shadow of the Great Depression and among the brawling "cat skinners" of Southern California, driving graders and bulldozers to tame the American West. And the story that unfolds, in the masterful hands of acclaimed author Oakley Hall, is a lyrical outpouring of hunger and grief, of jealousy and corruption, of raw sexual yearning and the tragedy of the destroyed lives it leaves in its wake. Unpublished for more than half a century, SO MANY DOORS is Hall's masterpiece, an excoriating vision of human nature at its most brutal, and one of the most powerful books you will ever read. Like new.

Softcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, colorful wraps with a retro-style illustration by Chuck Pyle. When Lee Scarborough came upon the brunette sunbathing topless in her back yard, getting involved in a heist was the last thing on his mind. But somehow that's where he found himself--sneaking through a stranger's house, on the hunt for $120,000 in embezzled bank funds. It looked like an easy score. But one thing stood between him and the money: the beautiful and deadly Madelon Butler. Like new.

Softcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, colorful wraps with a retro-style illustration by Richard B. Farrell. The men in the tan-and-cream Chrysler came with guns blazing. When Ray Kelly woke up in the hospital, it was a month later, he was missing an eye, and his father was dead. Then things started to get bad.From the mind of the incomparable Donald E. Westlake comes a devastating story of betrayal and revenge, an exploration of the limits of family loyalty and how far a man will go when everything he loves is taken from him. Like new.

Hardcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, colorful dust jacket with a retro-style illustration by Gregory Manchess. 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. Like new.

Hardcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st , 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, colorful dust jacket with a retro-style illustration by Laurel Blechman. When legendary mystery writer Mickey Spillane died in 2006, he left behind the manuscript of one last novel he'd just completed: THE LAST STAND. He asked his friend and colleague (and fellow Mystery Writers of America Grand Master) Max Allan Collins to take responsibility for finding the right time and place to publish this final book. Now, on the hundredth anniversary of Spillane's birth, his millions of fans will at last get to read THE LAST STAND, together with a second never-before-published work, this one from early in Spillane's career: the feverish crime novella A BULLET FOR SATISFACTION. Like new.

Softcover. Berkeley CA, Black Lizard Books, reprint, 1989, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, mass market paperback, 171 pages. "No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford" Elmore Leonard THE BLACK MASS OF BROTHER SPRINGER tells the story of Sam Springer, a drifter novelist who meets Jack Dover, the retiring Abbot of the Church of God's Flock. Dover's final official act is to ordain Springer and send him off to serve as pastor of an all-Black church in Jacksonville, Florida. Springer soon becomes entangled in the city's growing civil rights movement . . . and with the church deacon's earthy young wife, Merita. The Washington post calls this darkly humorous novel by Charles Willeford, one of the great crime writers of the 20th century, "his masterpiece." Light wear, book store stamp, price on first page, crease to rear cover. Otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Doubleday, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Who died at High Beck Cottage? Two old ladies had lived there for so long that friends foundit difficult to tell them apart. One was murdered- the other one vanished. A young girl comes from America to unravel the plot. One of the ladies may be her aunt. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Donald I. Fine, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The first mystery featuring maverick lawyer Steve Winslow. Clean, like new. When out-of-work lawyer Steve Winslow enlists himself as a New York City cab driver to pay the bills, he thinks he's hit rock-bottom. That is until Sheila Benton, heir to a multimillion dollar fortune, finds his number in the yellow pages and calls upon Steve to defend her. Of course her case is only a minor one. It seems that a blackmailer was found in her apartment in an uncomfortable position -- with a knife in his back.

Hardcover. NY, Forge/Tom Doherty Associates, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Quinn Fawcett is the name used by Bill Fawcett and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. Their first novel, featuring Sherlock Holmes's older brother Mycroft. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, HarperCollins, 1st, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Author's first book, a mystery introducing Long Island detective JoeLaLuna, a "great cop who has hit a bad spot." And then he discovers that the wealthy husband of his former high school sweetheart has been murdered - and she is the most likely suspect.

Hardcover. NY, Bantam Books, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Like new. Meet Ellie Haskell, nee Simons, thin woman, newlywed, potential murderess. Her life in charming Chitterton Fells promises nothing but endless bliss--until she meets two of the most cunning and unlikely private eyes ever to track down a diabolical killer. Misses Hyacinth and Primrose Tramwell of Flowers Detection Agency have been called in by a major insurance company to investigate the deplorably high incidence of sudden death among the married men of this picturesque municipality. The spinster sleuths soon discover that all the husbands had been unfaithful and their deaths neatly arranged by an enterprising social organization called The Widows Club. But to find the mastermind behind this insidious ring, the Tramwells need an unhappy and betrayed wife. Enter Ellie, who will endanger life and husband to join The Widows Club and arrange to have her dearly beloved . . . dead. The second Ellie Haskell mystery.

Softcover. Ashland OR, Blackstone Publishing, reprint, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, pictorial wraps. Ms. Moxie Mooney is Hollywood royalty--and she's in trouble. At the summons of his on-again, off-again lover, Fletch drops in on Moxie's film set, located in sunny Florida. If being called up for help by the box office beauty isn't work enough, Steve Peterman, Moxie's sleazy manager, is murdered while the cameras are rolling, and no one managed to see a thing. Despite the obvious lack of evidence, the rumor mill is still quick to churn up a potentially plausible suspect: Moxie. Realizing the need for a little R&R away from prying eyes, he hastily flies Moxie and her drunken father off to Key West. But trouble follows Fletch, in every sense of the word, and soon enough he's playing host to a full house of Hollywood's brightest.I n true Fletch style, he delves into the investigation, dodging police inquiry, betting on race horses, taking a leisurely sail, and talking up his elite houseguests to get the dirt and solve this perplexing murder.

Hardcover. London, Michael Joseph, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, SIGNED BY FRANCIS on half-title page. Clean copy. Peter Darwin, a young First Secretary in the Foreign Office, returns from Tokyo for some quiet leave before taking up a new post. On the way he stops briefly in Miami, and there becomes entangled in a fracas which involves his going back not just to England but to Gloucestershire, scene of the long-buried memories of his childhood.

Softcover. NY, Carroll & Graf, reprint, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Paperback, 298 pages. Beside the dead body of Sir Maurice Lawes are the shattered fragments of a snuff-box that once belonged to Napoleon. These fragments tell a tale, or rather two tales, one true and one false. Now, an English expert in criminology forces the evidence to tell the truth about what happened and to point out the real murderer. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Doubleday & Company, 1st, 1957, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, in a lightly worn dust jacket. 189 pages, a Tommy Hambledon mystery, some fading to dust jacket. Clean.

Hardcover. NY, Viking, 1st , 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. This seventh novel in the Gabe Wager, Denver PD Homicide series has Wager trying to help one of his childhood heroes, Tommy Sanchez, an aging ex-rodeo star find his two adult sons who may be on the wrong road, endangering themselves and Wager. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Roslyn NY, Walter J. Black, Book Club Ed., 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards. Three mystery novels in one volume. Detective Book Club Series. Clean, bright copy. No markings.

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.