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.

Homicide for Hannah x 4

1941 Knopf hardcover, 1945 Avon reissue

cover art by Paul Stahr

published by Hale in the UK as Murder for Hannah

better image than previously posted

1951 Avon reissue

1943 Avon Murder Mystery Monthly digest

cover art by William Frost (William Forrest)

1941 Knopf hardcover, first edition

The second appearance of the character Hanna Van Doren, considered the first female hard-boiled detective in American literature.”

December 1951 issue ~ cover art by Ann Cantor

December 1951

cover art by Ann Cantor

Art taken from paperback Murder Mystery Monthly #47 (1949), titled “The Blonde, The Gangster and the Private Eye” by Dale Clark.

pseudonym of Ronal Kayser

1946 Messner hardcover as The Red Rods

1949 Avon release with new title