AbeBooks' Reading Copy

At the height of the Great Depression, New York’s Phoenix Press was churning out pulp fiction as fast as it could print the books. Murder, mayhem, mysteries and molls – you will find them all in this selection of classic pulp literature, worth exploring for the remarkable vintage cover design as well as the stories. [...]

Today I came across this collection of magazines from 1930s France called Police Magazine. We have quite a number of them for sale on the site, happily with images to peruse. From what I can tell, the publication ran from 1931 until 1937. I’ve found little information about it, but I think the magazine was [...]

Today’s gorgeous book find of the day is from 1931: Poison Case No. 10 by Louis Cornell. I couldn’t find out much information on Louis Cornell, and he seems to have had a very brief writing career. He also seems to have had some dark proclivities – here’s another one, Murder Case No 33. No [...]

Gumshoes, flatfoots, private eyes, bloodhounds, hawkshaws, sleuths… whatever you call them, detectives make great reading, and everyone loves detective stories. From forensic medical examiners to little old lady spies, from amateur teen sleuths to the grittiest of private dicks, the list of beloved recurring characters in fiction dedicated to the art of solving crimes is [...]

If you were a member of the Companion Book Club in the 1960s, you enjoyed some great reads from the likes of Len Deighton, Alistair MacLean, Victor Canning, Ngaio Marsh, Gavin Lyall, Laurens van der Post, Dick Francis and Douglas Reeman. The illustrators weren’t bad either. Step back a few decades with these rollicking reads.

In 2004, Akashic Books published Brooklyn Noir, a collection of short noir stories set around Brooklyn. People loved the regional authenticity and hardboiled, honest-to-goodness grit, and a series was born. Now you can read about murder in Mumbai, trouble in Trinidad, a corpse in Cape Cod and far beyond – the Akashic Noir series is [...]

According to The Guardian, the theatre district in London is in for a treat – approval has just come through from Westminster Council to erect a memorial statue for the queen of crime writing, Agatha Christie. The statue will not be the likeness of Ms. Christie, but rather will take the shape of a giant [...]

Anne McCaffrey, William Gibson, Ursula K. Le Guin – these prominent authors and many more owe a debt of gratitude to Ace Books. Founded in 1952, this pioneering publisher championed science fiction and helped bring talented young writers out of obscurity and into the spotlight. Many of their striking paperbacks have become favorite finds for [...]

We have a guest writer today – bookseller Peter Thackeray describes the legacy of the author who helped launch the espionage fiction genre with The Thirty-Nine Steps. John Buchan published more than 25 novels and yet he had a remarkable life away from writing that included being a Member of Parliament and Governor-General of Canada. [...]

Ngaio Marsh was a mystery writer whose tales of murder and intrigue had her known as New Zealand’s Mistress of the Macabre.