Month: August 2025

cover art by George Geygan

George Geygan (American, 20th Century)
Dig Me A Grave by John Spain (Bantam, 1951)
Oil on canvas, 22 x 15-1/2 inches (55.9 x 39.4 cm)
Signed lower right: geygan

pseudonym of Cleve F. Adams

1942 Dutton hardcover

first book published under this pen name

1st of two with private eye Bill Rye

1944 Avon digest

1945 Avon digest reissue, 2nd edition

Gathers “Blackmailers Don’t Shoot,” “Goldfish,” “Guns at Cyrano’s” “Nevada Gas” and “Spanish Blood,” five mystery stories first published in Black Mask Magazine

better image than previously posted

1st printing, Feb. 3, 1944

Five Sinister Characters x 2

1945 Avon Murder Mystery Monthly digest

cover art by Paul Stahr

Avon Book Company, [1946]. Small octavo, pictorial wrappers. Second paperback edition. Avon #88. Published earlier by Avon in 1945 as part of their “Murder Mystery Monthly” series. Collects five stories; “I’ll Be Waiting,” “The King in Yellow,” “Pearls Are a Nuisance,” ” Red Wind,” and “Trouble is My Business.” Light crease to front cover, light stress creases to spine, a near fine copy.

December 1933 issue ~ cover art by Fred Craft

December 1933 issue

better image than previously posted

cover art by Fred Craft

~ John L. Chambliss, “The Contact”, NYC PI Schuyler Blake, only appearance in BM

~ Raymond Chandler, “Blackmailers Don’t Shoot”, his debut in BM, his first published writing, 1st of 2 with PI Mallory, 1st of 11 stories in BM, first book appearance in Five Murderers (Avon digest, 1944), reprinted in Red Wind (Tower hc, 1946), The Smell of Fear (Hamish Hamilton/UK hc, 1965), Midnight Raymond Chandler (Houghton Mifflin hc, 1971), The Black Mask Boys (Morrow, 1985)

~ Eugene Cunningham, “Chalk”, 2nd of 5 with undercover Texas Ranger Cleve Corby, 8th of 14 stories in BM

~ Tom Curry, “Clancy Takes the Air”, Clancy, NYPD 1st grade dick, author’s last of 39 stories in BM

~ Erle Stanley Gardner, “Dead Men’s Shoes”, 53th of 73 Ed Jenkins stories, ‘The Phantom Crook’ with Ngat T’oy, 77th of 99 stories in BM

~ Raoul [Fauconnier] Whitfield, “Murder Again”, ‘L.A. County dicks; Hollywood story’, 65th of 67 stories in BM [see also 24 stories as Ramon Decolta]

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