Best of
Mystery

1953

Black Wings Has My Angel


Elliott Chaze - 1953
    The one book Black Lizard never published, it's the dream-like tale of a man after a jailbreak, who meets up with the woman of his dreams... and his nightmares. Phenomenal work of the period, ranking with the best efforts of Thompson, Woolrich, Goodis et al.

The Happy Hollisters


Jerry West - 1953
    First, the moving van carrying their toys and their father's important new invention disappears. Next, they learn that their house may be haunted, with a treasure hidden somewhere inside! Right away they all set out to solve these mysteries. Each one of the Hollister children - Pete (age 12), Pam (10), Ricky (7), Holly (6) and Sue (4) - plays an important role in finding clues, along with their parents who are always ready to join in on the excitement. Even Zip, the collie, and White Nose, the cat, are part of the family, and find thrilling adventures of their own. As the Hollisters explore their new town and make friends, they discover what happened to the moving van, and learn more about the mystery surrounding their new home. Excitement abounds when a secret stairway is discovered. Then, on the trail of a mysterious intruder, their chase leads them to a deserted hut on nearby Blackberry Island. Over seventy action-packed illustrations make the story- and the Hollister family- so vivid that the reader has a feeling of really sharing in on the adventures of this lovable and interesting family.

This Rough Magic


Mary Stewart - 1953
    Her work as an actress has temporarily come to a halt. She believes there is no finer place to be "at liberty" than the sun-drenched isle of Corfu, the alleged locale for Shakespeare's The Tempest. Even the suspicious actions of the handsome, arrogant son of a famous actor cannot dampen her enthusiasm for this wonderland in the Ionian Sea.But the peaceful idyll does not last long. A series of incidents, seemingly unconnected - but all surrounded in mystery - throws Lucy's life into a dangerous spin, as fear, danger and death - as well as romance - supplant the former tranquility. Then a human corpse is carried ashore on the incoming tide... And without warning, she found she had stumbled into a nightmare of strange violence, stalked by shadows of terror and sudden death.

Murder-Go-Round: Thirteen at Dinner, The A.B.C. Murders, Funerals are Fatal


Agatha Christie - 1953
    Murders: A is for Ascher, cudgeled in Andover. B is for Barnard, strangled in Bexhill. C is for Clarke, struck down in Churston. Beside each body is an A.B.C. Railway guide; before each murder Hercule Poirot is notified. In one of Christie's most twisted tales, the meticulous Belgian sleuth must navigate the eerie maze of a serial killer's mind. D is for Doncaster, where the next victim dies ... E is for evidence, ingeniously analyzed.Funerals are Fatal: Richard Abernethie's unscrupulous relatives, interested only in their respective shares of the rich man's estate, become suspects in Hercule Poirot's search for a killer.

Witness for the Prosecution: A Play in Three Acts


Agatha Christie - 1953
    A young married man spends many evenings with a rich old woman. When she is found murdered, the naive young man is the chief suspect. The testimony of his wife is expected to result in an acquittal, but she is a shrew who damages his case and all but hangs him before a vindictive mystery woman appears with evidence that will change everything."A walloping success."-Herald Tribune"Packs plenty of surprise in its cargo of suspense."-Daily MirrorWinner of the New York Critics Circle Award

Dead Low Tide


John D. MacDonald - 1953
    MacDonald, the mastermind behind Cape Fear and the Travis McGee novels. On the coast of Florida, a working stiff is wrongfully accused of murdering his boss—and must outwit one of MacDonald’s signature villains to save his life.Introduction by Dean KoontzA college graduate and amateur fisherman, Andy McClintock is stuck toiling in the office of a construction company. But when Andy tries to quit, his boss offers him a promotion and a raise—and then promptly kills himself with a harpoon gun. At least, that’s what it looks like, until the police rule it homicide—with the murder weapon belonging to Andy.The harpoon gun had been stolen out of Andy’s garage, and the boss’s wife makes the outrageous claim that she and Andy were having an affair. He’s been set up. To clear his name, he’ll have to find the real killer. But Andy soon discovers that he’s up against more than a two-bit thief—he’s been targeted by absolute evil, a monster with no compassion for his fellow man.Praise for John D. MacDonald and Dead Low Tide“John D. MacDonald was the great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller.”—Stephen King“The writing is marked by sharp observation, vivid dialogue, and a sense of sweet warm horror.” —The New York Times “To diggers a thousand years from now, the works of John D. MacDonald would be a treasure on the order of the tomb of Tutankhamen.”—Kurt VonnegutFrom the Trade Paperback edition.

The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume II


Mickey Spillane - 1953
    With his trend-setting Mike Hammer detective novels, Mickey Spillane shot to superstardom as one of the most notorious bestselling sensations in publishing history. This powerhouse collection includes three of the master's long-out-of-print greatest novels-together for the first time in one explosive volume:The Big KillOne Lonely NightKiss Me, DeadlyIncludes a special introduction by Shamus and Edgar Award-winner Lawrence Block

Witness for the Prosecution


Agatha Christie - 1953
    Was Romaine Heilger another captive of handsome Leonard Vole's magnetism - his plaything? Was this young woman playing a game of deceit that would send her lover to the gallows for a crime?The accused in the prisoner's box, the judge, jury, and packed courtroom waited as Romaine mounted the stand to deliver the testimony that has made this the masterpiece of suspense and shock.

The Burglar


David Goodis - 1953
    His family happens to be a gang of burglars. Now Nat has met a woman so hypnotically seductive that he will leave his partners and his trade to possess her. But you don't get away from family that easily.The Burglar has the hallmarks that made David Goodis one of the great practitioners of the hard-boiled crime novel: a haunting identification with life's losers, and a hero who finds out who he is only by betraying everything he believes in.

A Kiss Before Dying


Ira Levin - 1953
    Now a modern classic, as gripping in its tautly plotted action as it is penetrating in its exploration of a criminal mind, it tells the shocking tale of a young man who will stop at nothing--not even murder--to get where he wants to go. For he has dreams; plans. He also has charm, good looks, sex appeal, intelligence. And he has a problem. Her name is Dorothy; she loves him, and she's pregnant. The solution may demand desperate measures. But, then, he looks like the kind of guy who could get away with murder. Compellingly, step by determined step, the novel follows this young man in his execution of one plan he had neither dreamed nor foreseen. Nor does he foresee how inexorably he will be enmeshed in the consequences of his own extreme deed.

Mr. Stimpson And Mr.Gorse


Patrick Hamilton - 1953
    There Mrs. Plumleigh-Bruce, archetypal colonel’s widow and the worst sort of dog-owner, is holding court. She has already attracted the more or less serious attentions of Mr. Stimpson (local estate agent and subterranean lecher) and Major Parry (something of a poet since his retirement). To Gorse, undisturbed by her rabbity-toothed charms, she represents simply an ideal opportunity to exercise his perverse and vicious genius...“Uniquely individual... a master. He is the novelist of innocence, appallingly vulnerable, and of malevolence, coming out of some mysterious darkness of evil.” ~ J.B. Priestly “A hypnotic writer.” ~ Time Out