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.

eBooks

Goodreads Blurb:

Marking 100 years since publication, The Adventuress was the first full-length novel to feature ‘scientific detective’ Craig Kennedy, who was dubbed ‘the American Sherlock Holmes’ and the first fictional detective to use forensic science. Who killed Marshall Maddox of Maddox Munitions, Inc., the inventors of the top secret telautomaton? Was his death retribution for a double life, or was it due to the covetousness of some schemer? Even Craig Kennedy is challenged by the diabolical scientific inventiveness and ruthlessness at the centre of the crime – and by Paquita, the mysterious adventuress . . . Arthur B. Reeve (1880-1936) was a New York author and criminologist whose creation, the scientific detective Craig Kennedy, became famous as ‘the American Sherlock Holmes’. Reeve’s cutting-edge stories, newspaper serials and movies about Craig Kennedy made him the most popular detective writer of the era, and The Adventuress was his first full-length novel for Harper & Brothers, published in 1917 as part of the company’s centenary year celebrations. This Detective Club classic is introduced by publisher David Brawn, who examines the rise and fall of Arthur B. Reeve, whose bestselling fiction was credited as introducing forensic science to real police work, yet 100 years later has been all but forgotten.

The Adventuress

352 pages, Kindle Edition

March 23, 2017 by Collins Crime Club.

Goodreads Blurb:

A small-town police chief is framed for a heinous crime 

Andy Saxon has run the Iroquois police force for as long as anyone can remember. At 62, he’s as strong as an oak and hasn’t even given a thought to retirement. When a national crime syndicate wants to turn his small village into a haven for gamblers, Chief Saxon is the only thing standing in their way. And so, on a country road outside of town, a car full of hit men pulls alongside the chief’s vehicle and opens fire. His driver rushes the wounded cop to the hospital, but Saxon is dead upon arrival.

When news of the murder comes across the police radio, Saxon’s son is the first to hear it. A hardened police lieutenant, the younger Saxon is about to take revenge when the gangsters frame him for a crime he didn’t commit. To avenge his father, and stay out of jail, Lieutenant Saxon must wage a one-man war against the mob.

The Copper Frame

191 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 1965. This edition was published August 11, 2015 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road.

Goodreads Blurb:

Mystery At Lynden Sands, first published in 1928, is the fourth book in author J. J. Connington’s series featuring chief-constable Sir Clinton Driffield. Set on the English seaside, Driffield encounters the return of a missing heir (who is possibly an impostor), an accidental bigamist, secret marriages and impersonations, embezzlement of trust funds, a kidnapping, and two murders. As is typical of Connington’s detectives, Sir Clinton is able to deduce impressive insights from physical clues. J. J. Connington is a pen-name of Alfred Walter Stewart (1880-1947).

Mystery at Lynden Sands

Series: Sir Clinton Driffield (#3)

339 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1928. November 1, 2019 by Phocion Publishing.

Goodreads Blurb:

While overseeing detention, Miss Withers finds a fellow schoolteacher’s corpse

Anise Halloran is young to be teaching school, and much too pretty, but third-grade teacher Hildegarde Withers is not the sort to condemn a coworker just because she wears high heels. When she overhears nine-year-old Buster Jones spreading rumors about Miss Halloran being sweet on the principal, Miss Withers orders the schoolyard quarterback to write discipline on the chalkboard one hundred times. Anise Halloran stays late after school, too. In fact, she stays forever.

Miss Withers finds Anise in the cloakroom, her head bashed in, and her high heels strewn across the floor. She sends Buster to fetch Inspector Piper, the hard-nosed detective whom she occasionally assists with murder inquiries, but by the time he arrives, the body has vanished. There is a killer inside the elementary school, and Buster Jones is not the only person whom Miss Withers will have to teach a lesson about discipline.

Murder on the Blackboard

Series: Hildegarde Withers (#3)

266 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1932. May 14, 2013 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road