Search Results: MYSTERY from Downtown Brown Books, ABAA

New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. The first Socrates Fortlow mystery. First edition (first printing). A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. Signed by Mosley on the title-page.

Baltimore, MD: Cemetery Dance, 2015. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. 138 pages. Western noire novel. Limited to 750 signed copies. First edition (first printing). Fine in a fine dust jacket. Signed by Gorman on the limitation page.

Baltimore, MD: Cemetery Dance, 2015. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. A novella about a man recovering from a broken back in jail. Piccirilli (1965-2015) specialized in crime, horror, and weird short stories. This is one of 750 copies published shortly before he died of complications of a stroke and brain tumor. 108 pages. First edition (first printing). A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. Signed "TP" on the limitation, Piccirilli's practice at the time.

Baltimore, MD: Cemetery Dance, 2015. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. Twenty-two short stories. Piccirilli (1965-2015) specialized in crime, horror, and weird short stories. This is one of 750 copies published shortly before he died of complications of a stroke and brain tumor. First edition (first printing). A fine copy in a fine jacket. Signed "TP" on the title page, as typical of his late signatures.

New Orleans: B.E. Trice, 2001. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. The third book to feature Billy Bob Holland. One of 150 numbered, signed, and specially bound copies in burgundy cloth. Issued in a matching cloth slipcase, with a tipped-on illustration by Russell Chatham. First edition (bound from first printing Simon & Schuster sheets). Small whitish spot on the front board in a very good slipcase with some fraying to the slipcase seams.

Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1992. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Near fine. The first Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch novel. Winner of the Edgar Award for best mystery. 375 pages. First edition (first printing; numberline ending in 1). A near fine copy in a near fine dust jacket with a bit of wear and bumping at the spine ends. Signed by the author with an early, almost-legible signature. No belly-band on this copy (some copies came with a money-back guarantee band around the jacket).

New York: Greenberg, 1929. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. 311 pages. The author's first mystery in book form, following several romance novels. A number of her mystery stories were serialized in newspaper beginning in the late 1920s. In this book, an unscrupulous stock promoter is murdered and in his will is a reward of $5,000 for anyone who can catch his killer. NYPD is on the case but the dead man's secretary solves the mystery. Based on newspaper records, this novel first began appearing in papers in early 1929, many months before the stock market crash of 1929 made everyone aware of the volume of shady stock deals propping up the American economy. About Austin not much is known. She published ten novels between 1927 and 1933 and a final mystery in 1939. The Black Pigeon is uncommon, even though it went through at least three printings in the US and was also published in England. First edition (first printing). Very good in a very good dust jacket.

New York: Minton, Balch & Company, 1927. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. A detective novel set in Vancouver, British Columbia's Chinatown. The main character, Donegal Dawn, is a mysterious amateur detective and master of disguise called in by the police to solve particularly perplexing cases. Dawn is particularly adept at passing unnoticed in the Asian quarter of the city. His ethnic background is a mystery, according to the narrator, "the confusion of races submerged identity." The novel was filmed as The Secrets of Chinatown in 1935. The author spent his career as a journalist in Toronto who wrote crime novels on the side. This novel was published the same year in London as King of the World. First edition (first printing, with the same date on the copyright page and the title page). A very good copy in yellow-orange cloth-covered boards and a one-color dust jacket (printed in black, with halftones used for gray). The jacket, which preserves its $2.00 price on the flap, has small… Read More

London: Bantam Press, 2019. First British edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First book in the Black Sun trilogy, and the author's, a war correspondent, first book. First UK edition. A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. Signed by the author on the title page.

Tucson, AZ: Dennis McMillan, 1997. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. One of 300 numbered copies, signed by Connelly and bound in quarter-leather with a fully illustrated dust jacket. The publisher also issued a signed and numbered version and there was a trade issue. The priority of these competing versions is not known to your cataloguer. This was a stand-alone novel, about an FBI agent with a heart transplant who solves the mystery of the death of his organ donor. Connelly later incorporated this storyline into his Bosch novels. The novel was filmed in 2002 with Clint Eastwood directing and starring in the movie. First edition (signed, limited). A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. Still sealed in the publisher's shrinkwrap. In a fine slipcase. This is copy 189.

Philadelphia and New York: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1972. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. The sixth Travis McGee mystery, originally published as a paperback original in 1965 and in hardcover in the UK in 1967. This is the first US hardcover edition and one of the earliest McGee titles to be published in that format in America. First edition (first printing with no statement of later printings). A very good copy in a very good dust jacket. Slight spine slant and light shelfwear to the boards. The jacket is a touch spine faded, as usual, with wear to the corners. The jacket is the correct first printing jacket, with the code 1072 and a $5.95 price on the front flap. A very presentable copy of an uncommon hardcover.

London: Sphere, 2018. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. A book in the Mitford Murders series. First edition (first printing, with a numberline ending in 1). A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. Signed by the author on the title page.

Tokyo: Chuokoron-shinsha, 2020. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. In addition to being a prolific novelist, Murakami has done extensive translation work, including bringing many American writers like Raymond Carver, Raymond Chandler, Ursula LeGuin, Truman Capote, J. D. Salinger, and Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby) into Japanese. Translation, with running, is one of his main avocations, something he does for fun. This is a translation of John Grisham's Camino Island, a book about Fitzgerald manuscripts stolen from the Princeton Library. A small number of copies signed by Murakami were offered to bookstores in Japan and this is one of those, signed in Japanese above a rubber stamp of Murakami's name in English. 413, [3] pages. 5-1/2 by 7-3/4 inches. First edition (first printing, with the publication date and "初版" on the second line of the colophon). A fine hardcover copy in a fine dust jacket and obi (wrap-around band). Signed by Murakami on the front free endpaper.

Lakewood, CO: Centipede Press, 2015. Hardcover. Fine/Near fine. A complete set of the limited edition reprints of Cornell Woolrich's 1940s noir detective novels with the word "black" in the title. All six volumes have new introductions. The books are The Bride Wore Black (introduction by Stefan Dziemianowicz); The Black Curtain (Jack Seabrook); Black Alibi (John Pelan); The Black Angel (Rex Burns); The Black Path of Fear (William Hjortsberg); and Rendezvous in Black (William F. Nolan). Each of these volumes is one of 320 copies signed by the author of the introduction and the jacket artist (Matt Mahuris) and the cover designer (Jacob McMurray). The introductions and endpapers include reproductions of earlier book covers and movie posters from films based on the novels. All six books are fine in very near fine jackets, with very minor corner wear. All volumes are copy number 30 of 300 numbered copies; all are signed by the authors of the introductions and the artist and designer. A nice matched set… Read More

New York: Harper & Row, 1982. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Near fine. The 20th installment in the Travis McGee series. First edition (first printing, with a numberline ending in 1). A fine copy in a fine dust jacket, signed by MacDonald on the half-title page.

New York: Harper & Row, 1982. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Near fine. The 20th installment in the Travis McGee series. First edition (first printing, with a numberline ending in 1). A near fine copy in a near fine dust jacket with a few short edge tears. This copy is signed twice by MacDonald, the first inscription reads "For Edith with love, John and Dorothy." A second full signature is dated "6 June 1982." Your cataloguer has seen another book inscribed to Edith and Harry-apparently they were friends and knew both MacDonald and his wife Dorothy.

Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2010. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. An adventure novel about an Alexandre Dumas (père) manuscript, set in the world of rare books and here illustrated by Victor Chong. This deluxe edition is one of 500 numbered copies, signed by Perez-Reverte. 327 pages. With five moody full-page illustrations. A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. This is copy 8 of 500 signed by the author.

Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2010. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. An adventure novel about an Alexandre Dumas (père) manuscript, set in the world of rare books and here illustrated by Victor Chong. This deluxe edition is one of 500 numbered copies, signed by Perez-Reverte. 327 pages. With five moody full-page illustrations. A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. This is copy 346 of 500 signed by the author.

New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1991. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. One of 750 signed, numbered copies, with a special dust jacket, slipcase, and frontispiece illustration. First edition (first printing). A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. In a near fine slipcase with a bit of wear. This is copy 566 of 750, signed on a tipped in page.

Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1977. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Near fine. A novel about a shady real estate development about to go very badly; by the author of the Travid McGee mysteries. First edition (stated, with a numberline ending in 1). A fine copy in a near fine, price-clipped (part of the dollar sign still present) dust jacket. An especially nice copy given the bulk of the book. Signed by Macdonald on the half-title.