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.

eBook Purchases

Goodreads Blurb:

When murder descends on a small Southern town, nothing is more dangerous than telling the truth

Ernestine Baily was killed at dusk on a cold fall day as fog and darkness rolled over Hollow Hill. Five months later, her husband, Jed, whom she accused of the crime, stands trial. But in the small Virginia town of Bedford, many question his culpability, among them the murder’s lone Sue Poore. Sue’s testimony ensures Jed’s freedom—something the local paper quickly seizes on as evidence of a scandalous romance. But beyond causing her to suffer this indignity, Sue’s avowal makes her a marked woman, targeted by a local policeman as the next best suspect, and by a mysterious gunman whose second bullet may not miss.

In a town like Bedford, almost anyone can look guilty, and when Sue becomes caught between three men—two vying for her heart and one for her imprisonment—she knows that the real murderer sits quietly in their midst.

Hunt with the Hounds

247 pages, Kindle Edition

First published on January 1, 1950. This edition was posted on August 26, 2014, by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road.

Goodreads Blurb:

The Eye in the Museum, first published in 1930, is the first book in author J. J. Connington’s series featuring Superintendent Ross of Scotland Yard. This ‘golden-age’ mystery centers on a young woman, Joyce Hazlemere, and her wealthy Aunt Evelyn. The aunt, who can become violent when drunk, stands to inherit the Hazlemere estate instead of Joyce. Miss Hazlemere speculates on the possibility of her aunt’s death when the next day Evelyn is found murdered, and Superintendent Ross is called in to solve the mystery and catch the killer. J. J. Connington is a pen-name of Alfred Walter Stewart (1880-1947).

The Eye in the Museum

Series: Supt. Ross Mystery (#1)

Format :Kindle Edition

First published in 1929. Published November 1, 2019 by Phocion Publishing.

Goodreads Blurb:

Miss Withers has nine days to save a press agent from death row. On a steamy day on Staten Island, a speeding car tears past a couple of beat cops and smashes into a delivery truck. In the front seat is Andy Rowan, pale and unconscious. In the back is a blonde — beautiful, naked, and dead.

She was an aspiring Miss America, minted in the wilds of Brooklyn, and he was the press agent who wanted to make her a star. Now she will never walk a runway again. Police, judge, and jury all consider the case open and shut, and a year later, Andy’s awaiting his turn in the electric chair. But Hildegarde Withers, a retired schoolteacher with a zest for crime, believes the frightened little man innocent of the killing. She has nine days to save his life. It will take a miracle, but Miss Withers has worked miracles before.

The Green Ace is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard.

The Green Ace

Series: Hildegarde Withers (#11)

231 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1950. Published June 1, 2014 by mysteriouspress.com

Book Purchases

Goodreads Blurb:

An on-set Hollywood romance marks a screenwriter for death

Casey Blake is the only modest man in Hollywood, which is lucky, because an ego is something screenwriters can’t afford. Blake makes his living churning out B movies for Joe Maddox, an actor turned producer who somehow got the strange idea that a well-written script is something worth paying for. Blake’s latest is Ill Wind, a taut thriller that could bring in an Oscar—if Maddox can keep his leading lady from burning down the set.

Madeleine D’Arcy has a bad habit of sleeping with her male costars. When she can’t bed them, she either throws a tantrum or turns her toxic affection toward a member of the crew. This time, her target is Blake, and she chases him with a deadly abandon that could put the film over budget—and land the screenwriter in the morgue.

Shoot the Scene

160 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1966 by Dell.