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. NY, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, reprint, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 144 pages. Clean copy. A new paperback edition of the neo-noir novel book critics have called Willeford's best. Fast-talking, backstabbing, womanizing art critic Jacques Figueras will do anything - blackmail, burglary, fencing, assassination - to further his career. Crossing the art world with the underworld, Willeford expands his noir palette to include hues of sunny Florida and weird tints of Surrealism when Figueras takes a job for an art collector who doesn't care how his art is collected, even if it involves murder. 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.
Softcover. NY, Little, Brown & Company, reprint, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 235 pages. Luane Devore's days are numbered. All her neighbors in the declining seaside resort town of Manduwoc want her dead. Some, like her young husband Ralph and his girlfriend Danny, want the thousands of dollars she keeps hidden under the mattress she spends her days resting on. Others want her to stop her malicious gossip--some of which could ruin lives. Told from multiple perspectives, The Kill-Off tells the story of a woman not long for this earth--but who will finally take matters into their own hands, and when? THE KILL-OFF was the basis of Maggie Greenwald's critically acclaimed film of the same name. Clean, unread copy.
Softcover. NY, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, reprint, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 244 pages. Lou Ford is the deputy sheriff of a small town in Texas. The worst thing most people can say against him is that he's a little slow and a little boring. But, then, most people don't know about the sickness--the sickness that almost got Lou put away when he was younger. The sickness that is about to surface again.
Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 422 pages. Moving their family to a safe and tranquil suburb, Lynn and Barry Schulman are horrified to discover the town's sinister side, which is revealed after an old friend is murdered and an old boyfriend begins to stalk Lynn. Clean copy.
Softcover. NY, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, reprint, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 244 pages. Tough, hard-boiled, and brilliantly suspenseful, The Last Good Kiss is an unforgettable detective story starring C. W. Sughrue, a Montana investigator who kills time by working at a topless bar. Hired to track down a derelict author, he ends up on the trail of a girl missing in Haight-Ashbury for a decade. The tense hunt becomes obsessive as Sughrue takes a haunting journey through the underbelly of America's sleaziest nightmares. aclean copy.
Softcover. NY, Fawcett Gold Medal, reprint, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, mass market paperback, 255 pages. A lovely young girl steps in front of Travis McGee's headlights. McGee misses the girl but lands in ten feet of swamp water. As he's limping along the deserted road, someone in an old truck takes a few shots at him. And, when he goes to the local sheriff to complain, the intrepid Travis McGee finds himself arrested and charged with murder. And he can't help but ask himself, is this what they call southern hospitality...? Mild wear to covers, otherwise VG, clean.
Hardcover. NY, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1st, 1975, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. A provocative British Secret Service agent called Cadbury uses her sex the way James Bond uses a gun, with equally devastating results. Clean copy.
Softcover. NY, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, reprint, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 263 pages. Larry Dolman is a rather literal minded ex-cop who now works private security. Eddie Miller is an airline pilot who's studying to get his real estate license. Don Luchessi is a silver salesman who's separated from his wife but too Catholic to get a divorce. Hank Norton is a drug company rep who gets four times as many dames as any of the other guys. They are all regular guys who like to drink, play cards, meet broads, and shoot a little pool. But when a friendly bet goes horribly awry, they find themselves with two dead bodies on their hands and a homicidal husband in the wings--and acting more like hardened criminals than upstanding citizens. Mild shelf wear, clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Knopf, 1st, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. This installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno will take all of Bruno's resolve and quick thinking to untangle a mystery that will reach its deadly denouement at the chateau of an aging rock star. But in true Bruno fashion, at least lunchtime is never in danger. It's summer in the Dordogne and the heirs of a modest sheep farmer learn that they have been disinherited. Their father's estate has been sold to an insurance company in return for a policy that will place him in a five-star retirement home for the rest of his life. But the farmer dies before he can move in. Was it a natural death? Or was there foul play? Chief of Police Bruno Courreges is soon on the case, embarking on an investigation that will lead him to several shadowy insurance companies owned by a Russian oligarch with a Cypriot passport. Clean copy.