crime

Softcover. NY, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, reprint, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 245 pages. In a rundown house in Santa Monica, Mrs. Samuel Lawrence presses fifty crumpled bills into Lew Archer's hand and asks him to find her wandering daughter, Galatea. Described as 'crazy for men' and without discrimination, she was last seen driving off with small-time gangster Joe Tarantine, a hophead hood with a rep for violence. Archer traces the hidden trail from San Francisco slum alleys to the luxury of Palm Springs, traveling through an urban wilderness of drugs and viciousness. As the bodies begin to pile up, he finds that even angel faces can mask the blackest of hearts.Filled with dope, delinquents and murder, this is classic Macdonald and one of his very best in the Lew Archer series. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Henry Holt, 3rd pr., 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 333 pages. First novel written by Price using this pseudonym. Story of a "New York City police detective under siege - by an unsolved murder, by his own dark past, and by a violent stalker seeking revenge. . . in the mid-1990s, when a young Billy Graves worked in the South Bronx as part of an aggressive anti-crime unit known as the Wild Geese, he made headlines by accidentally shooting a ten-year-old boy while struggling with an angel-dusted berserker on a crowded street. Branded as a loose cannon by his higher-ups, Billy spent years enduring one dead-end posting after another." Now he finds himself involved in a murder investigation that will tear apart old friendships. 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.

Softcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, colorful wraps with a retro-style illustration by Tyler Jacobson. Quarry doesn't kill just anybody these days. He restricts himself to targeting other hitmen, availing his marked-for-death clients of two services: eliminating the killers sent after them, and finding out who hired them...and then removing that problem as well. So far he's rid the world of nobody who would be missed. But this time he finds himself zeroing in on the grieving family of a missing cheerleader. Does the hitman's hitman have the wrong quarry in his sights? Like new.

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. London, Collins Crime Club, 1st, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover. Dust jacket w/ edgewear, chipping.

Softcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, colorful wraps with a retro-style illustration by Bill Nelson. When the beautiful girlfriend of a notorious gangster vanishes, it's up to P.I. Donald Lam to get to the bottom of her disappearance -- and of a mining scam, an illegal casino operation, a double homicide, and an opportunity for an enterprising private eye to make a small fortune...if he can just stay alive long enough to cash in! Like new.

Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, large format pictorial boards, 200 pages. In 1949, the ambitious Charles Biro - who had previously co-created the realistically brutal comic Crime Does Not Pay - edited and wrote an oversized comic aimed at adults, called Tops. Like several other radical adult comics projects that would follow, it proved to be a commercial failure and lasted only two Life magazine-sized issues. The original comics have since become a legendary holy grail among comics fans and historians, fetching as much as $6,000 on the collector's market: written about but rarely seen and never reprinted. Until now.Fantagraphics' Tops collects both issues of these oversized experimental comics in their entirety. Some of the best craftsmen working in comics at that time drew these pulpy, sexy, and melodramatic stories: Dan Barry, George Tuska, and others. It includes two stunning pre-EC crime tales illustrated by Reed Crandall, reminiscent of his Crime SuspenStories work. Actor Melvyn Douglas (believe it or not) takes the reader on a tour of utopia, entitled "How Would You Live Under A World Government?" - a positive spin on global Socialism! A treasure trove of fascinating and revelatory comics history for scholars and fans, this compilation includes an introduction by the editor, the historian and cartoonist Michael T. Gilbert, as well as several other essays providing background on the creation of the series and the publisher, editors, and cartoonists who realized it. It includes a chronicle in essay form of experimental, adult comics endeavors throughout the first half of the 20th century. Tops is a landmark work of historical importance and a mind-boggling reading experience from a bygone era meticulously restored and reproduced in a deluxe hardcover in its originally published dimensions. Full-color illustrations throughout.

Hardcover. NY, Icon/Marvel, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards. A graphic novel of of Eliot Ness's hunt for America's first serial killer-Cleveland's 1935 torso killer. B&w art by Bendis followed by pages of news clipping with photos of the actual crime scene and investigators at work. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Fawcett Columbine, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. SIGNED BY PERRY on the title page. As Police Superintendent Thomas Pitt investigates the leak in the Colonial Office, he quietly looks into the tragic death of his childhood mentor, Sir Arthur Desmond. Pitt believes he was murdered, and that the crime is connected with the treachery in the government. He makes little progress...until a second murder reverberates through London. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Taschen, 1st, 1013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, hardcover, 336 pages. At the height of the Jazz Age, when Prohibition was turning ordinary citizens into criminals and ordinary criminals into celebrities, America's true crime detective magazines were born. True Detective came first in 1924, and by 1934, when the Great Depression had produced colorful outlaws like Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, and John Dillinger, the magazines were so popular cops and robbers alike vied to see themselves on the pages. Even FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover wrote regularly for what came to be called the "Dickbooks," referring to a popular slang term for a detective. As the decades rolled on, the magazines went through a curious metamorphosis, however. When liquor was once more legal, the Depression over and all the flashy criminals dead or imprisoned, the "detectives" turned to sin to make sales. Sexy bad girls in tight sweaters, slit skirts, and stiletto heels adorned every cover. Cover lines shouted "I Was a Girl Burglar-For Kicks," "Sex Habits of Women Killers," "Bride of Sin!," "She Played Me for a Sucker," and most succinctly, "Bad Woman."True Crime Detective Magazines follows the evolution and devolution of this distinctly American genre from 1924 to 1969. Hundreds of covers and interior images from dozens of magazine titles tell the story, not just of the "detectives," but also of America's attitudes towards sex, sin, crime, and punishment over five decades. With texts by magazine collector Eric Godtland, George Hagenauer, and True Detective editor Marc Gerald, True Crime Detective Magazines is an informative and entertaining look at one of the strangest publishing niches of all time.

Softcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, colorful wraps with a retro-style illustration by Laurel Blechman, Robert Maguire. Erle Stanley Gardner was not just the creator of PERRY MASON--at the time of his death, he was the best-selling American author of all time, with hundreds of millions of books in print. Among those books were the 29 cases of the brash, irresistible detective team of Bertha Cool and Donald Lam. In 2016, Hard Case Crime brought out the first new Cool and Lam novel in decades, THE KNIFE SLIPPED, lost for 77 years after Gardner's publisher refused it. Now here's the book Gardner wrote to replace it, often considered the best in the series: TURN ON THE HEAT. Hired by a mysterious "Mr. Smith" to find a woman who vanished 21 years earlier, Donald Lam finds himself facing a sadistic cop, a desperate showgirl, a duplicitous client, and one very dogged (and beautiful) newspaper reporter--while Bertha Cool's attempts to cut herself in on this lucrative opportunity land them both hip-deep in murder. Like new.

Hardcover. NY, Free Press, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 478 pages, b&w illustrations. When the young, insignificant scion of an unremarkable German principality first came to England to serve as consort to the youthful Queen Victoria, no one could have guessed that he would grow to become one of Britain's great--if uncrowned--kings. Albert's life could not have been an easy one; a man of great intelligence, pride, and ambition, he was forced to move behind the scenes, playing major roles in running the Crimean War and working to keep Britain out of the Civil War being waged in the United States. He was interested in industry and technology, and worked to stage the Crystal Palace exhibition--the first World's Fair. Yet, while his wife adored him, his adopted people scorned him for his German accent, his foreign ways, and his covert activities as a surrogate ruler. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1st, 1967, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket with light edgewear. In 1945, a previously unknown Vermeer was discovered by the Allied Art Commission in the collection of Hermann Goering. The question arose: where - and how - did Goering acquire it? From the investigation came a story that rocked the art world. The trail finally led to Han van Meegeren, an obscure painter who had sold seven authenticated Vermeers over a number of years. Faced with a possible death sentence for collaborating in a sale of a national treasure to the Nazis, van Meegeren insisted he had not helped the Nazi cause: he had painted all the Vermeers himself. Needless to say, nobody believed him - until he proved he was telling the truth by painting still another Vermeer, before the eyes of an astonished jury. Here, with 24 pages of illustrations, is the story of the audacious forger who fooled the most eminent art critics, yet failed to impress them with his own paintings. Lord Kilbracken offers an exhaustive study of van Meegeren's background - his motives , his two marriages, and all the pieces of the puzzle that go to make up an understandable complex human being. With fascinating detail he also makes it clear exactly how the incredibly bold deception was executed - and why it worked. The result is an eminently readable true account that has all the narrative excitement of a thriller. No markings.

Hardcover. New York , Pantheon, 1st US, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 111 pages, illustrated throughout in b&w. Light edgewear and rubbing to dust jacket. Faint foxing to top edge, otherwise a clean, tight copy. In April 1933 an editor at Lippincott asked Evans to take photographs for a polemical book by Carlton Beals, a leftist writer who was very critical of the then Cuban dictator Gerardo Machado and anxious to show how American support of Machado had created an economic catastrophe in Cuba. Evans agreed after acceptance of his conditions that he have complete freedom to choose the photographs for publication and that they be collected at the end of the book so that they appeared to be an independent entity and not simply illustration of the text. Indeed, according to legend, Evans had not read Beals's text when he went to Havana in May 1933. He was in Cuba for three weeks. When his personal funds ran out, his way was paid for by Ernest Hemingway; the two had never met before, but Hemingway was eager for the company of someone equally qualified in literary conversation and in drinking. In the end, Evans contributed thirty-one photographs to the published "The Crime of Cuba". This book, WALKER EVANS: HAVANA 1933, contains seventy of the photographs Evans took in Cuba, including most of the photographs he selected for "The Crime of Cuba". The volume is introduced by an excellent essay by Gilles Mora that gives the historical background and discusses the place of Evans's Cuban photographs in his overall body of work. The photographs were selected by Mora and by John T. Hill, who also was responsible for the sequencing of their presentation. (One of Mora's points is that Evans attached a great deal of significance to the sequencing of his photographs, any collection of which he viewed as a composite artistic/documentary statement and, as such, more important than any single photograph.)

Softcover. Miami FL, Vanguard Publishing, 2nd pr., 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, glossy pictorial wrappers, 207 pages. Color art throughout. This contains the complete collection of non-EC, 1950s crime and horror comics by Wally Wood. Some of the highlights are: Captain Steve Savage; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; Sabu the Elephant Boy; Frank Buck; Martin Kane; Fu Manchu; and many, many more. Clean copy.

Softcover. Boston, Bulfinch Press, 1st pbk., 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 262 pages. Essays by Miles Barth, Alain Bergala and Ellen Handy. Includes 265 duotones. A very near fine copy in a French style wrappers. One of the best monographs on Weegee.

Hardcover. New York, Free Press, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 346 pages, b&w photographs. Remainder mark to top edge. Small tear to dust jacket. Else a very clean, tight copy. Documents the story of the luxury liner that burned off the coast of New Jersey in 1934, drawing on previously classified FBI reports and first-person survivor interviews to reveal how the Morro Castle's captain died under mysterious circumstances seven hours before the ship caught fire and how many of the crew abandoned ship, leaving passengers to fend for themselves.

Hardcover. NY, Bantam Books, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The first novel in the 'Detroit Crime Series' in which the city is treated as an organic entity through various decades of the 20th century, "WHISKEY RIVER" spans from the Prohibition Era to the late 1930s. Constantine ("Connie") Minor is a Detroit-based journalist who has made a name for himself covering the crime beat in the late 1920s/early 1930s. This was a time in which bootleggers and mobsters carved out Detroit into spheres of influence over which they exerted and established firm control over, not only, the illegal importation of alcohol, but also the numbers rackets, and prostitution. Many of the city's cops often looked the other way, picking and choosing what crimes to solve or ignore (courtesy of a bribe). All the while, Detroit's industrial might (as evidenced by the auto industry) continued to grow, giving the city a dazzling prosperity soon to be tempered by the ravages of the 1929 stock market crash and resulting Depression. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, Van Nostrand, 1st, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 320 pages, illustrated throughout with numerous charts, illustrations and photos in b&w. Cream cloth, pictorial dust jacket. A very nice, tight copy.

Hardcover. New York, DC Comics, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 216 pages in color. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. The Spirit returns for the third volume in this archival series! In it, Will Eisner's classic crimefighter of the 1940s continues to face off against enemy agents on the homefront. This volume includes an appearance by the sultry Silk Satin, as well as the Spirit's developing relationship with Police Commissioner Dolan and his beautiful daughter Ellen.

Softcover. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1st US, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 193 pages. Most European prosecutions for the crime of witchcraft occurred between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, with the peak coming in the hundred years after 1560. This volume brings together the large amount of recent scholarship on witchcraft of this period and provides a novel analysis of the trials by considering the legal systems involved. Witch hunts, methods of torture, and the scientific interest in magic spells and demonology as an intellectual pursuit are also covered in detail. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, William Morrow, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Pictorial boards The half-jacket dust jacket protects lower half of book, covering most of the pictorial design but displaying author's name . A novel of blood, crime, passion, and vengeance, set in Cuba and Ybor City, Florida, during World War II, in which Joe Coughlin must confront the cost of his criminal past and present. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Archipelago Books, 1st US, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 317 pages. Elias Khoury's most recent novel propels us into a fantastic universe of skewed reality that leaves us breathless to the last page. We follow the path of a young man, Yalo, who is growing up like a stray dog on the streets of Beirut during the long years of the Lebanese civil war. Living with his mother, who "lost her face in the mirror," he falls in with a dangerous gang whose violent escapades he treats as a game. The game becomes a frightening reality, however, when Yalo is accused of rape and imprisoned. He is forced to confess to crimes of which he has no recollection. As he writes, and rewrites, he begins to grasp his family's past and recall all that his psyche has buried, and the true Yalo begins to emerge. Clean copy.