Category: paperback

Killer in the Rain x 6

London: Hamish Hamilton, 1964. First UK Edition, preceding all others. The first collection of these stories.

“Killer in the Rain” (Black Mask Magazine, Jan. 1935)

“The Man Who Liked Dogs” (Black Mask Magazine, Mar. 1936)

“The Curtain” (Black Mask Magazine, Sept. 1936)

“Try the Girl” (Black Mask Magazine, Jan. 1937)

“Mandarin’s Jade” (Dime Detective Magazine, Nov. 1937)

“Bay City Blues” (Dime Detective Magazine, June 1938)

“The Lady in the Lake” (Dime Detective Magazine, Jan. 1939)

“No Crime in the Mountains”(Detective Story Magazine, Sept. 1941)

introduction by Philip Durham

1st Pocket edition, December 1965

June 1973 Bantam reissue

cover art by Tom Adams

2011 Penguin UK reissue

July 1977 Ballantine mass market, 3rd print

cover art by Whistlin’ Dixie

August 25, 2013

1979 Pan/Macmillan reissue – cover photo by Robert Golden

[post reworked 7/4/25, 3/1/26]

Pickup on Noon Street x 7

1952 Pocket reissue

cover art by Tom Dunn

better image than previously posted

1956 Pocket reissue

cover art by Robert Maguire

1960 Ace edition from the UK

1965 Pocket reissue (7th printing, October of ’65)

better image than previously posted

June 1973 Ballantine reissue*

cover art by Tom Adams

1977 Ballantine mass market, 3rd print*

cover art by Whistlin’ Dixie

1980 Ballantine reissue

cover art credited to Richard Waldrep

“Pickup On Noon Street” (Detective Fiction Weekly, May 1936, originally titled “Noon Street Nemesis”)

“Smart-Aleck Kill” (Black Mask Magazine, July 1934)

“Guns at Cyrano’s” (Black Mask Magazine, Jan. 1936)

“Nevada Gas” (Black Mask Magazine, June 1936)

these stories were first gathered into a book in 1950, Houghton Mifflin’s The Simple Art of Murder

August 25, 2013

[*covers from owner’s own copies]

[updated 6/6/25]

The Simple Art of Murder x 2

June 1972 Ballantine reissue, 1st print

cover art by Tom Adams

1977 Ballantine mass market, 3rd print

includes:

“The Simple Art of Murder” (Atlantic Monthly, Dec. 1944)

“Spanish Blood” (Black Mask Magazine, Nov. 1935)

“I’ll Be Waiting” (Saturday Evening Post, Dec. 1939)

“The King in Yellow” (Dime Detective Magazine, Mar. 1938)

“Pearls are a Nuisance” (Dime Detective Magazine, April 1939)

cover art by Whistlin’ Dixie

August 25, 2013

[covers from owner’s own copies]

Trouble is My Business x 3

June 1973 Ballantine reissue

cover art by Tom Adams

1977 Ballantine mass market, 3rd printing

includes:

introduction by Raymond Chandler, originally from The Simple Art of Murder (Houghton Mifflin, 1950)

“Trouble is My Business” (Dime Detective Magazine, Aug. 1939)

“Finger Man” (Black Mask Magazine, Oct. 1934)

“Goldfish” (Black Mask Magazine, June 1936)

“Red Wind” (Dime Detective Magazine, Jan. 1938)

cover art by Whistlin’ Dixie

August 25, 2013

[covers from owner’s own copies]

2016 Penguin UK reissue

[updated 3/3/26]

Build My Gallows High/Out of the Past

1946 William Morrow, first edition.

Geoffrey Homes, Build My Gallows High, 1946 Morrow hardcover

1956 Ace Double paperback reissue

cover art by Harry Barton

basis for the 1947 film noir classic Out of the Past

better image than previously posted

[post updated 7/3/25]

1953 Gold Medal paperback original ~ cover art by Barye Phillips

1953 Gold Medal paperback original

cover art by Barye Phillips

better image than previously posted

his third book, later reprinted as The Hot Spot, made into a movie directed by Dennis Hopper in 1990, staring Don Johnson, Jennifer Connelly and Virginia Madsen