Search Results: New York City from Murder By The Book

N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, 1935. 1st Grosset reprint edition. Orange cloth covers show some wear at extremeties, very lightly soiled else a very good - near fine copy, in home-made acetate dust wrapper. LOCKED ROOM MYSTERY. Adey #4. "Thatcher Colt tries a new kind of informer, one with a link to the Great Beyond. Mrs. Lynn, a medium, claims she heard the "voice" of a young dead girl whose body has allegedly been cut to pieces then sunk. Fraud? That's what Colt (and the reader) think at first, but both have to reconsider their opinion when the corpse turns up right where Mrs. Lynn - oh, sorry, Madeline Swift - told us it was. Despite its paranormal overtones, "Startled Lady" reads rather like an early procedural. Realism, at least by Golden Age standards, is the greatest strength of this book. Abbot obviously did a lot of research on forensics and procedures, providing a sometimes fascinating testimony on police methods in the thirties. But this realism is also… Read More

N.Y.: Covici Friede, 1932. 1st edition. Yellow cloth shows some soiling otherwise a good, tight copy with very little wear. LOCKED ROOM MYSTERY, Adey #2. Laid in is a laminated copy of the dust jacket reduced so as to be used as a bookmark. The book is now housed in a home-made acetate dust wrapper. "The circus was playing Madison Square Garden and Police Commissioner Thatcher Colt was there looking into some "accidents" that had befallen the troupe and led to one death. Some of the star acts had received letters warning them not to perform opening night, which happened to be Friday the Thirteenth. All the artists insisted they would go on anyway. "The Queen of The Air," Josie LaTour plunges to her death from the high rings and it doesn't take Colt long to figure it's murder. The suspects are many. From the husband, family finances are tight and she has a big insurance policy, to the catcher in the act who has loved for years, since before she married her… Read More

N.Y.: Bantam, 2004. 1st edition, October 2004, so stated, with complete number line beginning with 1. White boards are clean and bright with blue lettering. Fine in fine dust jacket, light wrinkle at spine foot, not price clipped,in protective mylar cover. An EDGAR, a MACIVITY and a NERO AWARD WINNERS as well as ANTHONY, a BARRY and a SHAMUS AWARD FINALIST. The secrets of a group of childhood friends unravel in this haunting thriller by Edgar Award winner S. J. Rozan. Set in New York in the unforgettable aftermath of September 11, Absent Friends brilliantly captures a time and place unlike any other, as it winds through the wounded streets of New York and Staten Island...and into a maze of old crimes, damaged lives, and heartbreaking revelations. The result is not only an electrifying mystery and a riveting piece of storytelling but an elegiac novel that powerfully explores a world changed forever on a clear September morning. S. J. Rozan masterfully ratchets up the tension one revelation at a… Read More

N.Y.: Delacorte Press, 1995. 1st ed., with complete number line beginning with 1. Fine in dust jacket, not price clipped, with protective mylar cover. A Nina Fischman title, NYC. "Quintessential New Yorker, lawyer Nina Fischman, last seen in Close Quarters, pursues another murder investigation in her fifth appearance. Her boyfriend Jonathan becomes a suspect in the death of his doorman, who was murdered while moving Jonathan's car to comply with the city's arcane parking regulations. While using the investigation as distraction from such personal issues as whether she should leave her beloved West Side to move in with Jonathan in his charmless East Side high-rise, Nina, aided by her mother, Ida, uncovers a pimping operation operated by Mundo,the mailman who delivers to Jonathan's building. City politics enters the plot when Nina and Ida suspect that a high-ranking official may be be stalking one of Mundo's girls. Nina applies for a job in the politician's office, receives a… Read More

N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1993. First edition with complete number line beginning with 1. Fine in fine dust jacket, not price clipped, in protective mylar cover. " Veteran Paul's beleaguered detective Sergeant Marion Larch, of New York's Ninth Precinct (You Have the Right to Remain Silent, etc.) is fed up with her lazy, loutish partner Foley and with her devious, self-serving Captain di Falco. Meanwhile, circumstances bring Marion to the Midtown South precinct to look into a burglary at the Broadhurst theater, where her actress friend Kelly Ingram is starring in The Apostrophe Thief. An odd assortment of objects has been taken--from costumes to scripts--the most valuable of which is a bejeweled jacket once owned by Sarah Bernhardt. Marion finds herself clue hunting in the strange, constricted world of collectibles--among besotted fans and not-too-ethical dealers. One of them--Ernie Nordstrom--is found murdered when Marion finally catches up to him. She's convinced that… Read More

N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, Inc., 1949. 1st paperback printing, July 1949. Dell Mapback #316. Vintage Paperback. Front cover Illustration by Gerald Gregg. Back cover map of section of "Manhattan Island / Scene of Rough and Bloody Action" Very lightly soiled, spine edges rubbed, else about fine. When a lush brunette turns up unexpectedly dead in a stranger’s bed, and an antique dealer (who is "mostly legit") settles down in an easy chair with a dagger in his back, and a big-time gambler drops all bets on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood -- then Peter Chambers, fiction’s most eye-catching, hard-boiled private eye, finds himself staked out as victim number 4 in a high-priced game of death and international intrigue. All Vintage Paperbacks come sealed in 2.5 mil plastic bag and taped closed with removable tape which will not tear the covers if it sticks to them when the book is removed.. First Printing. Pictorial Wrappers. Very Good-Near Fine. Illus. by Gregg,… Read More

New York, NY,: Random House Inc, 1997. 1st. Ed. Fine in dust jacket. The sequel to his award winning book, The Alienst. 629 pages. 1897 New York. Laid in is the New York Times book review by Ben Macintyre. 1st Ed. Hard Cover. Fine/Fine. Book.

N.Y.: Edward J. Clode, 1919. 1st edition. Edges rubbed, spine edges rubbed, covers soiled, spine foot with shallow loss, else a good-very good copy. "Winifred Bartlett, a beautiful and poor orphan, suddenly finds herself homeless and out of a job. Prince Charming (nee Rex Carshaw) comes on to her by accident and begins to take an interest. As strange, apparently unconnected disasters continue to batter poor Winnie, Rex and two police detectives (the most interesting characters in the book) probe the causes and forces threatening the dear girl's well-being and, ultimately, her very life and liberty. It turns out that it is Winifred's close resemblance to her mother, who died long ago in Vermont, that threatens certain powerful interests in contemporary (1913) New York. An unusually large cast of bad guys - each with a different motive for getting rid of Winifred - includes a US Senator, and unsuccessful book binding supervisor, an influential NY society belle, and gun-slinging Western gangster "Mick… Read More

N.Y., N.Y.: Warner Books Inc, 1997. 1st. Ed. FINE/FINE. AUTHOR'S FIRST BOOK. Publisher letter and review laid in. Introducing NYPD Detecitve Mel Fink. Salinger's debut novel is a well-crafted thriller that will grip readers from start to finish. The story opens with NYPD detectives Fink and Barton investigating the murder of an arms seller employed by Parker Global, a large defense contractor also selling to Third World countries. The second chapter switches to Southeast Asia, where U.S. Army medic Zach Johnson has been a POW/MIA for the past 25 years. Not all politicians and military brass are elated when Corporal Johnson emerges from the Cambodian jungle; in fact, someone wants him dead. Short chapters cut between a large cast of interesting characters, who are brought together by cleverly contrived circumstances for a fast-paced denouement. Along the way, numerous plot twists provide genuine suspense." -- Library Journal. First Edition. Hard Cover. Fine/Fine. Book.

New York, NY, U.S.A.: Dutton, 1955. 1st edition, so stated. A near fine, tight copy with very light soiling, in dust jacket lightlly chipped at corners, lightly soiled, rubbed and sunned at spine, Inside rear flap lightly soiled.else a very good-near fine copy, not price clipped, $2.75 price intact, in protective mylar cover. AUTHOR'S FIRST BOOK. A cover blurb by Mickey Spillane , who had met two younger writers, Earle Basinsky and Charlie Wells, while in the service and who would become his protégés; each publishing two hardboiled-noir novels in the Spillane style in the early 1950s. Spillane's blurb "The kind of book I go for." . 1st Ed. Hard Cover. Near Fine/Very Good. Book.

N.Y.: International Polygonics, LTD, 1991. 1st printing, October 1991, so stated with complete number line beginning with 1. Broadway producer Peter Duluth's actress wife Iris is out of town for a while visiting her ailing mother. Peter is induced to go to a party held by their overweening upstairs neighbors, belle dame actress Lottie Marin and her subjugated husband Brian. There he meets Nanny Ordway, a young wannabe writer who seems like a fish out of water. Because he's lonely and she's broke and hungry, he takes her out for a burger. They see each other a few more times, always strictly platonically, and finally he lends her the key to the Duluth apartment so she can write there during the day, while he's out, rather than try to do so in the dumpy Greenwich Village apartment she shares with another girl. It never dawns on him that others might regard his friendship with Nanny rather differently until, on Iris's return, they go back to the apartment from the airport to find… Read More

N.Y.: Saint Martin's Press, 1989. First edition with complete number line beginning with 1. Fine in fine dust jacket, lightly rubbed at head and one corner at rear of jacket, not price clipped, in protective mylar cover. "Amateur sleuth Margaret Binton, a sprightly septuagenarian with a zest for life, returns in a poignant story reflecting today's headlines. During one of her stints as a volunteer at a Manhattan hospital, Margaret accidentally discovers a room inhabited by "boarder babies," children waiting to be placed in foster homes. One of the tots, 15-month-old Eric Williams, captures her heart, and Margaret, a childless widow, decides to become a foster mother. Concerned about Eric's impending adoption, Margaret turns to reporter Peter Ryker to learn about the social services system. When Eric's prospective father, diamond mogul Victor Lazarre, offers her $3000 compensation for the boy, the sagacious Margaret suspects that the head of the adoption agency, Helen… Read More

Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A.: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1952. 1st ed. edgewear, slight spine slant, pages browning, else very good in dust jacket, not price clipped ($2.50 price still intact), a few closed tears, spine lightly sunned. Author's first book.. 1st Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good. Book.

N.Y.: Rinehart & Company, Inc, 1951. 1st edition. Publishers bright red cloth, with yellow and white lettering at spine, some light wear along edges, some foxing to pages else a very good/near fine copy in dust jacket, lightly chipped along bottom edge, spine edges rubbed, not price clipped, $2.50 price intact, moderately soiled. Very Scarce. Young Rena Austen, newly wed, is afraid she’s made a terrible mistake. Her husband, once a dashingly romantic figure of a wounded war hero, has become a moody lay-about, and they are sharing a gloomy house on the Upper East Side of New York with his unpleasant, always-there family. When her husband reacts in a frighteningly angry way to Rena pulling a particular volume off the library shelf, she has had enough, and flees her home in fear for her life. She is afraid no one will believe her, that she will be thought insane. Thankfully, Henry Gamadge is on hand to solve the mystery of the book -- and the dead body that inevitably turns up. Despite… Read More

Ballston Lake: NY: Granovetter Books, 1992. 1st prtg. Trade paperback, 3rd in series. New York City circa 1989.. 1st Prtg. Pictorial Wrappers. Fine. Trade Paperback.

NY: Pocket Books, 1993. 1st edition, August 1993, so stated with complete number line beginning with 1, slight spine slant else, fine in dust jacket, not price clipped, in protective mylar cover. Eigth Jenny Cain title. "In the eighth Jenny Cain mystery, Anthony and Agatha Awards-winner Pickard ( I.O.U. ) takes the former charitable foundation director from her home and husband in Port Frederick, Mass., to her beloved Big Apple. Unfortunately, the trip is precipitated by the stabbing death of Jenny's friend Carol Margolis and a plea for help from the foundation Carol worked for that desperately needs an interim director. As assuredly depicted by Pickard, Jenny remains both canny and innocent while confronting such urban realities as a wildly diverse series of cab drivers, a theater company with a surprising approach to Shakespeare and her friend's nasty landlady. Jenny listens to Carol's parents who, in an eloquent passage of gently articulated grief, blame their daughter's… Read More

New York, New York, U.S.A.: Mysterious Press, 1994. 1st. Ed. FINE/FINE. SIGNED. Stanley Hastings, actor and private investigator in New York City, is featured in the eigth book in the series. Signed. First Edition. Hard Cover. Fine/Fine. Book.

NY,NY.: W. Morrow, 1982. 1st edition with complete number line beginning with 1. Near fine in near fine dust jacket, not price clipped, in protective mylar cover. Hentoff is a staff writer for 'The Village Voice' and 'The New Yorker, best known for his work on jazz, civlil liberties and police work. Hentoff has written a suspenseful mystery featuring a pair of New York City cops, one a laconic African-American, the other a hard-edged, middle-aged Jewish cop, investigating a grisly knife murder in Greenwich Village. His first mystery, . First Edition. Hard Cover. Near Fine/Near Fine. Book.

NY,NY: William Morrow & Co, 1999. 1st. Ed. FINE/FINE. A Faith Fairchild mystery set in New York City. First Edition. Hard Cover. Fine/Fine. Book.

New York, New York, U.S.A.: Soho Pr Inc, 2006. 1st ed. Near fine in dust jacket. Author's debut novel. Detective Jack Yu grew up in Chinatown. Some of his old friends are criminals now; some are dead. Jack has just been transferred to the precinct for his old neighborhood where 99%% of the cops are white. Unlike the others, confused by the residents who speak another language even when they're conversing in English, Jack knows what's going on.He is confronted by a serial rapist who preys on young Chinese girls. Then Uncle Four, the respected, elderly leader of the Hip Ching, a benevolent society - and also a member of the Red Circle Triad - is gunned down. Jack learns that kindly old Uncle Four had a gorgeous young mistress, imported from Hong Kong. . First Edition. Hard Cover. Near Fine/Near Fine. Book.