I am finally home again after a two-week trip from Minnesota to Pennsylvania. Initially, we planned to be gone for less than ten days, but when we arrived at my in-law’s house, they were both ill. We extended our trip an extra four days to help them around the house. We also celebrated my niece’s high school graduation and eighteenth birthday and had a lovely family visit.
Our cross-country road trip meant many stops to hunt for books in Little Free Libraries and bookstores. We had such a great time book hunting that we are planning a trip around Iowa to visit as many of the independent bookstores as possible, but I’ll let you know more about that later.
I am a proud owner of a Little Free Library and I enjoy leaving books in other Little Free Libraries when I can so I loaded up a box of books to distribute on our trip. I came back with less books than I gave away so that’s a victory for me.
Little Free Library Haul
An amateur who happened on a career in theater, Tanis Lyle has just finished filming her first motion picture. The young woman has electric charm, and seems to hypnotize all who meet her—including Laura Fane, a distant cousin who, because of a long-standing family feud, has never been allowed to meet her glamorous relative.
But while all of London seems to love Tanis, her powerful effect on men causes some to despise her. And when the actress’s life is cut short by an unknown hand, investigator Miss Maud Silver will have to hunt for a killer.
Amazon
Series: Miss Silver by Patricia Wentworth.
Publisher: Open Road Media Mystery & Thriller.
Publication Date: November 7, 2017.
Paperback Length: 324 pages.
Purchase from Amazon here.
In comedy, timing is everything. If Tony Fagan were a better comic, perhaps he would’ve known when to keep his mouth shut. After weeks of jokes at the expense of businessman Winston H. “Junior” Gault, the sponsor of Fagan’s television show, Fagan is found with his head bashed in, and Gault is charged with the murder. The case seems open and shut, but Gault has the money to buy himself an acquittal. The only witness against him is Ina Kell—a small-town dreamer who came to New York to find fame—and she’s disappeared. It’s up to Hildegarde Withers, a retired schoolteacher with expertise in solving crime, to find the vanished witness. Ina may have come to New York seeking excitement, but she didn’t deserve to get caught in the line of fire. Nipped in the Bud is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard.
Amazon
Series: Hildegarde Withers by Stuart Palmer.
Publisher: Rue Morgue.
Publication Date: January 1, 2007.
Paperback Length: 159 pages.
Purchase from Amazon here.
Series: Chief Inspector Gamache Mystery by Louise Penny.
Publisher: Minotaur Books.
Publication Date: November 27, 2018.
Hardcover Length: 400 pages.
Purchase a copy from Amazon here.
Read Rose Books in Lancaster, PA. (Independent Bookstore)
We walked around Lancaster, PA, and found the independent bookstore Read Rose Books, which opened in 2020. They sell used, vintage, first editions, local authors, and an assortment of other bookish things. With one-of-a-kind art and friendly staff, we plan to revisit Read Rose Books. You can read more about Read Rose Books here.
In 1936, Dorothy L. Sayers abandoned the last Lord Peter Wimsey detective story. Sixty years later, a brown paper parcel containing a copy of the manuscript was discovered in her agent’s safe in London, and award-winning novelist Jill Paton Walsh was commissioned to complete it. The result of the pairing of Dorothy L. Sayers with Walsh was the international bestseller Thrones, Dominations. Now, following A Presumption of Death, set during World War II, comes a new Sayers-inspired mystery featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, revisiting his very first case. . . . It was 1921 when Lord Peter Wimsey first encountered the Attenbury Emeralds. The recovery of the gems in Lord Attenbury’s dazzling heirloom collection made headlines—and launched a shell-shocked young aristocrat on his career as a detective. Thirty years later, a happily married Lord Peter has just shared the secrets of that mystery with his wife, the detective novelist Harriet Vane. Suddenly, the new Lord Attenbury—grandson of Lord Peter’s first client—seeks his help to prove who owns the emeralds. As Harriet and Peter contemplate the changes that the war has wrought on English society—and Peter, who always cherished the liberties of a younger son, faces the unwanted prospect of ending up the Duke of Denver after all—Jill Paton Walsh brings us a masterful new chapter in the annals of one of the greatest detectives of all time.
Amazon
Series: Lord Peter Wimsey / Harriet Vane by Jill Paton Walsh (for Dorothy L. Sayers)
Publisher: Minotaur Books.
Publication Date: January 1, 2011.
Hardcover Length: 352 pages.
You can get a copy from Amazon here.
The Book Rack in Davenport, Iowa (Independent Bookstore)
The Book Rack in Davenport, IA, is an independent bookstore that sells new and used paperback books at a 20%-75% discount. This store was an absolute goldmine! They have a stellar selection of gently used paperbacks in every genre. The Book Rack has a great website and ships throughout the US, so it is an excellent resource for finding amazing books. You can visit The Book Rack here.
‘Adrian Gray was born in May 1862 and met his death through violence, at the hands of one of his own children, at Christmas, 1931.’
Thus begins a classic crime novel published in 1933 that has been too long neglected―until now. It is a riveting portrait of the psychology of a murderer.
Each December, Adrian Gray invites his extended family to stay at his lonely house, Kings Poplars. None of Gray’s six surviving children is fond of him; several have cause to wish him dead. The family gathers on Christmas Eve―and by the following morning, their wish has been granted.
This fascinating and unusual novel tells the story of what happened that dark Christmas night; and what the murderer did next.
Amazon
Series: British Library Crime Classics.
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press.
Publication Date: 1933 / April 3, 2018.
Paperback Length: 250 pages.
You can get a copy from Amazon here.
At the Central Criminal Court, an eager crowd awaits the trial of Victoria Lamartine, an active participant in the Resistance during the war. She is now employed at the Family Hotel in Soho, where Major Eric Thoseby has been found murdered.
The cause of death? A stabbing reminiscent of techniques developed by the Maquisards. While the crime is committed in England, its roots are buried in a vividly depicted wartime France. Thoseby is believed to have fathered Lamartine’s child, and the prosecution insist that his death is revenge for his abandonment of Lamartine and her arrest by the Gestapo.
A last-minute change in Lamartine’s defence counsel grants solicitor Nap Rumbold just eight days to prove her innocence, with the highest of stakes should he fail.
The proceedings of the courtroom are interspersed with Rumbold’s perilous quest for evidence, which is aided by his old wartime comrades
Amazon
Series: British Library Crime Classics.
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press.
Publication Date: 1951 / March 10, 2019.
Paperback Length: 256 pages.
You can get a copy from Amazon here.
When Quinn first meets Bricky, she’s working as a partner-for-hire at a dancehall and he’s struggling to shake the anxiety of his guilty conscience. Earlier that day, the young man took advantage of a found key and used it to rob a stranger’s home. Now, with the purloined money in his pocket, Quinn is unable to escape the memory of his wrongdoing―and not even a night spent dancing is enough to silence his nagging thoughts.
When the dancehall closes, he and Bricky―linked, after many intimate hours, by a budding romance―return to the scene of the crime intending to restore the stolen fortune and begin a new life together, only to discover, upon arrival, that the owner of the property has been murdered. There’s evidence present that easily links Quinn to the crime, and he expects that, as soon as day breaks and the authorities learn of the gruesome scene, he will be arrested straight away. Which means that he and Bricky have only a few short hours to find the true killer and clear Quinn’s name for good
Amazon
Series: American Mystery Classics.
Publisher: American Mystery Classics.
Publication Date: 1944 / June 28, 2022.
Paperback Length: 288 pages.
You can get a copy from Amazon here.
In the rough edges of 1940s Chicago, the discovery of a corpse in an alleyway isn’t always enough to cause a big stir―especially when the victim is killed in the midst of a night-long bender, caught between barrooms in what appears to be a mugging gone awry. Which is why the police don’t take a huge interest in finding the murderer of Wallace Hunter, a linotype operator who turns up dead after a solitary drinking adventure that led through many of the Loop’s less reputable establishments.
But for his teenage son, Ed, and his carny brother, Am, something about Wallace’s death feels fishy, a fact that grows increasingly bothersome when it becomes clear that some of the witnesses aren’t telling the whole story. In order to get to the heart of the matter, they’ll need all the skills Am picked up in the circus life―skills that young Ed will have to pick up on fast. And in the process of discovering the killer, they make another discovery as well: Wallace was a much different man than the father Ed thought he knew.
The Edgar Award-winning novel that announced a legendary voice in crime fiction, The Fabulous Clipjoint is the first in Fredric Brown’s long-running Ed & Am Hunter series. The book’s memorable mixture of a hardboiled mystery with an urban coming of age narrative remains fresh to this day.
Amazon
Series: American Mystery Classics.
Publisher: American Mystery Classics.
Publication Date: 1947 / December 7, 2021.
Paperback Length: 211 pages.
You can get a copy from Amazon here.
Before odious Edwin Shorthouse can sing the lead in the first Oxford post-war Die Meistersinger, someone kills him in his own locked dressing room. Gervase Fen, eccentric professor of English Literature with a passion for amateur detecting, is on the case. American title is Dead and Dumb.
Goodreads
Series: Gervase Fen.
Publisher: Felony & Mayhem.
Publication Date: 1947 / 2006.
Paperback Length: 215 pages.
I couldn’t find the Gervase Fen series on the Felony and Mayhem website, so they have stopped printing them. You can get another edition of Swan Song from Amazon here.
After centuries as a Balkan backwater, the sleepy town of Averna has overnight become a stunningly valuable port, thanks to an earthquake that rejiggered the regional topography. But to whose coffers will that value accrue? Albert Campion has a hunch that the answer is to be found in a tiny Suffolk village, where a peculiar and dead broke family may be able to lay claim to the Averna fortune, provided they can produce the requisite proof of lineage. The proof? Nothing terribly Just your average ancient riddle, stolen drum, long-lost bell, priceless crown, and, oh yes, a necklace of disappearing rubies.
Amazon
Series: Albert Campion by Margery Allingham.
Publisher Felony & Mayhem.
Publication Date: 1933 / 2007.
Paperback Length: 245 pages.
I couldn’t find the Albert Campion series on the Felony and Mayhem website, so they have stopped printing them. You can get another edition of Sweet Danger from Amazon here.
The Barnabas publishing dynasty is no stranger to mystery; after all, the founder?s nephew is legendary for having disappeared in broad daylight. Yet the discovery of one of the Barnabas cousins, dead for some days inside a locked basement, throws the entire clan in disarray. As police suspicions settle on a member of the family, the Barnabas cousins have no choice but to ask Albert Campion to step in and salvage their reputation. But everywhere he turns, Campion finds more questions than answers. Just what was the deceased Barnabas doing in that basement in his evening clothes and bowler hat? And the original disappearing nephew? where, exactly, did he disappear to?
Amazon
Series: Albert Campion by Margery Allingham.
Publisher: Felony & Mayhem.
Publication Date: 1936 / 2008.
Paperback Length: 293 pages.
I couldn’t find the Albert Campion series on the Felony and Mayhem website, so they have stopped printing them. You can get another edition of Flowers for the Judge from Amazon here.
Have you read any of the books that I bought on my travels? Have you visited Read Rose Books or The Book Rack? Let me know your favorite independent bookstore in the comments below.
Golden Age of Detective Fiction 
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