Archives
The Mourner by Richard Stark
Donald Westlake (1933-2008) was an assiduous and creative author with about 100 crime fiction novels and dozens of short stories to his credit under various pen names including John B. Allan, Judson Jack Carmichael, Curt Clark, Timothy J. Culver, J....
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Murder Breaks Trail by Eunice Mays Boyd
While at Left Coast Crime in San Francisco, I visited The Bancroft Library at the University of California Berkeley, where most of the university’s special collections are housed, including a fabulous assortment of mysteries by California authors. Curator Randal...
Body Scissors by Jerome Doolittle
Body Scissors by Jerome Doolittle (Pocket Books, 1990) is the first of six political thrillers released between 1990 and 1995 featuring Tom Bethany, a former member of the Olympic wrestling team and a Vietnam vet, who describes himself as a security consultant but...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Death of Mr. Gantley by Miles Burton
Cecil John Charles Street (1884-1964) was a serving British army officer who attained the rank of Major. He was also a pillar of Golden Age crime fiction, writing under multiple names, producing four detective novels a year for thirty-seven years. As John Rhode, he...
The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman
Long before Jessica Fletcher, Sister Mary Helen, or Agatha Raisin, there was Mrs. Emily Pollifax of suburban New Jersey, widowed grandmother, hospital volunteer, garden club member, and occasional CIA agent. In 14 books published between 1966 and 2000, MWA Grand...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Corpse at the Carnival by George Bellairs
I am slowly working my way through the entire list of Littlejohn mysteries by George Bellairs. Bellairs was the pseudonym of Harold Blundell (1902-1982), a Manchester bank manager as well as a freelance journalist. He published 57 popular classic police procedurals...
The Ringer by Dell Shannon
Barbara Elizabeth Linington (1921-1988) was an astonishingly productive American author who wrote under the names Elizabeth Linington, Anne Blaisdell, Lesley Egan, Egan O'Neill, and Dell Shannon. She initially wrote radio and stage dramas and then turned to...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Footsteps That Stopped by A. Fielding
Some two dozen mysteries were published under the name Archibald Fielding or A. Fielding or A. E. Fielding between 1924 and 1944. They are attributed to Dorothy Feilding (sic) about whom little is known, not even her year of birth apparently. The Golden Age of...
Another Reprint Recommendation: I Start Counting By Audrey Erskine Lindop
As long as we are talking about crime fiction that deserves to be reprinted, I want to mention one of my enduring favorites which has been long out of print. There is one first edition copy on eBay for $476 in the UK. ABE Books has one first edition for $217 in...
Nomination for Classic Crime Reprints
Kate Jackson of Cross Examining Crime is asking for suggestions for what out-of-print classic crime novel should be reprinted next. See the original discussion here:...
