
1956 Dutton hardcover, first edition

cover art attributed to Mitchell Hooks

1950 Gold Medal paperback original
cover art by Barye Phillips

new cover art by Barye Phillips
better image than previously posted

1956 Gold Medal paperback original
cover art by Barye Phillips
better image than previously posted

cover art by Kirwin

1947 Farrar Strauss hardcover


1948 Penguin/Signet reissue – cover art by Robert Jonas


1954 Signet reissue – cover art by Saul Tepper



Mitchell Hooks (American, 1923-2013)
Gouache on board, 30 x 18-1/4 inches (76.2 x 46.4 cm)
Initialed center right: MH


cover art by Albert Drake
Frederick C. Davis, “Man About Murder”
T.T. Flynn, “I’ll Bet Your Life!” (Mr. Maddox)
Robert Martin, “Doctor of Doom”
Richard Dermody, “Cupid for Cash” (Doc Pierce)
Dean Evans, “Dreams Get Blasted, Too”
Russell Branch, “A Corpse Had Cold Feet”

[updated 5/12/25]

cover art by William Reusswig
T.T. Flynn, “Torture Tavern” (Val Easton vs. Black Doctor)
Ralph Oppenheim, “The Death Lady” (Glen Kelsey, PI)
Frederick Nebel, “Scrambled Murder” (Cardigan)
Edward Parrish Ware, “The Gallows Cure”

April 1921 issue
cover art by William Grotz
~ John Baer, “Partners in Crime”, 4th of 24 stories in BM
~ Hamilton Craigie, “The Lap of the Lady”, shop lifting and female impersonation, last of 7 solo stories in BM
~ Eric A. Darling, “The Pigtail of Wi-Wing-Ho”, ‘Chinese; diamond hidden in pigtail’, last of 5 stories in BM
~ Walter Deffenbaugh, “The Second Safe”, ‘safe-cracker, narrator’, 2nd of 14 stories in BM
~ Ford Douglas, “The Mardi Gras Souvenir”, ‘”Complete Mystery Novelette”, 1st-person narrator’, 1st of 4 stories in BM
~ Gaius Drew, “Murder Magic”, ‘Benson the Houseman’, 1st of 2 stories in BM
~ Clinton [aka Charles] Harcourt, “The Hold-Up on Napoleon Boulevard”, ‘Barney Fagan, thief’, 5th of 6 stories in BM
~ Marc Edmond Jones, “Death’s Bridegroom”, author’s only appearance in BM
~ C.S. Montanye (Carleton Stevens), “What the Moonlight Revealed”, 8th of 29 stories in BM
~ Hubert de Tavanne Roussel, “The Stained Paper”, ‘short-short’, and “The Yellow Stripe”, ‘set in the Kalahari Desert (South Africa)’, 2nd and 3rd of 7 stories in BM
~ Ward Sterling, “The Riddle of the Tattooed Men”, 1st of 2 stories in this issue (see Ward), 7th of 16 stories under this name in BM
~ John D. Swain, “Mahogany Brogues”, ‘cocaine addict kills bully on NYC subway’, 1st of 2 stories in BM
~ Harold Ward, “Under the Crimson Skull”, ‘two detectives & Cora Morgan, “government operative’, 2nd story in this issue, 13th of 29 stories under this name in BM [19th and 20th of 46 stories in BM under three different names – Ward Sterling and H.W. Starr]
©Seattle Mystery Bookshop

cover art by Tom Lovell
better image than previously posted
Frederick C. Davis, “The Coming of the Mad Ones”
Paul Ernst, “Corpses in the Barn”
H.M. Appel, “We Are the Damned”
Clark Clayton, “Breakfast for the Dying”
Dale Clark, “Hounds of the Restless Dead”
Wayne Rogers, “Satan’s Slave Market”

cover art by Rafael DeSoto
better image than previously posted
Stewart Sterling, “Bull-Market for the Dying”
Francis K. Allan, “Am I the Corpse’s Keeper?“
William R. Cox, “Beware the Black Queen” (Tom Kincaid)
Wayne Rogers, “Murder Town”
Dane Gregory, “All at Once—No Wednesday!“
Russell Gray, “Death Hitch-Hikes South”