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 Print Books

Goodreads Blurb:

Mystery crime fiction written in the Golden Age of Murder

That is the case. Alison has been murdered. His blazing body was seen running about the battlements of Castle Skull.

And so a dark shadow looms over the Rhineland where Inspector Henri Bencolin and his accomplice Jeff Marle have arrived from Paris. Entreated by the Belgian financier D’Aunay to investigate the gruesome and grimly theatrical death of actor Myron Alison, the pair find themselves at the imposing hilltop fortress Schloss Sch�del, in which a small group of suspects are still assembled.

As thunder rolls in the distance, Bencolin and Marle enter a world steeped in macabre legends of murder and magic to catch the killer still walking the maze-like passages and towers of the keep.

This new edition of John Dickson Carrs spirited and deeply atmospheric early novel also features the rare Inspector Bencolin short story ‘The Fourth Suspect’

Castle Skull

Henri Bencolin (#2)

Series: British Library Crime Classics

238 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1931.

Goodreads Blurb:

The English country house is an iconic setting for some of the greatest British crime fiction. This new collection gathers together stories written over a span of about 65 years, during which British society, and life in country houses, was transformed out of all recognition. It includes fascinating and unfamiliar twists on the classic closed circle plot, in which the assorted guests at a country house party become suspects when a crime is committed. In the more sinister tales featured here, a gloomy mansion set in lonely grounds offers an eerie backdrop for dark deeds.

Many distinguished writers are represented in this collection, including such great names of the genre as Anthony Berkeley, Nicholas Blake and G.K. Chesterton. Martin Edwards has also unearthed hidden gems and forgotten masterpieces: among them are a fine send-up of the country house murder; a suspenseful tale by the unaccountably neglected Ethel Lina White; and a story by the little-known Scottish writer J.J. Bell.

• The Copper Beeches by Arthur Conan Doyle
• The problem of Dead Wood Hall by Dick Donovan
• Gentlemen and players by E.W. Hornung
• The well by W.W. Jacobs
• The white pillars murder by G.K. Chesterton
• The secret of Dunstan’s Tower by Ernest Bramah
• The manor house mystery by J.S. Fletcher
• The message on the sun-dial by J.J. Bell —
• The horror at Staveley Grange by Sapper —
• The mystery of Horne’s Copse by Anthony Berkeley
• The perfect plan by James Hilton
• The same to us by Margery Allingham
• The murder at the towers by E.V. Knox
• An unlocked window by Ethel Lina White
• The long shot by Nicholas Blake
• Weekend at Wapentake by Michael Gilbert

Murder at the Manor: Country House Mysteries

Series: British Library Crime Classics

384 pages, Paperback

February 2, 2016 by Poisoned Pen Press

Kindle eBook Purchases

Goodreads Blurb:

A murder in a crowded Broadway theater presents a full house of suspects—the first in this classic mystery series starring Ellery Queen!  Despite the dismal Broadway season, Gunplay continues to draw crowds. A gangland spectacle, it’s packed to the gills with action, explosions, and gunfire. In fact, Gunplay is so loud that no one notices the killing of Monte Field. In a sold-out theater, Field is found dead partway through the second act, surrounded by empty seats. The police hold the crowd and call for the one man who can untangle this daring Inspector Richard Queen. With the help of his son Ellery, a bibliophile and novelist whose imagination can solve any crime, the Inspector attacks this seemingly impenetrable mystery. Anyone in the theater could have killed the unscrupulous lawyer, and several had the motive. Only Ellery Queen, in his debut novel, can decipher the clue of the dead man’s missing top hat.

The Roman Hat Mystery

Series: Ellery Queen Detective (#1)

648 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 7, 1929. This edition was published October 25, 2011 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road.

Goodreads Blurb:

On an island of misfit artists, it’s Aunt Emma’s turn to play detective. Though a few years past sixty, Sarah Kelling’s Aunt Emma is as vigorous as a girl of twenty-two. She sings, she dances, and when the local fire department needs a fundraising boost, she’s happy to jump out a window for charity. This summer, she decamps to Maine, to beat the heat at an island retreat for artists and great thinkers. There are writers, painters, a psychic, and a historian, and their company promises to be great fun — until a few of them go treasure-crazy.

Sensible people have long dismissed rumors of the Pocapuk Island treasure as myth, but artists are seldom sensible. When their rampant digging stirs up buried trouble, it leads to theft, drugging, and a murder. And although Sarah and her husband Max give investigative advice by phone, it’s up to Aunt Emma to save the islanders from themselves.

The Gladstone Bag

Series: Kelling & Bittersohn (#9)

218 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 1990. This edition was published June 1, 2014 by mysteriouspress.com

What have you added to your shelves this week? Have you read any of the books I bought?