Crime Fiction 3

Bless me Blogosphere for I have sinned. It is six months since I last posted on Eye Candy For Bibliophiles. My first act of contrition, after a few hail Marys, will be to continue on with my crime fiction collection, in particular a set of Sherlock Holmes novels by Arthur Conan Doyle.

The set was published by Ballantine Books in the mid 1970s. Cover art is not credited.

Next, an omnibus by Australian crime writer Peter Corris, starring his Aussie style hard boiled detective Cliff Hardy.  This edition was published in1986 by Picador.

A few more Edmund Crispin mysteries… these editions published by Mysterious Press in 1984.

And finally for crime writers whose names begin with “c”, A Leaven of Malice by Clare Curzon, a Hamlyn Whodunnit, probably published in the late 70s or early 80s

Having taken the plunge, I will endeavour to post more regular updates on this blog, perhaps even tomorrow.

Anyway, coming next – more crime fiction from authors whose names start with ”d”. Come to think of it, Conan Doyle could have been catalogued under this letter.

Crime – Penguin Crime

For the next however many posts it takes me to write about old paperback crime, I trust you will find it amusing, edifying and of course, eye pleasing.
I’ll start with Penguin Crime, which was distinguished in the 1960s and early 1970s with classy covers. I don’t have than many of them, but do have a smallish Penguin Crime collection.

First The Beckoning Lady an Albert Campion detective mystery by Margery Allingham, published by Penguin in 1978.



John Franklin Bardin is best known for three novels The Deadly Percheron, The Last of Phillip Banter and Devil Take The Blue Fly, which were published in an omnibus by Penguin in 1979. They are noir psychological thrillers, very atmospheric and excruciatingly tense. The Deadly Percheron cracks a mention in the film Mona Lisa.



I don’t know much about about Sarah Caudwell or remember anything about this novel of hers in my crime bookshelf. (pub 1986)



Raymond Chandler needs no introduction. The Phillip Marlowe novels still hold up after all this time and remain the classic hard boiled detective fiction on which all others are styled. These Penguin editions were all issued between 1976 and 1978.





G K Chesterton author of the bizarre fantasy, The Man Who Was Thursday, also wrote a series of short stories featuring Father Brown. Penguin published The Complete Father Brown in 1981.



And finally for this entry a 1971 of Edmund Crispin’s The Moving Toyshop with a classic old green Penguin cover design .



To be continued with more Penguin Crime