1009. Adam, Nicolas: The Triplehip Cracksman
Published by Jonathan Cape, 1977
Hardback, a fine 1st edition in a fine unclipped d/w. Public schools, stately homes, cat burglars and gangsters. This is the author's first novel. Ken Carroll designed wrap-around d/w.
1010. Adams, Jane: Cast the First Stone
Published by Macmillan, 1996
Hardback 1st edition. Nr fine in like d/w. Eric Pearson claims he is being persecuted because he has the journal of the late Simon Blake JP, which exposes a child pornographic ring that could topple powerful figures. DI Mike Croft is called in to investigate. Then poachers in nearby woodlands find the body of a naked young boy.
1011. Adams, Jane: The Greenway
Published by Macmillan, 1995
1st edition hardback very good book and wrapper with slight edge wear to both. Previous owner name to front end paper. Cassie still has nightmares about that day in 1975 when she and her cousin Suzie took a short cut through The Greenway. For somewhere along this path Suzie simply vanished. Also haunted is John Tyson, the retired detective once in charge of Suzie's unsolved case.
1012. Adams, Jane: Bird
Published by Macmillan, 1997
1st edition hardback, slightly cocked otherwise fine book & wrapper. Bird's grandfather is dying, haunted by the image from his youth of a woman hanging from a tree. Before he dies, Bird vows to uncover the true story behind this woman. Even if it points to her grandfather being a murderer.
1013. Adams, Jane: Final Frame
Published by Macmillan, 1999
Hardback 1st edition. Both book and dust wrapper are in fine condition. For over six months DI Mike Croft has been chasing filmmaker and killer Jake Bowen in a nationwide hunt. Now his latest victim - an art student - has been found laid out recreating one of her own self-portraits. But as Mike begins to focus on Jake's background, Jake turns his attention to Mike.
1014. Albert, Marvin: Stone Angel
Published by Macmillan, 1987
Hardback 1st UK edition. Near fine book in a like d/w. The first Pete Sawyer adventure set in the Arab quarter of Paris amid violent fanaticism and urban terrorists.
2327. Allan, Stella: An Inside Job
Published by Collins, London, 1978
1st edition hardback. A Collins Crime Club novel. Both book and unclipped dust wrapper are in very good condition. The dust wrapper has a small nick at the top of the spine and is slightly rubbed along the bottom edge. There are no previous owner names. The author's first crime novel is a swift moving story of seduction, swindling and murder.
1015. Allegretto, Michael: Blood Stone
Published by Macmillan, 1989
Hardback 1st UK edition. Very near fine book and unclipped d/w. Another Jacob Lomax hard-boiled mystery from the author of "Death on the Rocks", winner of the Shamus award for the best first novel of 1987.
1016. Ambler, Eric: Send No More Roses
Published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1977
Hardback 1st edition. Unclipped d/w has a couple of small closed tears otherwise very good. Book edges very slightly faded otherwise very good. AKA "The Siege of the Villa Lipp". In the shadowy areas of international law criminals work hard at figuring loopholes. One such wheeler-dealer is Paul Firman. He pursues his own ends in a quiet, unobtrusive way. Why would anyone want to bother about him? But he is unaware that an obsessive academician, Professor Krom, has stumbled on Firman's activities and is determined to expose him. Two of Krom's colleagues are on hand as witnesses as Krom prepares to confront Firman. But none have bargained with a third party threatening to put a permanent stop to the encounter. The booby-trapped grounds of the Mediterranean Villa Lipp, a hovering motor cruiser, a sudden attack--Krom is prepared for none of these. But Firman, always cool and self-possessed, responds with force and decision, and in the end pulls Krom's chestnuts out of the fire.
1017. Ambler, Eric: The Ability to Kill: and Other Pieces
Published by Bodley Head, 1963
Hardback 1st edition. Very good d/w, edge worn, very good book, previous owner name and slight foxing otherwise very good. This edition of collected true-crime pieces from the '50s and '60s by the master author of Epitaph for a Spy, Journey into Fear, The Light of Day et al. belongs on every fan's bookshelves. Ambler's polite, leisurely stroll down memory lane is a delight. He deals with classic villains from England (Jack the Ripper), Scotland (William Burke and William Hare) and France (Marcel Petiot) along with more recent miscreants: England's James Hanratty (1961) and America's Raymond Finch and Carole Tregoff (1960). Ambler also turns his good-natured, sharp eye on film-writing and the pleasures of Maxim's, and there are lovely semifictional pieces on spies and spy-spotting. Especially delicious is the tale of ''Annettee'' in 1937 Tangier. There's nothing heavy here, and even Ambler's opposition to the death penalty is quietly posited. His new introduction has its share of graceful nuggets, too.
1018. Ambler, Eric: The Care of Time
Published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1981
Hardback 1st edition. Nr fine in like unclipped d/w. When Robert Halliday accepts a commission to edit a book on terrorism, the results are violent. He arrives in the centre of a Mid-Eastern racket, where Zander - an international go-between - is running out of time. Before long they are both running out of places to hide.
1019. Ambler, Eric: Intrigue
Published by Alfred A. Knopf, 1960
Hardback, good +, bright, price clipped d/w, 1" tear to top edge, edge worn, very good buff colour boards with blue print & decoration to front, rear & spine, light crease to front board otherwise very nice. Reset & printed from new plates March 1960 intro by Alfred Hitchcock. Four Great Spy Novels (Journey into Fear, A Coffin for Dimitrios, Cause for Alarm, Background to Danger)
1023. Asimov, Issac: Banquets of the Black Widowers
Published by Granada, 1985
Hardback 1st edition. Very good+ in like unclipped d/w. Page edges very slightly browned. The fourth in the series of short story collections about the Black Widowers Club, dedicated to dining, and postprandial crime solving.
2070. Badenoch, Andrea: Loving Geordie
Published by Macmillan, London, 2002
1st edition hardback, both the book and the unclipped dust wrapper are in fine condition. A shocking coming-of-age crime story, full of wonderful characters It is August 1960 and Glue Terrace, overlooking the River Tyne, is due to be demolished. All that remains is the abandoned rubbish of former lives. The residents themselves have already been shifted. In the midst of this desolation lives 15-year-old Leslie, whose childhood is rapidly being snatched from him. Determined to find a job, full of worries about unpaid bills and his drug-filled mother and vulnerable younger brother Geordie, his summer holidays suddenly become a journey of discovery and revelation. For in a derelict building, more a bombsite than a home, identical twins Maureen and Murial are found dead. The house had been their summer playground. But now they are laying side by side, like two sleeping angels on a tomb, a dark gash in each of their necks. Suspicion immediately falls on 'Geordie the dafty', who discovered the bodies. But Leslie is convinced of his brother's innocence, and is determined to prove it to everyone else...
1024. Baker, Ivon: The Pandora Feature
Published by Robert Hale, 1973
1st edition hardback slightly worn d/w. Very good copy inscribed & signed by the author.
1025. Ball, John: The Eyes of Buddha
Published by Michael Joseph, 1976
Hardback 1st edition. Except for leaning slightly the book is near fine as is the unclipped wrapper. The 5th novel to feature black detective Virgil Tibbs.
1026. Barnes, Linda: Hardware
Published by Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1995
1st edition hardback, fine d/w with small blue mark, slightly loose hinge to book otherwise good book. Part Time Boston cabbie and PI Carlotta Carlyle has been hired by a rival cab company to investigate a series of attacks targeting Boston area cab drivers. It seems somebody is after their medallions. Then Carlotta discovers hidden microphones in the garage at the taxi company she works for. But when she brings it to the attention of Sam Gianelli, the company's co-owner and Carlotta's off-again, on-again lover, he doesn't want the microphones disturbed. But he won't say why. Just when Carlotta thinks things can't get any more mysterious, she is almost killed in drive-by shooting when she is picking up her new personal computer, which she bought from Sam's friend. Was it a targeted hit, or a random drive-by? And why has Sam's friend suddenly disappeared? When Carlotta is asked to look deeper into the robberies that are now causing drivers to quit in record numbers, the danger escalates as she stumbles upon a secret that could change her life forever - that is, if she can stay alive.
1028. Bentley, E.C.: Trent's Last Case
Published by World Publishing, 1946
Hardback, 1st tower books edition. Very good in a very good d/w. Jacket has small loss to base of spine and tips, a couple of small tears and light creasing. When a scheming American capitalist is found dead in the garden of his English country house, two immediate matters confound amateur detective Philip Trent: why is the dead man not wearing his false teeth and why is his young widow seemingly relieved at his death? The newly widowed Mabel Manderson the lady in black has a disarming effect on the refreshingly fallible and imaginative Trent, in this classic detective story that twists and turns as a result of the irresistible combination of ingenious deductions and misplaced assumptions.
1029. Bentley, John: The Whitney Case
Published by Chapman and Hall, 1937
Hardback 1st edition. No d/w. Loan stamps to title page, beginning and end, foxed page edges and penciled notes to rear endpaper (rubbed out). Original flexiback binding, green cloth with black titles to spine slightly yellowed damp mark to back board, lightly worn edges otherwise very good. A Sir Richard Herrivell story set in the boxing world. Preface by Len Harvey. Scarce.
1030. Billingham, Mark: Sleepy Head
Published by Little, Brown, London. 2001
1st edition hardback in very good condition. The book leans slightly and the page edges are a little browned. The dust wrapper is not clipped retaining the original £9.99 price at the front flap. There are no previous owner names or marks. This is the true first printing with the error on front flap of dust wrapper stating Jonathan Bishop instead of Jeremy! Author's debut, introducing D.I. Tom Thorne. The art of inducing fear in a reader via the printed page is a speciality of only a few skilled craftsmen. Mark Billingham is such an author, and Sleepy Head is such a book. The blurb on the jacket warns that we are in for a disturbing experience and that is precisely what we get: "He doesn't want you alive. He doesn't want you dead. He wants you somewhere in between".
1031. Billingham, Mark: Lazy Bones
Published by Little, Brown, London. 2003
1st edition hardback in very good condition. The book leans slightly and the page edges are a little browned. The dust wrapper is not clipped retaining the original £12.99 price at the front flap. There are no previous owner names or marks. Someone - a woman or somebody pretending to be a woman - is writing to convicted rapists in prison, befriending them and then brutally killing them when they are released. DI Tom Thorne must discover the link between these killings and a murder/suicide that took place twenty-five years before ; a tragedy to which the only witnesses were two small children, now adults and nowhere to be found... How can you escape a past that will do a lot more than just catch up with you? And how can Thorne catch a killer, when he doesn't really care about the victims?
1032. Billingham, Mark: The Burning Girl
Published by Little, Brown, London. 2004
1st edition hardback in fine condition. The dust wrapper is not clipped retaining the original £12.99 price at the front flap. There are no previous owner names or marks. Jessica Clarke had been set alight twenty years ago. Her attacker, quickly tracked down and eager to confess, was still in jail, his career as a hitman for North London gangs now well behind him. So who is harassing Carol Chamberlain, the arresting officer in that case, and claiming that he is the one who burned the girl? Now retired, Carol turns to DI Tom Thorne for help. He's up to his neck in an investigation into a series of killings, which appears to be the result of a turf war between rival gangs, and he's fed up to the gills with reporting to DCI Tughan, so helping Carol out looks like a good deed in a naughty world. Only the world is about to turn much nastier, so nasty in fact that he finds himself longing for a straightforward psychopath to hunt down.
1033. Black, Ethan: Irresistible
Published by Headline, 2000
Hardback 1st edition. Fine book in a near fine unclipped d/w. Nora lives a quiet life, typing up audio tapes from home. Then one day she finds herself paying attention to what the man on the tape is saying, and knows she must do something about it. For Detective Voort, a series of frenzied murders has the city in fear, but the killer may be about to find him.
Published by Headline, London. 2004
UK hardback 1st edition in very good condition. The dust wrapper too is very good and not clipped. There are no other marks or inscriptions. The second book in the Saxon series.The call comes from a troubled man. Someone, he says, is trying to kill him. He can't divulge more over the phone, but Felix Berg wants to meet. At midnight. Out by the lighthouse at Howth. Reluctantly, Saxon agrees. Soon former FBI agent-turned-true-crime-writer Saxon is plunged into the heart of a series of apparently motiveless murders that is gripping the city. Four times the gunman known as the Marxman has struck and four times the Dublin Metropolitan Police murder squad have drawn a blank. Could the answer be found in the dark eye of Felix Berg's camera? Wherever the trail leads, Saxon is determined that this time the Marxman will not escape. And she's ready to step into the line of fire if that's what it takes.
1034. Block, Lawrence: A Stab in the Dark
Published by Robert Hale, London. 1982
Scarce 1st edition hardback in fine condition. There are no previous owner names or marks. The dust wrapper is also fine, no price is evident but the jacket is not clipped. Nine long years have passed since the killer last struck. Nine years since eight helpless young women were hideously slaughtered by an ice-pick wielding maniac. Now hard-drinking ex-cop and unlicensed investigator Matt Scudder has been hired to bring the murderer to justice at last. Relentlessly Scudder follows an aging trail of blood towards a psychopath either long gone, long dead or very patiently awaiting the chance to kill again.
1035. Block, Lawrence: The Sins of the Fathers
Published by Robert Hale, London. 1979
1st edition UK hardback. The dust wrapper has some slight marks and is a little rubbed at the edges with a couple of small closed tears but there is no loss or fading. The original £3.95 net price is present at the front flap and the jacket is now protected. The book has been only very slightly bumped at the boards bottom corners so slightly in fact it's hardly noticeable. There are no previous owner names or other marks. The first in the series of Matt Scudder mysteries and very scarce. A pretty young girl is butchered in her Greenwich Village apartment. The prime suspect, a minister's son, is found dead in his jail cell and as far as the NYPD is concerned the case is closed. Matt Scudder, an ex-cop and alcoholic who now does "favours for friends', is persuaded to look into the case by the dead girl's father. Suddenly he's up to his neck in sleaze and corruption, phoney religious cults and murderous lust. In New York's underbelly the children have no choice but to pay the price for their parent's most unspeakable sins.
10. Block, Lawrence: The Burglar Who Painted like Mondrian.
Published by Gollancz, London. 1984.
1st edition hardback in fine condition. There are no previous owner names or other marks. The dust wrapper is not price clipped. By day, he sells books in his Greenwich Village store; by night, he's a master of illegal entry. This time Bernie doesn't do the burglary, but one painting worth a quarter of a million, two corpses and a very clever frame-up put him top of the wanted list.
17. Block, Lawrence: The Topless Tulip Caper.
Published by Allison & Busby, London. 1984.
1st UK hardback edition in very good+ condition. The book is near fine, there are no previous owner names or other marks. The dust wrapper is very good having a small scratched area to the front but is not price clipped and otherwise very good.A Chip Harrison novel and quite scarce. Tulip Willing is a topless dancer in the Treasure Chest bar. She is also a biologist and tropical-fish expert and someone has poisoned her Scats. Because of a shared passion for tropical fish, Tulip calls for the help of Leo Haig, the world's second greatest detective (even Leo Haig would agree that Nero Wolfe is the first).
1036. Block, Lawrence: When the Sacred Ginmill Closes
Published by Macmillan, London. 1987
1st edition UK hardback in very near fine condition. There are ink initials to the front endpaper and very slight browning of the page edges otherwise fine. The unclipped dust wrapper is also fine. Downing a bourbon or two with a couple of cronies, Scudder witnesses a heist. The Morrisey brothers who run the joint are strangely submissive during the raid, but eager to see Scudder track down the thieves without involving the regular forces of law and order.
413. Block, Lawrence: The Matt Scudder Mysteries
Published by Orion, London, 1997
1st edition hardback in near fine condition.The book has no previous owner names or inscriptions. The dust wrapper( very good condition) has not been price clipped and still retains the original £16.99 net price. It is now in a removable plastic cover. Contains The Sins of the Fathers, In The Midst of Death and Time to Murder & Create.
1037. Block, Lawrence: The Burglar in the Library
Published by No Exit Press, 1997
1st UK edition hardback in near fine condition. Signed by the author on the title page, slight bumping/rubbing to spine/corner edges. The dust wrapper (VG+) has not been price clipped and still retains the original £16.99 net price. The Burglar in the Library is eighth in Lawrence Block's Burglar series, with Bernie and Carolyn spending the weekend in a New England guesthouse, a replica of an old English manor house. When guests begin showing up murdered, it's Bernie who gathers the clues, which will hopefully lead him to the murderer before too many more guests are knocked off. True first with error in second line of first page.
1038. Block, Lawrence: Everybody Dies
Published by Orion, London. 1998
UK 1st edition hardback in fine, as new condition. The book has no previous owner names or inscriptions. The dust wrapper (Near Fine) has not been price clipped and still retains the original £16.99 net price. It is now in a removable plastic cover. Ex-cop Matt Scudder is off the booze, but he still spends time with some of his old drinking buddies, including Mick Ballou. Two of Mick's henchmen have been killed during a raid on one of his bourbon warehouses and Mick wants Scudder on the case, but someone else wants Scudder off the job.
1039. Block, Lawrence: Hitman
Published by Orion, London. 1998
1st edition hardback in near fine condition. The book has no previous owner names or inscriptions. The dust wrapper (VG) has not been price clipped and still retains the original £16.99 net price. A gripping insight into the life of a paid assassin from the author of the Matt Scudder mysteries. The hit man of the title, Keller, tells his story episodically job by job. His tasks come as and when and with little warning. The call comes, he visits his paymaster to collect instructions, he travels to the hit's home city, does the job, returns. Often he likes the town he visits - enough even to look into real estate prices, but he always returns to New York City, to the chance of another job. Nothing changes until he begins visiting a therapist - a man who after a number of visits works out what our hero does for a living. He proposes a hit - he wants a woman killed. But in doing his job, Keller realises that he has been used and returns to take revenge on the therapist. The upshot is that in killing his therapist Keller orphans a dog. The dog needs a home; Keller provides 1, prompting the next major change in his life. When he goes away Keller needs a dog walker...finding a suitable candidate is easy enough, but before long she's resident in his flat and a whole new set of life rules are looking Keller in the face. Can he keep his job - can he keep his dog and his lover once they know what he does for a living?
1040. Block, Lawrence: The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart
Published by No Exit Press. 1995
1st edition hardback in near fine condition. There are some surface marks to the dust wrapper otherwise very good. There are no previous owner names. The jacket is not price clipped. By morning, Bernie Rhodenbarr still doesn't have the item he was asked to steal, but it's OK as his client is dead. But, when there's a dead body Bernie's nemesis, Detective Ray Kirschmann, is never far behind, and he is demanding answers.
1041. Block, Lawrence: The Burglar on the Prowl
Published by No Exit Press. 2004
1st thus. Hardback edition in near fine condition, the book has been slightly bumped at the bottom front corners otherwise as new. The dust wrapper is not price clipped. When a friend suggests that Bernie burgle a romantic rival's home, Bernie is happy to oblige. Along with lesbian friend Caroline Kaiser, Bernie is overjoyed to find a safe full of cash. And for once in a Bernie Rhodenbarr story, there isn't even a dead body in the house. At least not yet. Because a nearby home has also been burgled and in that robbery, three people have died. The police recognise Bernie from a nearby cash machine camera and soon he is in the newspapers as the suspect.
1042. Block, Lawrence: Enough Rope
Published by William Morrow, New York. 2002
Hardback 1st US edition in near fine condition. Dust wrapper is very faintly sunned at the spine otherwise fine. There are no previous owner names or marks. A very heavy book and a huge collection including nine Matt Scudder stories, three featuring burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, and five with hit man Keller. They have all appeared elsewhere at one time or another, but unless you're a Block completist, you're unlikely to have seen several of them before. Even if you have read some of them, this book is still an invaluable addition to your collection, as it includes all of the stories and presents them in chronological order, something impossible to find prior to this.
1043. Block, Lawrence: The Burglar in the Rye
Published by No Exit Press, 1999
1st UK hardback edition in fine condition. The dust wrapper is also fine and un-clipped. Featuring Bernie Rhodenbarr, bookshop owner and burglar, who cannot help but come to the aid of a favourite author when his agent offers their very private correspondence for public sale.
1044. Block, Lawrence: The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza
Published by Dutton, New York. 1997
1st US hardback edition. There is a previous owner name and date at the front endpaper otherwise very good. The dust wrapper is slightly sunned at the spine otherwise very good. Bernie Rhodenbarr is back. He's after the prized coin collection of one Herb Colcannon and has inside information to help him - or so he thinks. The Colcannon house is a set-up, but he's not the first to think of the heist and the collection consists of just one coin worth $250,000.
Published by Orion, London, 2011 1st US hardback edition. Both book and unclipped dust wrapper are in very good condition. There are no previous owner names. The back board has had a bump otherwise fine. Keller thought he was done killing people for money. He has a new name, a new wife, a new career, and a baby on the way. But old habits die hard. Business is bad and a phone call is all it takes to draw him back into the old game. This time, his work takes him to Dallas, to settle a domestic dispute; to Florida, where he joins a government witness on a cruise; to Wyoming, where a house has burned down; and to New York, where he lived for so many years. And where people might remember him...
1045. Bogart, Stephen Humphrey: Play It Again
Published by Macmillan, 1994
Hardback 1st edition. Very good in a very good+ d/w. The book leans slightly. Author's first novel. Stephen Bogart creates a film noir Hollywood style novel with a central character based on his father Humphrey's screen persona.