Crime of the Fictional Variety

The Shorn Lamb – William Locke – First edition 1930

Published by Dodd, Mead etc., New York in 1930. Octavo, 331 pages, a little age otherwise a super copy in a classic dust jacket albeit chipped to top. Protected in Brodart.

A classic art deco period novel by the prolific and brilliant writer William Locke. Our “shorn lamb” is near the end of his road when good fortune shines down on him. A case of mistaken identity helps along with the skill of a master conjurer. Plot with humour.

1930 First Edition about improved circumstances!

$60.00

Updating cart…

The Four Stragglers [Thriller] – Frank Packard – First Edition 1923

Published by Burt, New York in 1923. Octavo, 303 pages, dust jacket art by A D Rahn. Light jacket creasing, otherwise, a super copy.

Frank Packard was a prolific Canadian writer who started off as an engineer on the railroads. Several of his books became movies.

Captain Francis Newcombe (also known as Shadow Varne) and three other crooks lead a complex and criminally exciting path from the London underworld to the USA.

Shadow plots within plots

$50.00

Updating cart…

The Hunted – Albert Guerard – First Edition 1944

First Edition published by Alfred Knopf, New York in 1944. Octavo, 288 pages. Dust jacket design by Arthur Hawkins. A very good if not fine copy.

Albert Guerard was in the US Army when this book was published. It was his second novel of the published in his lifetime. He also published many works on literary criticism. Educated at Stanford and Harvard he would go on to be Professor of Literature at Stanford after the whole and was highly influential in developing the Stanford program in modern writing. His father also an author held the same position.

the author was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 1956 and received an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in Literature in 1964.

The Hunted is a physiological thriller. Claire Harcha, a singing waitress of New England marries a Cambridge English graduate (an odd ball). She becomes ostracised from the fraternity group and sympathetic to a hunted violent outlaw “Bomber”.

First edition 1944 – distinguished author.

$70.00

Updating cart…

The Boy Biggles – Captain W.E. Johns – First Edition 1968

First edition 1968 published by Dean, London. Octavo, 182 pages, dust jacket edge chips, internally very good and clean.

Retrospective of Biggles early life in India where nerves are tested, thugs and intruders abound, and a Foolish Tiger mixes with the Big Bad Bear.

Scarce Biggles in his early and no less adventurous years

$30.00

Updating cart…

Traitors’ Gate – Dennis Wheatley

First edition published by Hutchinson, London in 1958. One of Wheatley’s classics.

The Book Club edition which had this classic jacket designed by Sax – so period. Octavo 383 pages. End paper plan of Budapest and schematic of the Tower of London. Bit of age to top edge otherwise a very good copy..

One of a series on novels concerning the secret agent Gregory Sallust. Set in Budapest in 1942 where the effects of the war had yet to fully felt. The main plot centres around how the enemy were so brilliantly misled regarding the Allies intentions in North Africa.

Dennis Wheatley established a cult following during his lifetime. He was hugely successful and bought a large “Georgian Pile” in Hampshire were he kept a very large collection of rare and antiquarian books … his appetite for serious historical memoirs is reflected in the depth and solidity of his writing.

Wheatley in Budapest during WWII – dressed by Sax

$30.00

Updating cart…

A Summer in The Twenties – Peter Dickinson – First US Edition

First US edition published by Pantheon, New York in 1981. Octavo, 254 pages, hint of edge age but really a very nice copy in a delightful dust jacket designed by Fred Marcellino.

Set in the 1920’s (hopefully obviously) Toma well to do athletic type sees his life change and he ends up as a stand in train driver during the General Strike in England. Torn between loves and class divides his path gets rather twisted. A novel of suspense and adventure it is.

The author had an editorial role at The Punch for seventeen years before taking up his own pen – he never looks back and won several important awards.

Train drivers in the thick of it during the 1920’s

$25.00

Updating cart…

The Shorn Lamb – William Locke – First edition 1930

The Four Stragglers [Thriller] – Frank Packard – First Edition 1923

The Hunted – Albert Guerard – First Edition 1944

The Boy Biggles – Captain W.E. Johns – First Edition 1968

Traitors’ Gate – Dennis Wheatley

A Summer in The Twenties – Peter Dickinson – First US Edition

Product Categories