crime

Hardcover. NY, VIking, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 261 pages, illustrations. Philip Mould takes a wonderfully interesting look at how art restoration works. But, in looking at restoration of existing paintings, he also delves into how he, as a gallery owner, along with his team, find work that has remained under-valued or unvalued for centuries. And then how that piece, now restored by Mould's experts, ventures back into the art world in renewed glory. Mould takes five or so examples of "found" paintings - one from his "Antique Roadshow" - and writes how instinct and education about a painter, his other work, the painting's subject's history, and other "intangables' go into Mould and his staff taking on an often dirty and undistinguished painting on the chance that the painting is "the real thing" - a real Rembrandt, a real Homer Winslow, etc. Probably the most interesting story was that of a Norman Rockwell painting on display at the Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts that...wasn't. Wasn't the "real" Rockwell painting, but rather one done by a disciple of Rockwell, who copied the original for reasons sort of murky, and donated to the museum. The "real" Rockwell was found by the copier's sons after his death and turned over to the museum. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 224 pages. The Art of Joe Kubert is a deluxe, full-color coffee table book that honors this legendary creator with beautifully reproduced artwork from every phase of his career as well as critical commentary by the book's editor, comics historian and Kubert biographer Bill Schelly. Schelly's text parallels the visual evolution of the artist's work, tracing his life and career from his early days drawing Hawkman in the Golden Age, to his creation of Tor, his involvement in creating 3-D comics in the 1950s, his tour de force stints on DC's war comics - Sgt. Rock, The Unknown Soldier and the groundbreaking Enemy Ace - in the 1960s, to illustrating the adventures of Tarzan in the 1970s. And before finding a creative safe haven at DC Comics in the '50s, Kubert drew for many smaller and more obscure companies, including Holyoke, Quality, Fiction House, Harvey, St. John, and others - all of which are represented, including a 50-page section of comic-book stories in the horror, crime, and SF genres from the pre-Comics Code era, reprinted in full color for the first time.

Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards, 231 pages in color. Before focusing on tales of justice via superheroes under the Marvel banner, the publisher covered ground-level crime across a range of comics titles and true-crime magazines. Under the Timely imprint from 1947, and Atlas from 1951, up to eleven graphic series including Justice Comics, Official True Crime Cases, All-True Crime, Crime Cases, Crime Can't Win, Crime Must Lose, and Crime Exposed all muscled each other and competitors for space on the newsstands. For the first crime-themed volume in Fantagraphics' ongoing project to restore and resurrect pre-Marvel pulp classics, the Atlas Library has selected a book that debuted as the genre peaked, just before a Senate hearing and the institution of the Comics Code banned the use of the word "Crime" from even appearing in a comic's title. Escaping that fate, Police Action had a seven-issue run of violent and noir-ish morality plays, pitting the officers of the law against the forces of urban malevolence, and was produced by the cream of the Atlas freelance roster, including Joe Maneely, Robert Q. Sale, Gene Colan, Art Peddy, Mort Lawrence, Werner Roth and Bob Powell. Rounding the volume off, also presented is a post-Code one-shot, Police Badge #479, a snapshot of the industry's attempts to adapt to new strictures on the genre: here we view "our boys in blue" in the fight against rank corruption, highlighting the work of Don Heck and Joe Maneely. Clean, like new.

Hardcover. NY, Lyle Stuart, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in dust jacket with a faded spine, 320 pages. b&w illustrations. Biography of the famous white-collar criminal who became a multi-millionaire by manipulating financial markets. Clean copy.

Softcover. NY, International Polygonics, reprint, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 365 pages. Known for her hard-boiled mystery plots combined with screwball comedy, Georgiana 'Craig' Rice was the author of twenty-three novels, six of them posthumous, numerous short stories, and some true crime pieces. In the 1940s she rivaled Agatha Christie in sales and was featured on the cover of Time Magazine in 1946. However, over the past sixty years she has fallen into relative obscurity. This mystery was first published in 1942. The murder of a show biz midget whom everybody feared and hated brings lots of plot twists and goofy suspects. Lots of surprises. Great fun. Clean, like new.

Hardcover. NY, Viking, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. INSCRIBED BY FFORDE on the title page, signed "Jasper". It's Easter in Reading - a bad time for eggs - and no one can remember the last sunny day. Humpty Dumpty, well-known nursery favorite, large egg, ex-convict and former millionaire philanthropist is found shattered beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. Clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Pegasus Books, 2nd pr., 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 300 pages. In this classic crime novel, a panic-stricken young wife races against time to prove that her convicted husband did not murder his mistress. Writing in first person from the wife?s viewpoint, Woolrich evokes her love and anguish and, finally, desperation as she becomes an avenging angel in her attempt to rescue her husband from execution. Clean copy.

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, Random House, 1st, 1978, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, lightly worn dust jacket. The second and hardest-to-find book in Jackson's highly-praised mystery-crime series featuring Detroit Detective Sgt. Fang Mulheisen, this time dealing with the murders of five railroad trainmen in a spectacular freight train crash and a hijacked boxcar loaded with automatic rifles as well as several distractions such as a dozen Cuban revolutionaries, a greedy mob boss and a luscious Polish housewife. Light tan spotting area to front fly leaf and front board. Otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Doubleday, Doran and Co. Crime Club, 1st, 1930, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Poor, Hardcover in black cloth with red stamping. Poor dust jacket with chunks gone from front panel and spine. A group of jewel collectors and dealers gather in the Adirondacks to bid on the mysterious Blue Rajah diamond. Naturally, a murder ensues.

Hardcover. Racine WI, Whitman Publishing Company, 1st, 1961, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 186 pages. Hardcover. Sepia Illustrations throughout. Pages and edges have a bit of tanning from age. Doesn't affect text or illustrations. Orange endpapers. Binding tight. Spine straight. Decorated cover boards, still bright, have some agewear (see image), no tears. In very good condition. $5000 has gone missing and Brains Benton and his friend, Jimmy are on the case, but before they can solve the crime, they are plunged into a whirlwind of excitement and suspense, climaxed by a wild chase in a racing car.

Hardcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, colorful dustjacket with a retro-style illustration by Michael Koelsch. "Here, long after anyone would have expected it, is the voice of James M. Cain, as fresh and as relevant as ever. THE COCKTAIL WAITRESS will involve you, and then shock you with an ending you'll never forget. This is a true rarity: a reader's novel that's also a literary event."--STEPHEN KING "James M. Cain was one of the founders of American hard-boiled fiction, and it's not a stretch to say that it's his voice one hears echoed in most of the Gold Medal novels of the 1950s. That makes Hard Case Crime the ideal publisher for THE COCKTAIL WAITRESS. How considerate of the postman to ring a third time, delivering Cain's final gift to us thirty-five years after his death."--LAWRENCE BLOCK

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.

Softcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, colorful wraps with a retro-style illustration by Richard B. Farrell. WINNER OF THE EDGAR ALLAN POE AWARDFOR BEST PAPERBACK NOVEL OF THE YEAR!Jake Danser has it all: a beautiful wife, a house in the California hills, a high-profile job as a forensic psychologist. But he's also got a mistress. And when Jake's mistress is found strangled to death with his necktie, it's up to him to prove he didn't do it. But how can he, when all the evidence says he did? Like new.

Softcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, colorful wraps with a retro-style illustration by Robert McGinnis. Compared to the $40 million the cops think he stole, seventy-five thousand dollars may not sound like much. But it's all the money in the world to the struggling Cuban exiles of Miami who rescued Morgan the Raider. So when it's snatched by a man the Cubans trusted, Morgan sets out to get it back. A simple favor--but as the bodies pile up...dead men and beautiful women...the Raider wonders what kind of Latin hell he's gotten himself into, and just who or what is the mysterious Consummata? Begun by mystery master MICKEY SPILLANE in the late 1960s and completed four decades later by his buddy MAX ALLAN COLLINS (Road to Perdition), The Consummata is the long-awaited follow-up to Spillane's bestseller The Delta Factor--a breathtaking tale of treachery, sensuality, and violence, showcasing two giants of crime fiction at their pulse-pounding, two-fisted best. Like new.

Softcover. Berkeley CA, Black Lizard Books, reprint, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, mass market paperback, 125 pages. A teenage girl is raped and murdered. A father turns his back on his son. A vicious press lord turns justice into a carnival. A terrified boy is railroaded. In the twisted world of Jim Thompson, everyone is guilty, and the worst crimes are unpunishable. Bookseller's stamp on inside front cover, price stamp on first page.

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, Alfred A. Knopf , 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 314 pages. Contrasting the Victorian system of virtues - respectability, self-help, discipline, cleanliness, obedience, orderliness - with the opportunistic, superficial morality of modern society, an intellectual historian calls for a deeper commitment to moral responsibility. According to Himmelfarb, Victorian "manners and morals" created a society that emphasized a strong family life for all classes and gave rise to a prosperous economy and the early feminist and social service movements. Furthermore, the influence of these virtues caused the incidence of illegitimate births and violent crimes to drop significantly and remain low until the 1960s. Clean copy.

Softcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, colorful wraps with a retro-style illustration by Chuck Pyle. Once an art smuggler, now a respectable art dealer, Ovid Wiley awoke to find his former partner stabbed to death on his gallery floor. That was strange enough--but when a CIA agent showed up to spring him from NYPD custody, things got a lot stranger. Now the CIA is offering to clear up the murder charge, but only in return for a favor: They want Ovid to fly to Vatican City and trace the trail of a renegade priest who has gone missing with millions in church funds. What's the connection? The priest's lover, a woman Ovid knew in his smuggling days. Like new.

Softcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, colorful wraps with a retro-style illustration by Chuck Pyle. Once an art smuggler, now a respectable art dealer, Ovid Wiley awoke to find his former partner stabbed to death on his gallery floor. That was strange enough--but when a CIA agent showed up to spring him from NYPD custody, things got a lot stranger. Now the CIA is offering to clear up the murder charge, but only in return for a favor: They want Ovid to fly to Vatican City and trace the trail of a renegade priest who has gone missing with millions in church funds. What's the connection? The priest's lover, a woman Ovid knew in his smuggling days. Like new.

Hardcover. NY, Times Books, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 312 pages. A masterful guide to human development that redefines the nature versus nurture debate. A much-needed antidote to genetic determinism, The Dependent Gene reveals how all traits-even characteristics like eye and hair color-are caused by complex interactions between genes and the environment at every stage of biological and psychological development, from the single fertilized egg to full-grown adulthood. How we understand the nature versus nurture debate directly affects our thoughts about such basic issues as sex and reproduction, parenting, education, and crime, and has an enormous impact on social policy. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Dark Horse, 1st, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The infamous EC Comics pre-trend crime classic is beautifully reprinted in full color and collected into a deluxe hardcover edition. Presenting tales of horrific crimes, grisly murders, and bizarre homicide cases featuring the titanic artistic talents of Johnny Craig, Sheldon Moldoff, H. C. Keifer, Ed Walden, Ann Brewster, and Stan Ashe. EC's "Pre-Trend" titles were published by M.C. Gaines, and then William Gaines after his father's death in 1947. Collects Crime Patrol issues #7-#11.

Hardcover. NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 2nd pr., 2023, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 432 pages. James Ellroy--Demon Dog of American Letters--goes straight to the tragic heart of 1962 Hollywood with a wild riff on the Marilyn Monroe death myth in an astonishing, behind-the-headlines crime epic. Ellroy dissects 1960s LA, the failing Hollywood studio system, the American addiction to porn and drugs, our willingness to defame and dethrone and murder, and in doing so writes his most relevant novel in years. Clean copy.

Softcover. Quezon City, Malaya Books, reprint, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 212 pages, b&w illustrations, fold-out map in front. A 1970 reprint of a title first published in 1900. Clean copy, light edgewear to wrapper.