Golden Age of Detective Fiction

Stacking The Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews and Reading Reality, all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, whether physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical stores or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts, eBooks, and audiobooks.

The Blackbirder by Dorothy B. Hughes (1943)

A classic World War II-era noir with a page-turning plot, a cast of colorfully sinister characters and a protagonist who is thrust into the heart of political intrigue, this captivating 1943 novel parallels the spy novels of Grahame Greene, Eric Ambler, and the films of Hitchcock and Lang. But in -signature Hughes fashion, The Blackbirder has a genre-bending twist: its hardboiled protagonist is a woman.

Born of American expatriate parents, Julie Guilles was a pretty, sheltered rich girl growing up in Paris, a favorite of the “Ritz Bar” set. But everything changed when the Nazis rolled into the City of Lights. After three years of life underground, Julie is hiding out in New York; but she knows trouble is coming when the corpse of an acquaintance appears on her doorstep. With a host of possible dangers on her tail—the Gestapo, the FBI and the New York cops—she embarks on a desperate journey to Santa Fe in search of her last, best hope. “The Blackbirder”is a legend among refugees, a trafficker in human souls who flies under the radar to bring people to safety across the Mexican border—for a price.

With no resources at her disposal but a smuggled diamond necklace and her own razor-sharp wits, Julie must navigate a tangle of dangers—and take a stand in the worldwide struggle that has shattered the lives of millions. In contrast to the typical representations of wartime women as “Mrs. Minivers” guarding home and hearth, Dorothy B. Hughes gives her intrepid heroine a place at the heart of the action

Goodreads

Spill the Jackpot by A. A. Fair a.k.a Erle Stanley Gardner (1941)

The diminutive detective and his bulldog of a boss head to Las Vegas to find a runaway bride in this hard-boiled mystery by the creator of Perry Mason.

Donald Lam and Bertha Cool make for a couple of unlikely detectives. Donald is a charming ex-lawyer in his thirties who may lack brawn but makes up for it in brains. Bertha, meanwhile, is a fifty-something-year-old widow who won’t take lip from anyone. She certainly won’t let a bout of illness keep her down. After a stay at the sanitarium, she and Donald are off to Las Vegas for their latest case. Who needs rest?

Mr. Whitewell needs Donald and Bertha to find his son’s fianc�e and learn why she abruptly left town. Donald quickly gets to work with just a mysterious letter as his only lead. Soon he uncovers a scheme to swindle casinos, along with a brutal murder. Now he must determine what’s going on before someone ensures he’s the next member of the agency to have a long hospital stay–or worse.

Goodreads

The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan by Stuart Palmer (1941)

Hildegarde Withers is just your average school teacher—with above-average skills in the art of deduction. The New Yorker often finds herself investigating crimes led only by her own meddlesome curiosity, though her friends on the NYPD don’t mind when she solves their cases for them. After plans for a grand tour of Europe are interrupted by Germany’s invasion of Poland, Miss Withers heads to sunny Los Angeles instead, where her vacation finds her working as a technical advisor on the set of a film adaptation of the Lizzie Borden story. The producer has plans for an epic retelling of the historical killer’s patricidal spree—plans which are derailed when a screenwriter turns up dead. While the local authorities quickly deem his death accidental, Withers suspects otherwise and calls up a detective back home for advice. The two soon team up to catch a wily killer.

At once a pleasantly complex locked room mystery and a hilarious look at the foibles of Hollywood, The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan finds Palmer, a screenwriter himself, at his most perceptive. Reprinted for the first time in over thirty years, this riotously funny novel shows why Hildegarde Withers was among the most beloved detectives of the Golden Age American mystery novel.

Goodreads

I was so happy to find the A. A. Fair book at a yard sale, and I can’t wait to read it because I haven’t read any Lam and Cool books (so no spoilers in the comments, please!) and I borrowed the other two books from the library. What books have you added to your shelves this week?