May has been– a lot. With the end of the school year at the university, the death of our elderly Maine coon cat Jeff, back-to-back work conferences, and then a cross-country car trip to celebrate graduations and birthdays,my husband and I have been feeling a little ragged around the edges. On a blissfully warm day, we drove to several of our favorite bookstores in Minneapolis and bought whatever caught our eye. Usually, I hunt for specific authors, but this time I was prowling for books by particular publishers.
I was primarily interested in getting a few books from Dean Street Press. I have been obsessed with Dean Street Press books’ cover art and wanted to see them in person. They are so vibrant while still being undeniable vintage. I tried to pick up a selection of books from authors I haven’t read before: Moray Dalton, specifically the Hugh Collier series (I own several of her stand-alone novels), Christopher Bush’s long-running Ludovic Travers series. Authors Alice Campbell and Brian Flynn have been on my radar for about a year, so I was pleased to find their books. Winifred Peck’s Arrest the Bishop? was a complete impulse buy because the cover is so creepy and compelling.
“How’s it going, George?”“Sheer murder.”
When Ludovic Travers went to Sandbeach—“the Blackpool of the South Coast”—his purpose was to investigate on behalf of an insurance company a jewel robbery at one of that lively resort’s leading hotels. The victim of the robbery was Mona Dovell, the flighty wife of an elderly and highly respected magistrate. Ludovic was not long on the job before he discovered that Mona was heavily involved with a bookmaker of dubious reputation, and that her relations with certain members of the local C.I.D. were unconventional to say the least of it. After that, even the robbery itself began to smell fishy, and Ludovic started to wonder if there was not also a strong whiff of corruption in the air.
The Case of the Careless Thief was originally published in 1959. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.
Amazon
Publisher: Dean Street Press.
Publication Date: April 4, 2022.
Paperback Length: 205 pages.
Purchase from Amazon here.
Why the warning about water? Or rather why any warning at all?
Miss Venables, a rich and kindly old lady, is the recipient of several threatening letters. Her young companion, Sarah MacNeil, wonders who can possibly bear a grudge against her employer, and energetically endeavours to find out who is threatening her. Together they set out for France, but just on the point of departure they receive a shattering communication which reads: ‘Go to France if you like, but once there, keep away from water.’ In this clever detective story Mrs. Campbell once more proves herself an expert purveyor of thrills.
Keep Away From Water! was originally published in 1935. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.
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Publisher: Dean Street Press.
Publication Date: June 5. 2022.
Paperback Length: 265 pages.
You can get a copy from Amazon here.
“Not another murder!”
“You’ve said it.”
Kindly Reverend John Clare pays a social call upon the saturnine Simon Killick at his forbidding house, The Grange. Killick is a virtual recluse who relies on three dogs and a parrot for company.
Killick is soon found murdered in his home, while in a nearby wood a local schoolboy, Toby, discovers a dying stranger whose last words refer to a “kneeling woman.” This kick-starts a complicated case for the local police and it is not long before Scotland Yard, in the form of Inspector Collier, is called in. Yet more murders follow-this time by poisoned chocolates. Are all the deaths connected, and is the “kneeling woman” the link? What might Sir Henry Webber, the new owner of Brock Hall, know about the case, or, for that matter, his snobbish wife Beryl, and their two ghastly sons? Or odd jobs man Tommy Yates, or Florrie Soper, cook at the Hall, who adores Edgar Wallace thrillers and is intent on marrying Tommy.
At least Collier has the eager assistance of Toby . . . and his widowed mother Sandra. Has love finally entered the life of Inspector Collier? Let’s just say Sandra and, especially, Toby reappear in the next Inspector Collier case, Death in the Dark.
The Mystery of the Kneeling Woman was first published in 1936. This new edition includes an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.
Amazon
Publisher: Dean Street Press.
Publication Date: March 29. 2023.
Paperback Length: 233 pages.
You can get a copy from Amazon here.
“There’s little doubt, as I see it, that Flagon was killed by a dart thrown with amazing skill and dexterity.”
The Bar Point-to-Point meeting at Quiddington St Philip is always an auspicious occasion. This year, Justice Nicholas Flagon is the favourite to win-there’s big money on him, and a fair bit against him as well. But who will scoop the jackpot when the leading jockey fails to finish-on account of getting hit in the neck with a poisoned dart?
Anthony Lotherington Bathurst and Chief Inspector McMorran are more interested in who killed Flagon. Who poisoned a set of darts from the local pub with curare and was capable of hitting a jockey on a speeding horse with a single throw? And who killed a lawyer at Flagon’s funeral with the same murder weapon?
The Sharp Quillet was first published in 1947. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Steve Barge.
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Publisher: Dean Street Press.
Publication Date: October 3, 2022.
Paperback Length: 230 pages.
You can get a copy from Amazon here.
He caught the back of a chair, staggered and groaned. There was a heavy crash and fall, and the parson lay motionless and livid, while lilies from a vase fell, like a wreath, across his chest.
The Rev. Ulder, everyone agreed, was the parish priest from hell. In addition to tales of drunkenness and embezzlement, the repellent cleric had recently added blackmail to his list of depravities. There was scandal in the district, plenty of it, and Ulder had the facts. Until, that is, a liberal helping of morphia, served to him in the Bishop’s Palace, silenced the insufferable priest – for good.
Was it the Bishop himself who delivered the fatal dose? Was it Soames, the less-than-model butler? Or one of a host of other inmates and guests in the house that night, with motives of their own to put Ulder out of the way? Young Dick Marlin, ex-military intelligence and now a Church deacon, finds himself assisting Chief Constable Mack investigate murder most irreverent.
Arrest the Bishop? was first published in 1949. This new edition, the first in many decades, includes a new introduction by crime fiction historian Martin Edwards.
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Publisher: Dean Street Press.
Publication Date: October 3. 2016.
Paperback Length: 224 pages.
You can get a copy from Amazon here.
I also collected some hardbacks of Otto Penzler’s American Mystery Classics and was so happy to find many of them. The specialized introductions, the graphic cover art, and the high-quality re-prints make them a must-buy for me. I’ve read the John Dickson Carr books I bought, but I’m happy to add them to my collection. I haven’t read the Hilda Adams series by Mary Roberts Rinehart, but I loved many of her other novels, so I look forward to reading The Haunted Lady. Most American Mystery Classics books I picked up have a fun horror element. I might review these books in autumn or closer to Halloween.
A murdered man in a top hat leads Dr. Gideon Fell to a killer with a sick sense of humor
At the hand of an outrageous prankster, top hats are going missing all over London, snatched from the heads of some of the city’s most powerful people―but is the hat thief the same as the person responsible for stealing a lost story by Edgar Allan Poe, the manuscript of which has just disappeared from the collection of Sir William Bitton? Unlike the manuscript, the hats don’t stay stolen for long, each one reappearing in unexpected and conspicuous places shortly after being taken: on the top of a Trafalgar Square statue, hanging from a Scotland Yard lamppost, and now, in the foggy depths of the Tower of London, on the head of a corpse with a crossbow bolt through the heart. Amateur detective and lexicographer Dr. Gideon Fell is on the case, and when the dead man is identified as the nephew of the collector, he discovers that the connections underlying the bizarre and puzzling crimes may be more intimate than initially expected.
Amazon
Publisher: American Mystery Classics.
Publication Date: May 7, 2019.
Hardcover Length: 264 pages.
You can get a copy from Amazon here.
An inheritance hangs in the balance in a case of stolen identities, imposters, and murder
Banished from the idyllic English countryside he once called home and en route to live with his cousin in America, Sir John Farnleigh, black sheep of the wealthy Farnleigh clan, nearly perished in the sinking of the Titanic. Though he survived the catastrophe, his ties with his family did not, and he never returned to England―not even for the funerals of his mother, his father, or, most recently, his older brother Dudley. Now, nearly 25 years since he was first sent away, Sir John has finally returned home to claim his inheritance. But another “Sir John” soon follows, an unexpected man who insists he has absolute proof of his identity and of his claim to the estate. Before the case can be settled, however, one of the two men is murdered, and Dr. Gideon Fell, who happens to be passing through the village, finds himself facing one of the most challenging cases of his career.
To solve it, he’ll have to confront a series of bizarre and chilling phenomena, diving deep into the realm of the occult and brushing up against witchcraft, magic, and a sinister automaton to explain a seemingly impossible crime. Selected by a panel of twelve mystery luminaries as one of the ten best locked-room mysteries of all time, The Crooked Hinge is a creepy and atmospheric puzzle inspired by a real life case. It is the ninth installment in the Dr. Gideon Fell series, which may be read in any order.
Amazon
Publisher: American Mystery Classics.
Publication Date: October 1, 2019.
Hardcover Length: 288 pages.
You can get a copy from Amazon here.
When a spiritual medium is murdered in a locked hut on a haunted estate, Sir Henry Merrivale seeks a logical solution to a ghostly crime
Plague Court is old and crumbling, long neglected after its lord, hangman’s assistant Louis Playge, fell victim to the black death hundreds of years before. Famously haunted by Playge’s ghost, the property finally has a new owner and banishing the spirit is the first order of business. And when the medium employed with this task is found stabbed to death in a locked stone hut on the grounds, surrounded by an untouched circle of mud, the other guests at Plague Court have every reason to fear an act of supernatural violence―for who among them would be diabolical and calculating enough to orchestrate such an impossible execution?
Enter Sir Henry Merrivale, an amateur sleuth of many talents with deductive powers strong enough to unspool even the most baffling crimes. But in the creepy, atmospheric setting of Plague Court, where every indication suggests intervention from the afterlife, he encounters a seemingly-illogical murder scene unlike anything he’s ever encountered before…
Reissued for the first time in thirty years, The Plague Court Murders is the first novel in the Sir Henry Merrivale series. Originally published under the name Carter Dickson, it is a masterful example of the “impossible crime” novel for which John Dickson Carr is known.
Amazon
Publisher: American Mystery Classics
Publication Date: February 2, 2021.
Hardcover Length: 284 pages.
You can get a copy from Amazon here.
Someone’s trying to kill the head of the Fairbanks estate, and only her nurse can protect her.
The arsenic in her sugar bowl was wealthy widow Eliza Fairbanks’ first clue that somebody wanted her dead. The nightly plagues of bats, birds, and rats unleashed in her bedroom were the second indication, an obvious attempt to scare the life out of the delicate dowager. So instead of calling the exterminator, Eliza calls the cops, who send Hilda Adams ― “Miss Pinkerton” to the folks at the bureau ― to go undercover and investigate.
Hilda Adams is a nurse, not a detective ― at least, not technically speaking. But then, nurses do have the opportunity to see things that the police can’t, and to witness the inner workings of a household when the authorities aren’t around. From the moment Adams arrives at the Fairbanks mansion, confronted by a swarm of shady and oddball relatives, many of whom seem desperate for their inheritance, it’s clear that something unseemly is at work in the estate. But not even she is prepared for the web of intrigue that awaits her therein.
Reissued for the first time in over twenty years, and featuring one of Mary Roberts Rinehart’s only series characters, The Haunted Lady is the thrilling follow-up to Miss Pinkerton, also available from American Mystery Classics. The books can be read in any order
Amazon
Publisher: American Mystery Classics.
Publication Date: April 7, 2020.
Hardcover Length: 288 pages.
You can get a copy from Amazon here.
After a murder at the manor where she’s employed, a nurse trades her stethoscope for a magnifying glass…
When Nurse Keate arrives at the Thatcher estate to care for a man with a bullet in his shoulder, she’s told that he shot himself accidentally―but when the convalescing man is murdered soon thereafter, it becomes clear that the only “accident” was his not being fully killed the first time around. A murderer stalks the manor and yet the rest of the family isn’t the slightest bit alarmed; instead, they seem intent on concealing the crime and adding it to the other dark secrets buried deep within their mansion’s walls. Meanwhile, Nurse Keate is passed from one family member to another, each one claiming some spurious ailment requiring her expertise, realizing only too late that the family is anxious to keep her and her knowledge of the crime from leaving the premises. After another apparent murder takes place, she begins to fear that the price of this knowledge may be her life.
A thrilling mystery set in the rarefied world of a wealthy Midwestern family, Murder by an Aristocrat renders its pulse-pounding suspense and puzzling crimes with eloquent prose, exemplifying why Eberhart was widely known, in her day, as “the atmosphere queen.” It is the fifth installment in the Nurse Keate series, which can be read in any orde
Amazon
Publisher: American Mystery Classics
Publication Date: September 3, 2019.
Hardcover Length: 288 pages.
You can get a copy of Amazon here.
A murder trial scandalizes the upper echelons of Long Island society, and the reader is on the jury…
The trial of Stephen Bellamy and Susan Ives, accused of murdering Bellamy’s wife Madeleine, lasts eight days. That’s eight days of witnesses (some reliable, some not), eight days of examination and cross-examination, and eight days of sensational courtroom theatrics lively enough to rouse the judge into frenzied calls for order. Ex-fiancés, houseworkers, and assorted family members are brought to the stand―a cross-section of this wealthy Long Island town―and each one only adds to the mystery of the case in all its sordid detail. A trial that seems straightforward at its outset grows increasingly confounding as it proceeds, and surprises abound; by the time the closing arguments are made, however, the reader, like the jury, is provided with all the evidence needed to pass judgement on the two defendants. Still, only the most astute among them will not be shocked by the verdict announced at the end.
Inspired by the most sensational murder trial of its day, The Bellamy Trial is a pioneering courtroom mystery, and one of the first of such books to popularize the form. It is included in the famed Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone list of the most definitive novels of the mystery genre.
Amazon
Publisher: American Mystery Classics
Publication Date: November 5, 2019.
Hardcover Length: 336 pages.
You can get a copy from Amazon here.
There are lots of new to-me books in my haul. Have you read any of the books I bought? Do you have any favorites? Sound off in the comments below.
Golden Age of Detective Fiction 