Mysteries mystery

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.

Softcover. New York, A Signet Book, 1st, 1963, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 123 pages. Paperbook. Signet Book #G2312. Moderate wear on edges. Light creases on wrapper corners and spine. Cover art by Robert McGinnis.

Softcover. New York, Ace Books, 1st, 1958, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Paperback. Double Novel. 143/177 pages. Ace Double Novel #D-285. Previous owner's markings on first page of each novel. Light wear to pictorial wrappers. Pages lightly tanned. Creasing and wear to spine.

Softcover. NY, Bantam Books, 3rd pr., 1955, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Paperback, Bantam #1333, 156 pages. Bound in color pictorial wrappers with art by George Gross. Clean.

Hardcover. NY, Charles Scribner's Sons, reprint, 1906, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth covers, gilt title on spine. 533 pages, 4 b&w plates by Victor Perard. A novel by the nineteenth-century French detective fiction writer Emile Gaboriau, whom Andre Gide referred to as "the father of all current detective fiction". The story revolves around a wealthy banker named Andre Fauvel, who is found dead in his office one morning. The police quickly suspect his son, Raoul, who has a reputation for being a spendthrift and is known to have had a strained relationship with his father. However, Raoul insists on his innocence and enlists the help of his friend, detective Monsieur Lecoq, to clear his name. Other People's Money is a thrilling mystery novel that explores the corrupt world of finance in 19th-century France. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Softcover. New York, Pocket Book, 1st, 1943, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 214 pages. Paperback. Pocket Book #249. Light soil to rear wrapper, spine creasing and fading. Gutter crack on first page.

Hardcover. New York, Brentano's, 1st, 1909, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 377 pages, decorated yellow cloth cover. Gutter cracked at title page, previous owner's inscription on front fly leaf.

Softcover. New York, Popular Library Mystery, 1st, 1947, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 219 pages. Popular Library Mystery # 103. Moderate wear to paper wrappers. Pages tanned. Moderate soil on rear.

Softcover. NY, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, reprint, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 166 pages. Pick-Up is really two different books contained within a single cover. The first half describes in raw, realistic detail the hopeless, despairing and desperate, lives of a man and a woman, both alcoholics, barely surviving in post World War II San Francisco. The second half of the book consists of one man's account of his first hand experience with the criminal justice system. Clean copy.

Softcover. New York, Ace Books, 1st, 1957, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Paperback. Double Novel. 132/124 pages. Ace Double Novel #D-347. Previous owner's markings on first pages of each side. Light wear to pictorial wrappers. Pages lightly tanned. Creasing and wear to spine.

Softcover. NY, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, reprint, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 217 pages. A chilling and brutally funny romp through the American South. As high sheriff of Potts County, Nick Corey spends most of his time eating, sleeping and avoiding trouble. If only people--especially some troublesome pimps, his foul-tempered wife, and his half-witted brother-in-law--would stop pushing him around. Because when Nick is pushed, he begins to kill . . . or to make others do his killing for him!The basis for an aclaimed French film noir, Coup de Torchon. Clean copy.

Softcover. New York, Dell Publishing, 1st, 1955, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 223 pages. Paperback. Dell Book #833. Minor wear to paper wrappers. Light crease to front cover. First page partially separated.

Softcover. New York, Pocket Book, 1st, 1943, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 226 pages. Paperback. Pocket Book #241. Light soil to rear wrapper, spine creasing and fading. Cover Art by Hoffman. Light cocking to spine.

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, 1st, 1947, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 240 pages. Paperback. Dell Book #173. Minor wear to paper wrappers. Light crease to front cover. Laminate starting to peel. Map on rear cover. Cover art by Gerald Gregg.

NY, St. Martin's Press, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. A young New York illustrator leaves behind a promising career and returns to her hometown in the Florida panhandle to help the great-aunt who raised her resolve a puzzling series of events suddenly plaguing their decaying family home. Clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Mysterious Press, reprint, 1989, Softcover, mass market paperback, 163 pages. By the time Jim Thompson was sixteen years old, he had been a newspaper boy, a burlesque show hawker, a plumber's helper, a comedian in two-reel pictures, a night bellboy in a luxury hotel and over a dozen other occupations. By the time he was eighteen, he was driving across America in a broken-down Ford without a penny to his name and his mother and his kid sister Freddie in tow, looking for just one more paycheck to keep them all alive.A bittersweet comedy of a hard-won American life, ROUGHNECK chronicles the many jobs, near-criminal escapades, and downright unlawful grifts of the man who would become one of crime fiction's most enduring writers, in a larger-than-life literary memoir--or wildly entertaining tall tale--as only Thompson could tell it. Hard times have never sounded so good. Clean, bright copy.

Softcover. NY, Little, Brown & Company, reprint, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 204 pages. Originally published by Lion Books as a paperback in 1954. By the time Jim Thompson was sixteen years old, he had been a newspaper boy, a burlesque show hawker, a plumber's helper, a comedian in two-reel pictures, a night bellboy in a luxury hotel and over a dozen other occupations. By the time he was eighteen, he was driving across America in a broken-down Ford without a penny to his name and his mother and his kid sister Freddie in tow, looking for just one more paycheck to keep them all alive. A bittersweet comedy of a hard-won American life, ROUGHNECK chronicles the many jobs, near-criminal escapades, and downright unlawful grifts of the man who would become one of crime fiction's most enduring writers, in a larger-than-life literary memoir--or wildly entertaining tall tale--as only Thompson could tell it. Hard times have never sounded so good. Clean, unread copy.

Hardcover. NY, William Morrow, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The 3rd of his tough gritty mysteries featuring private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angelo Gennaro - in a search that takes them from Boston to Florida's Gulf Coast. Clean copy.

Softcover. New York, Berkley Diamond Book, 1st, 1960, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 144 pages. Paperback. Berkley Diamond Book #D2041. Pages tanned. Light wear to paper wrappers.

Hardcover. NY, Mysterious Press, 1st, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The third outing for Vermont cop Joe Gunther. A murdered stockbroker sets a sticky case into motion for Lt. Gunther. Three bodies later, Gunther must unravel a sinister puzzle involving drugs, a naive young police officer, and someone bent on revenge.

Hardcover. NY, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 1960, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a worn, Brodarted dust jacket with 2.95 price present. Stated first printing. Paper tanning, first signature loose but hanging on, front endpaper stamped, rear flyleaf gone, otherwise clean. The dust jacket makes it worthwhile.

Softcover. New York, Dell Publishing, 1st, 1952, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 224 pages. Paperback. Dell Book #683. Minor wear to paper wrappers. Light crease to corners. Light soil to front cover. Cover art by Mike Ludlow.

Softcover. New York, Dell Publishing, 1st, 1950, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 222 pages. Paperback. Dell Book #412.Minor wear to paper wrappers. Creasing to covers and spine. Cover wrinkled. Cover by Paul Burns.