Murder is a Collector's Item by Elizabeth Dean. "(It) froths over with the same
effervescent humor as the best Hepburn-Grant films."—Sujata Massey. "Com-
pletely enjoyable."—New York Times. "Fast and funny."—The New Yorker. Twenty-
six-year-old Emma Marsh isn't much at spelling or geography and perhaps she
butchers the odd literary quotation or two, but she's a keen judge of character
and more than able to hold her own when it comes to selling antiques or solving
murders. When she stumbles upon the body of a rich collector on the floor of
the Boston antiques shop where she works, suspicion quickly falls upon her
missing boss. Emma knows Jeff Graham is no murderer, but veteran homicide
copy Jerry Donovan doesn't share her convictions, and Emma enlists the aid of
Hank Fairbanks, her wealthy boyfriend and would-be criminologist, to nab the
real killer. Originally published in 1939, Murder is a Collector's Item was the first of
three books featuring Emma. Smoothly written and sparkling with dry, sophisti-
cated humor, this nearly forgotten milestone combines an intriguing puzzle with
an entertaining portrait of a self-possessed young woman on her own in Boston
toward the end of the Great Depression.0-915230-19-4 $14.00
Murder is a Serious Business by Elizabeth Dean. It's 1940 and the Thirsty Thirties are over but you couldn't tell it by the gang at J. Graham Antiques where clerk Emma Marsh, her would-be criminologist boyfriend Hank, and boss Jeff Graham trade barbs in between shots of scotch when they aren't bothered by the rare customer. Trouble starts when Emma and crew head for a weekend at Amos Currier's country estate to inventory the man's antiques collection. It isn't long before the bodies start falling and once again Emma is forced to turn sleuth in order to prove that her boss isn't a killer. Emma is sure there's a good reason why Jeff didn't mention that he had Amos' 18th century silver muffineer hidden in his desk drawer back at the shop. Filled with the same clever dialog and eccentric characters that made Murder is a Collector's Item an absolute delight, this second Emma Marsh novel offers up an unusual approach to crime solving as well as a sidesplitting look at the peculiar world of antiques. 0-915230-28-3 $14.95
Murder, Chop Chop by James Norman. "The book has the butter-wouldn't-
melt-in-his-mouth cool of Rick in Casablanca."—The Rocky Mountain News. "Amuses
the reader no end."—Mystery Nexus. "This long out-of-print masterpiece is intri-
cately plotted, full of eccentric characters and very humorous indeed. Highly
recommended."—Mysteries by Mail. Meet Gimiendo Hernandez Quinto, a gigan-
tic Mexican who once rode with Pancho Villa and who now trains guerrilleros for
the Nationalist Chinese government when he isn't solving murders. At his side is
a beautiful Eurasian known as Mountain of Virtue, a woman as dangerous to
men as she is irresistible. Then there's Mildred Woodford, a hard-drinking Brit-
ish journalist; John Tate, a portly American calligrapher who wasn't made for
adventure; Lieutenant Chi, a young Hunanese patriot weighted down with the
cares of China and the Brooklyn Dodgers; and a host of others, anyone of whom
may have killed Abe Harrow, an ambulance driver who appears to have died at
three different times. There's also a cipher or two to crack, a train with a mind
of its own, and Chiang Kai-shek's false teeth, which have gone mysteriously miss-
ing. First published in 1942.0-915230-16-X $13.00
Death at The Dog by Joanna Cannan. "Worthy of being discussed in the same breath with an Agatha Christie or Josephine Tey...anyone who enjoys Golden Age mysteries will surely enjoy this one."—Sally Fellows, Mystery News. "Skilled writing and brilliant characterization."—Times of London. "An excellent English rural tale."—Jacques Barzun & Wendell Hertig Taylor in A Catalogue of Crime. Set in late 1939 during the first anxious months of World War II, Death at The Dog, which was first published in 1941, is a wonderful example of the classic English detective novel that first flourished between the two World Wars. Set in a picturesque village filled with thatched-roof-cottages, eccentric villagers and genial pubs, it's as well-plotted as a Christie, with clues abundantly and fairly planted, and as deftly written as the best of the books by either Sayers or Marsh, filled with quotable lines and perceptive observations on the human condition. Cannan had a gift for characterization that's second to none in Golden Age detective fiction, and she created two memorable lead characters. One of them is Inspector Guy Northeast, a lonely young Scotland Yard inspector who makes his second and final appearance here and finds himself hopelessly smitten with the chief suspect in the murder of a village tyrant. The other is the "lady novelist" Crescy Hardwick, an unconventional and ultimately unobtainable woman a number of years guy's senior, who is able to pierce his armor and see the unhappiness that haunts the detective's private moments. Well aware that all the evidence seems to point to her, she is also able—unlike her less imaginative fellow villagers—to see how very good Northeast is at his job. 0-915230-23-2 $14.00
They Rang Up the Police by Joanna Cannan. When Delia Cathcart and Major
Willoughby disappear from their quiet English village one Saturday morning in
July 1937, it looks like a simple case of a frustrated spinster running off for a bit
of fun with a straying husband. But as the hours turn into days, Inspector Guy
Northeast begins to suspect that she may have been the victim of foul play. On
the surface, Delia appeared to be a quite ordinary middle-aged Englishwoman
content to spend her evenings with her sisters and her days with her beloved
horses. But Delia led a secret life—and Guy turns up more than one person who
would like to see Delia dead. Except Delia wasn't the only person with a
secret...Never published in the United States, They Rang Up the Police appeared in
England in 1939.0-915230-27-5 $14.00
Cook Up a Crime by Charlotte Murray Russell. "Perhaps the mother of today's
"cozy" mystery...amateur sleuth Jane has a personality guaranteed to entertain
the most demanding reader."—Andy Plonka, The Mystery Reader. "Some wonder-
ful old time recipes...highly recommended."—Mysteries by Mail. Meet Jane Amanda
Edwards, a self-styled "full-fashioned" spinster who complains she hasn't looked
at herself in a full-length mirror since Helen Hokinson started drawing for The
New Yorker. But you can always count on Jane to look into other people's affairs,
especially when there's a juicy murder case to investigate. In this 1951 title Jane
goes searching for recipes (included between chapters) for a cookbook project
and finds a body instead. And once again her lily-of-the-field brother Arthur
goes looking for love, finds strong drink, and is eventually discovered clutching
the murder weapon.0-915230-18-6 $13.00
The Man from Tibet by Clyde B. Clason. Locked inside the Tibetan Room of his
Chicago luxury apartment, the rich antiquarian was overheard repeating a for-
bidden occult chant under the watchful eyes of Buddhist gods. When the doors
were opened it appeared that he had succumbed to a heart attack. But the
elderly Roman historian and sometime amateur sleuth Theocritus Lucius West-
borough is convinced that Adam Merriweather's death was anything but natural
and that the weapon was an eighth century Tibetan manuscript. If it's murder,
who could have done it, and how? Suspects abound. There's Tsongpun Bonbo,
the gentle Tibetan lama from whom the manuscript was originally stolen; Chang,
Merriweather's scholarly Tibetan secretary who had fled
a Himalayan monas-
tery; Merriweather's son Vincent, who disliked his father and stood to inherit a
fortune; Dr. Jed Merriweather, the dead man's brother, who came to Chicago to
beg for funds to continue his archaeological digs in Asia; Dr. Walters, the dead
man's physician, who guarded a secret; and Janice Sheldon, his young ward, who
found herself being pushed by Merriweather into marrying his son. How the
murder was accomplished has earned praise from such impossible crime con-
noisseurs as Robert C.S. Adey, who cited Clason's "highly original and practical
locked-room murder method."0-915230-17-8 $14.00
The Mirror by Marlys Millhiser. "Completely enjoyable."—Library Journal. "A
great deal of fun."—Publishers Weekly. How could you not be intrigued, as one
reviewer pointed out, by a novel in which "you find the main character marrying
her own grandfather and giving birth to her own mother?" Such is the situation
in Marlys Millhister's classic novel (a Mystery Guild selection originally published
by Putnam in 1978) of two women who end up living each other's lives after they
look into an antique Chinese mirror. Twenty-year-old Shay Garrett is not aware
that she's pregnant and is having second thoughts about marrying Marek Weir
when she's suddenly transported back 78 years in time into the body of Brandy
McCabe, her own grandmother, who is unwillingly about to be married off to
miner Corbin Strock. Shay's in shock but she still recognizes that the picture of
her grandfather that hangs in the family home doesn't resemble her husband-to-
be. But marry Corbin she does and off she goes to the high mining town of
Nederland, where this thoroughly modern young woman has to learn to cope
with such things as wood cooking stoves and—to her—old-fashioned attitudes
about sex. In the meantime, Brandy McCabe is finding it even harder to cope
with life in the Boulder, Co., of 1978.0-915230-15-1 $14.95
About The Rue Morgue Press
The Rue Morgue Press vintage mystery line is designed to bring back into print those books that were favorites of readers between the turn of the century and the 1960s. The editors welcome suggestions for reprints. To receive our catalog or make suggestions, write The Rue Morgue Press, P.O. Box 4119, Boulder, Colorado 80306.
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