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.

Purchased eBooks

Nathan Shapiro might be the gloomiest member of Manhattan’s finest, but that doesn’t stop the dour detective from getting the job done when the going gets tough . . .
 
Lois Williams of Glenville, Connecticut, is going about her business when she’s abruptly asked to bear witness to the signing of a wealthy elderly woman’s will. She is just as quickly rushed out, and is disturbed when she learns that Abigail Montfort died less than thirty minutes after her departure.
 
Lois can’t get the strange incident out of her head and confides her suspicions in newspaperman Bob Oliver, who agrees that something strange is afoot. As they investigate a young woman who may have been posing as Abigail Montfort, their search takes them to New York City and into the path of Det. Nathan Shapiro.
 
While Shapiro doesn’t much like leaving Manhattan, a mugging death in town seems to be linked to the old woman’s death in the country. Soon, he finds himself chasing leads with the two amateur sleuths—and what they discover is a mystery that belongs on the front page . . .

Amazon

Series: The Nathan Shapiro Mysteries.

Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/ Open Road

Publication Date: June 26, 2018. Initially published in 1959.

Print length: 241 pages.

Murder and Blueberry Pie seems like a lighthearted summery romp, which will be perfect to bring on my trip around Iowa.

Anna Marie St. Clair was a normal Wisconsin-farm-girl-turned-mistress when she was framed for the murder of her racketeer boyfriend, one of Chicago’s sleaziest politicians. Sentenced to death, and only hours from getting fried, a lucky hitch sets Anna Marie free, but she blackmails the corrupt warden into informing the tabloids that she took her volts like a real trouper. What better payback than to haunt the lives of those who tried to steal hers? As the shapeliest ghost in the Windy City, she’s going to prove that dying well is the best revenge.
 
Even luckier for Anna Marie, she has enthusiastic backup: attorney John J. Malone, who’s got a soft spot for scrappy dames; her best friend, nightclub stripper Milly Dale; and crime reporter Jake Justus and his wife, Helene, who are always game for adventure. But when navigating the criminal underworld gets a little too spirited, there’s no telling who’s going to end up dead.
 
The Lucky Stiff was the basis for the 1949 film starring Dorothy Lamour and Brian Donlevy. Says Louis Untermeyer, Gold Medal Award–winning poet, author Craig Rice is a “composite of Agatha Christie’s ingenuity, Dashiell Hammett’s speed, and Dorothy Sayers’s wit.”
 
The Lucky Stiff is the 4th book in the John J. Malone Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Amazon

Series: John J. Malone.

Publisher: MysteriousPress.Com/ Open Road.

Publication Date: November 14, 2017. Initial publication in 1945.

Print length: 188 pages.

The Lucky Stiff seemed like a fun book to bring on my whirlwind tour around Iowa, and I like the Midwest theme.

Press agent Jake Justus doesn’t care if all of Chicago drops dead. He’s just tied the knot with debutante Helene Brand, and a Bermuda honeymoon is only three in-flight martinis away. But the shooting death of a man in broad daylight, on the busiest shopping day of the year, with plenty of witnesses, is particularly ill timed. Jake’s pal, attorney John J. Malone, agrees. Only a day before, wedding guest Mona McClane, notorious jetsetter and tipsy big-game hunter, bet the two men she could bag an innocent stranger and they’d never be able to prove a thing.
 
Then Malone discovers that the victim wasn’t so innocent. Any number of people wanted him dead. And if Mona is only one of them, Malone’s wagering there’s much more to this murder than just the thrill of getting away with it.
 
The first mystery writer to ever make the cover of Time magazine, Craig Rice was known for her fizzy cocktails of hard-boiled noir and screwball comedy, prompting the New York Times to ask: “Why can’t all murders be as funny as those concocted by Craig Rice?”

Amazon

Series: John J. Malone.

Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/ Open Road.

Publication Date: April 14, 2018. Initially published in 1942.

Print length: 288 pages.

I am a fan of mysteries set in Chicago and often travel there, so I’m tucking The Wrong Number away until my next trip to Chicago.

I am drawn to lighthearted midwestern mysteries right now so leave any recommendations you may have in my comments below.