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:

Larking was a typical English village and like the thousand other villages it resembled Larking had its secrets, as Inspector C.D. Sloan was to discover after the postman found the murdered body of Grace Jenkins in the road that led to her thatched cottage. But the real mystery involved Grace’s daughter Henrietta since no one could really explain exactly who Henrietta really was.

Henrietta Who?

Series: Inspector Sloan (#2)

159 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1968. Published May 5, 2015 by Open Road Media Mystery & Thriller.

Goodreads Blurb:

Kenneth Winslow’s company has sold a car to his nephew, Noel Yewdale, who’s supposed to transport the large, locked chest in it. But before he can get the job done, the police seize the car–saying they think it’s stolen.

When the cops confirm he won’t get the car back, he’s out of luck–but at least they’re willing to help him carry the heavy chest out of the garage where the vehicle has been stored. Unfortunately, Yewdale has an even bigger problem when they pry the chest open to find out why it smells so bad–his uncle’s body is stuffed inside. Superintendent Waghorn will do his best to solve the crime, but he may need some help from Dr. Lancelot Priestley to put the puzzle pieces together . . .

Blackthorn House

Series: Dr. Priestley (#48)

254 pages, Kindle Edition

Originally published in 1949. Published January 11, 2022 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road.

Amazon Blurb:

Sir Noel Ellerby is recalled by his butler to his Lincolnshire mansion, Laxford Hall, after thieves break-in. Oddly, nothing appears to have been stolen. The following morning Sir Noel is found lying dead before the open door of his safe. The physician called to examine the body declares that death was due to heart failure but Scotland Yard thinks differently. Stumped as to motive and manner of the crime, Inspector Hanslet engages the assistance of Sir Noel’s old friend, Dr Lancelot Priestley, and that relentless interrogator loses no time in bringing into play his peculiar powers of logical scientific reasoning…

The Ellerby Case

Series: Dr. Priestley

267 pages, Kindle Edition

Originally published in 1927. This edition was published July 10, 2023.

Books

Now retired from the tour circuit on which he made his name, master magician The Great Merlini spends his days running a magic shop in New York’s Times Square and his nights moonlighting as a consultant for the NYPD. The cops call him when faced with crimes so impossible that they can only be comprehended by a magician’s mind. In the most recent case, two occultists are discovered dead in locked rooms, one spread out on a pentagram, both appearing to have been murdered under similar circumstances. The list of suspects includes an escape artist, a professional medium, and a ventriloquist, so it’s clear that the crimes took place in a realm that Merlini knows well. But in the end it will take his logical skills, and not his magical ones, to apprehend the killer.

Reprinted for the first time in over twenty years, Death from a Top Hat is an ingeniously-plotted puzzle set in the world of New York stage magic, which was at its pinnacle in the early twentieth century. In 1981, the novel was selected as one of the top ten locked room mysteries of all time by a panel of mystery-world luminaries that included Julian Symons, Edward D. Hoch, Ellery Queen’s co-creator Frederic Dannay, and Otto Penzler.

Death from a Top Hat

Series: The Great Merlini (#1)

312 pages, Hardcover

Originally published in 1938. Published October 2, 2018 by American Mystery Classics.