Mystery
ALL MY ENEMIES.
New York: Ballantine Books, 1952. Octavo, Hardcover. First edition. Spy novel of Soviet espionage in the United States. A Ballantine hardcover, H-3. Photo montage dust jacket.
BITTERSWEET.
New York: St. Martin's Press, [1984]. Octavo, boards. First edition. The author's first novel. The lives of two women and love in the 19th Century American west.
ILL WIND.
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, [1995]. Octavo, boards. First edition. The third Anna Pigeon mystery.
ILL WIND.
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, [1995]. Octavo, boards. First edition. The third Anna Pigeon mystery.
TRACK OF THE CAT.
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, [1993]. Octavo, boards. First edition. The author's first mystery.
TRACK OF THE CAT.
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, [1993]. Octavo, boards. First edition. The author's first mystery.
THE FACE AND THE MASK.
New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers, [1895]. Small octavo, pp. [1-4] [1] 2-250 [251: ads] [252: blank], five inserted plates with illustrations by A. Hencke, original pictorial green cloth, front and spine panels stamped in silver, silver top edge, other edges untrimmed. First U.S. edition. A scarce collection of short fiction including "The Doom of London," a catastrophe story, and "The Great Pegram Mystery, a Sherlock Holmes parody. Anatomy of Wonder (1976) 2-8 and (1981) 1-14. Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 101. Bleiler, Science-Fiction: The Early Years 126 and 127. Clareson, Science Fiction in America, 1870s-1930s 046. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, p. 28. Suvin, Victorian Science Fiction in the UK, p. 55. Wilson, Shadows in the Attic, p. 55. Bleiler (1978), p. 16. Not in Reginald (1979; 1992). Hubin (1994), p. 51.
BEARING SECRETS.
New York: Walker, 1996. Octavo, boards. First edition. Signed. Author's second mystery.
THE INNOCENTS.
New York: Walker, 1995. Octavo, Hardcover. First edition. Author's first mystery.
PINK VODKA BLUES.
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992. Octavo, Hardcover. First edition. Author's well received first mystery novel.
PINK VODKA BLUES.
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992. Octavo, Hardcover. First edition. Author's well received first mystery novel.
KISS AND KILL bound with ON THE HOOK.
New York: Ace Books, Inc., [1954]. Small octavo, pictorial wrappers. First edition and first paperback edition. Ace double D-47. Paperback original of the Barry novel. The Powell is a reprint, originally published as SHARK RIVER. Jaffery, S., Double Trouble: A Bibliographic Chronicle of Ace Mystery Doubles, pp. 21-22.
THE DELIGHTS OF DETECTION.
New York: Criterion Books, [1961]. Octavo, cloth backed boards. First edition. Collects seventeen stories presented in three sections; Classic Tales, Modern Tales and Historic Tales. Authors include Dorothy Sayers, R. Austin Freeman, John D. MacDonald, Rex Stout and others.
THE BIG STEAL.
New York: E.P. Dutton & Company, Inc., 1955. Octavo, boards. First edition. "The $400,000 ransom on a kidnapping case leaves Steve Conway, a copper, holding the bag- the empty suitcase in which the money was once hidden. Bounced off the force, deserted by his wife, Conway alone has to prove his innocence to his enemies as well as the police, while narcotics needlemark the solution through which he redeems himself and his new girl... Under the spell of ""Spillane who insisted"" there is the familiar contusion of flesh and violence." - Kirkus review, 6/1/55. Basinsky was a wartime friend of Mickey Spillane's who encouraged his writing. This is the first of his two novels.
A PARADE OF COCKEYED CREATURES, OR DID SOMEONE MURDER OUR WANDERING BOY?
New York: Random House, 1967. Octavo, Hardcover. First edition. The first Detective Max Van Larsen/Sylvia Plotkin thriller. An Edgar nominee for best novel.
PEREGRINE.
New York: Congdon & Lattes, 1981. Octavo, cloth backed boards. First edition. Winner of the 1982 Edgar award for best novel.
SWITCH.
New York: Linden Press/Simon and Schuster, 1984. Octavo, cloth backed boards. First edition. The second Frank Janek novel. "The Janek stories...have been of a high standard; literate, inventive, and distinguished by the author's sympathetic appreciation of the sometimes ragged human condition." - Pederson (ed.): St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers (4th ed.), pp. 53-55.
THE MARDI GRAS MYSTERY.
Garden City, NY, and Toronto: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1921. Octavo, pp. [1-6] [1-2] 3-313 [314: colophon] [315-316: blank], jacket and frontis illustration by John Newton Howitt, original green cloth, front and spine stamped in black. First edition. Author's first mystery novel. Hubin, p. 60.
BUTCHER'S DOZEN: AN ANTHOLOGY BY THE CRIME WRITER'S ASSOCIATON.
London: William Heinemann, [1956]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. The first in this series of anthologies. Collection of 15 short stories.
PRECIOUS PORCELAIN.
New York, London: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1931. Octavo, cloth. First U.S. edition. Mix of supernatural, sf, mystery and thiller novel in which the main character discovered a means of isolating the various personality fragments within himself and projecting them as living beings." - Bleiler: The Guide to Supernatural Literature #122. Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 2-7.
THE DISTURBING AFFAIR OF NOEL BLAKE.
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1932. Octavo, pp. [1-8] [1-2] 3-262 [263-264: blank] [note: last leaf is a blank], original light brown cloth, front and spine panels stamped in black. First U.S. edition. Unscrupulous psychologist regresses patient into ancestral personalities, whereupon his memories inspire bizarre -- and criminal -- behavior from less civilized times. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, p. 30. Stableford, Scientific Romance in Britain 1890-1950, p. 223. Bleiler (1948), p. 46. Not in Bleiler (1978). Reginald 01047. Hubin (1994), p. 62.
THE WINDOW WITH THE SLEEPING NUDE.
Kingston, New York: Quinn Publishing Company, Inc., [1950]. Small octavo, pictorial wrappers. First edition. Paperback original. The second published novel under his own name by this prolific writer, known for his hard-boiled stories, usually with plenty of slang and a touch of the comic. He published under numerous pseudonyms and is thought to have written as many as 3,000 stories (see-Pederson (ed.) - St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers, 4th ed., pp. 63-64).
THE 25TH HOUR.
New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., [2000]. Octavo, boards. First edition. Contemporary crime novel, filmed in 2002 by Spike Lee.
THE 25TH HOUR.
New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., [2000]. Octavo, boards. First edition. Contemporary crime novel, filmed in 2002 by Spike Lee.
SQUEEZE PLAY.
New York: Avon, [1984]. Small octavo, pictorial wrappers. First Avon edition. Paperback. This was originally published in a very scarce softcover edition in 1982 by Alpha-Omega books. Hard boiled mystery novel.