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 audiobook.

eBooks

Goodreads Blurb:

An island republic goes to insane lengths to canonize its most famous residentJuanita di Perli was a young woman when she decided to live the rest of her life on a table-top. She called it God’s will, but for the order of nuns that sprang up around her, Juanita’s devotion was a curse. For decades they did the bidding of the holy grouch, and the entire island of San Juan el Pirata sighed with relief when she died. Twenty years later, the islanders fight for Juanita’s canonization—not because they liked her, but because a local saint would be a tourist boon. The only thing keeping the island poor is the Archduke, who refuses to ask Rome to consider Juanita for sainthood. His stubbornness may get him dethroned or worse, for nothing will stop his subjects in their pursuit of Juanita’s holy cause.

The Three Cornered Halo

Series: Inspector Cockrill (#7)

153 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1957. Published November 1, 2011 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road.

Goodreads Blurb:

A family patriarch is murdered on the eve of signing a new will. Sir Richard’s family has spent years waiting for him to die, but despite his weak heart, the old man simply refuses to cooperate. In the meantime, he makes their lives miserable by changing his will every few months, depending on which of his strange brood he favors that moment. Now he calls them together to announce his most diabolical revision yet: complete disinheritance of all the wastrels who bear his name. But he never gets a chance to sign the papers—by morning, he’s dead. Scotland Yard sends Inspector Cockrill, the only detective clever enough to unravel the family’s tangle of jealousy and deceit. Each member had reason to kill Sir Richard, but which one plunged the syringe of poison into his heart? With a family this mad, nothing is as complicated as the truth.

Original title: Suddenly at His Residence

Series: Inspector Cockrill (#3)

222 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1946. November 1, 2011 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road.

Goodreads Blurb:

A novelist meets an abrupt end in this cozy mystery by the author of Dead Man Inside.

Stephen Garment, one of England’s greatest writers, is late for an engagement at the fashionable Chicago home of Mr. and Mrs. Howland Kimbarks. Fortunately, he’s just outside in a taxicab. Unfortunately, he’s dead . . .

Garment was alive when he entered the cab, and the doors were not opened. Somehow, he managed to arrive at his destination with a knife in his heart.

The authorities are unable to find any leads, and the case sits quietly until word gets to brilliant amateur detective Walter Ghost. Ghost knows his way around puzzling crimes like this one. And with Ghost on the case, the killer can be certain they won’t miss their day in court . .

The End of Mr. Garment

Series: Walter Ghost (#3)

228 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1932. Published February 9, 2021 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road.

Goodreads Blurb:

This exciting thriller by the late Frank Froest, himself a detective of international fame, will satisfy the most exacting of detective story connoisseurs. Against a familiar London background we have here a tale of breath-taking adventure – knifing, arson, racing-taxicabs, and shooting-to-kill.

Lost in a London fog, young Jimmie Hallett is accosted by a frightened woman who hands him a package and flees. Within hours, he is being questioned about the murder of the girl’s father and a dangerous international conspiracy. Can genial detective Weir Menzies, even with all the resources of Scotland Yard behind him, succeed in outwitting a faceless gang of organised thieves and killers?

Frank Froëst, the highly decorated Superintendent of Scotland Yard’s C.I.D., began his retirement from the Metropolitan Police by writing The Grell Mystery, acclaimed as the first crime novel to incorporate authentic police procedures. With George Dilnot, co-author of the story collection The Crime Club, Froëst wrote one more novel, the ambitious and thrilling The Rogues’ Syndicate, published in 1916 and also released as a silent movie, Millionaire Hallet’s Adventure. The book was republished in April 1930 by the Detective Story Club, but was inadvertently sourced from an abridged, Americanised version called The Maelstrom.

This Detective Club classic restores the full text of the British first edition, and includes an introduction by the Detective Story Club’s original series editor, F. T. Smith.

The Rogues Syndicate: The Maelstrom

257 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 17, 2018 by Collins Crime Club.