Mysteries mystery

Softcover. New York, Avon Book, 1st, 1961, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 144 pages. Paperback. Avon Book #T-491. Previous owner's ink notation on first page. Light wear to paper wrappers. Spins cocked lightly.

Softcover. NY, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, reprint, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 245 pages. Eight months after being horribly disfigured in a car accident, Dan Marriott has his face rebuilt by plastic surgery, but he must still struggle with an amnesia that could mean his death as he is stalked by an unknown killer. Originally titled "The Plastic Nightmare". Clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, reprint, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 159 pages. Once upon a time Eddie played concert piano to reverent audiences at Carnegie Hall. Now he bangs out honky-tonk for drunks in a dive in Philadelphia. But then two people walk into Eddie's life--the first promising Eddie a future, the other dragging him back into a treacherous past.Clean copy.

Softcover. New York, Dell Publishing, 1st, 1958, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 160 pages. Paperback. Dell Book #988. Minor wear to paper wrappers. Cover art by Robert Stanley. Light crease and fade to spine and front cover.

Softcover. New York, Dell Publishing, 1st, 1949, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 238 pages. Paperback. Dell Book #351. Minor wear to paper wrappers. Creasing to corners of front cover. Map on rear.

Softcover. New York, Dell Publishing, 1st, 1945, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 240 pages. Paperback. Dell Book #96. Minor wear to paper wrappers. Creasing to covers and spine. Cover art by Gerald Gregg. Map on rear.

Softcover. New York, A Signet Book, 1st, 1950, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 189 pages. Paperbook. Signet Book #821. Moderate wear on edges. Light creases on wrapper corners and spine. Reading crease to spine.

Softcover. New York, Popular Library Mystery, 1st, 1953, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 160 pages. Popular Library Mystery # 554. Moderate wear to paper wrappers. Pages tanned. Moderate soil on rear. Front hinge cracked.

Softcover. NY, Little, Brown & Company, reprint, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 235 pages. Orphaned by a tragic accident at sixteen, Tommy Burwell's been scraping out a meager existence working dead-end jobs for years. When he and fellow nomad Four Trey Whitey get jobs working with dynamite, making way for a new pipeline across the deserted plains of Far West Texas, disaster ensues. In a matter of days, Tommy is brutally beaten and witness to an act of cold-blooded murder the law can't be bothered to investigate. When Carol, a knockout beauty, shows up looking to follow the caravan of workers, Tommy falls for her almost immediately. There aren't any jobs for women on the pipeline, but Carol knows a few things she could do for the workers to keep afloat -- an arrangement that Tommy can't bear for long. As Tommy's about to find out, when you're South of Heaven, you're far from grace - -and sometimes the only way out is down. Clean, unread copy.

Hardcover. New York , Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1st, 1935, Dust Jacket: None, 354 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacker. Red cloth covers with black lettering on front and spine. Spine is worn and faded. End papers have green and white map design. Very good condition overall.

Softcover. New York, Dell Publishing, 1st, 1944, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 239 pages. Paperback. Dell Book #25. Minor wear to paper wrappers. Cover art by Gerald Gregg. Map on back. Light crease and fade to spine and front cover.

Softcover. New York, Dell Publishing, 1st, 1961, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 192 pages. Paperback. Dell Book #B191. Minor wear to paper wrappers. Creasing to covers and spine. Cover art by robert McGinnis.

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. NY, Little, Brown & Company, reprint, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 237 pages. Clean, unread copy. Originally published in paperback by Fawcett Gold Medal Books, February 1965. To everyone he's every played dice with, Mitch Corley seems like the luckiest guy around. But in truth, Corley's fast hands are the only gift fate's ever given him. He's never held down a steady job, and when it comes to women, his luck might just be the worst of all -- his girlfriend and partner-in-crime Red would double-cross him in a heartbeat if she knew just how short on cash they really were. And if Red ever finds out about the wife Corley neglected to mention, there's a good chance that Corley might not survive the night. At first, Mitch was sure Texas would be the perfect place for him and Red to run their game -- there are players in nearly every back room and side-street across the state and here, the pockets run just a little deeper. But Corley forgot about one thing: Texans don't forgive easily. And there's nothing they hate more than a cheater. Texas by the Tail is a high-spirited, sexy, and ingeniously plotted novel of the grifting life, by a writer who is a virtual encyclopedia of the con, the scam, and the double cross.

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.

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. NY, Ballantine Books, reprint, 1982, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, mass market paperback, 238 pages. When her husband is arrested for the murder of his supposed girl friend, a young woman struggles to prove him innocent and bring the true killer to justice. Name inside front cover, light wear to covers.

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, Knopf, 2nd pr., 1976, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 270 pages. The final Lew Archer mystery, in which the detective investigates a missing painting and uncovers buried secrets that echo the violence of the past. Clean copy.

Softcover. Ann Arbor MI, University of Michigan Press, reprint, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 316 pages. The first known mystery written by an African-American, set in 1930s Harlem. Rudolph Fisher, one of the principal writers of the Harlem Renaissance, weaves an intricate story of a native African king, who, after receiving a degree from Harvard University, settles into Harlem in the 1930s. He becomes a "conjure-man," a fortune-teller, a mysterious figure who remains shrouded in darkness while his clients sit directly across from him, singly bathed in light. It is in this configuration that one of these seekers of the revelation of fate discovers he is speaking to a dead man. Thus a complex mystery begins, involving suspects and characters who are vividly and richly portrayed, and who dramatically illuminate for the reader a time, a place, and a people. Clean copy.

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.

Hardcover. NY, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 256 pages. In this unique blend of historical fiction and cutting-edge suspense, author Diane Wei Liang succeeds in delivering an incredible mystery veiled behind the red curtain of contemporary Chinese life and culture. Set in Beijing "The Eye of Jade" introduces readers to the enigmatic Mei Wang, the country's first successful female private investigator, and her struggle to uncover the location of a rare and treasured artifact that is believed to have been absconded from the Luoyang Museum during the Cultural Revolution. For Wang this is a task of special importance, and can only stand to make her later life and reputation glimmer, but as she soon finds in the back alleys, this is not going to be easy. Clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Little, Brown & Company, reprint, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 209 pages. Originally published in paperback by Lion Books, March 1954. "Gizmo" is the GI term for the unidentifiable -- and that's the way that Toddy Kent has begun to think of the reasons behind the rapid swing of his days. Somehow, Kent seems always to find himself regularly confronted with The Big Break every man would kill for -- only to see it slip through his fingers. Kent's grinding out a paycheck buying gold on the cheap and selling it for the slimmest of profits when he stumbles into his latest, almost mythical discovery -- pure, unadulterated gold in the form of a priceless watch he didn't exactly mean to steal. Soon Kent finds himself at the center of a whirlwind of danger involving everyone from the woman he can't seem to shake, bail bondsmen who get word of Kent's discovery, the Treasury Department, his pawnbroker, and a devious old man with a dog that may or may not be able to speak English, in a rip-roaring comedy of errors and would-you-believe-it bad luck unlike anything you've ever read. Who ever knew one lousy watch could bring so much trouble? And how many times can Kent avoid getting killed before his luck runs out for good?Clean, unread copy.

Softcover. NY, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, reprint, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 189 pages. Roy DIllon seems too handsome and well-mannered to be a professional con man. Lilly Dillon looks too young--and loves Roy a little too intensely--to be taken for his mother. Moira Langtry is getting too old to keep on living off the kindness of male strangers. And Carol Roberg seems too innocent to be acquainted with suffering. This was filmed in 1990 by Stephen Frears, with a screenplay by Donald E. Westlake and starring Anjelica Huston, John Cusack and Annette Bening. Clean copy.