March 1950 Pocket paperback, first printing
cover painting by Harvey Kidder
first in the long-running and deservedly respected Lew Archer series by Kenneth Millar, aka Ross Macdonald. After using his father’s name as the pen name for this novel, he was forced by John D. MacDonald to alter it for future novels, and Ross Macdonald was born.
1959, third printing
cover art by Jerry Allison
1990 Warner edition
cover art by Gary Kelley
[updated 9/6/25 ~ all copies mine]
November 1960 Pocket paperback reissue, fifth printing
cover art by Charles Binger?
better image than previously posted
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
July 1977 Ballantine mass market, 3rd print
cover art by Whistlin’ Dixie
1979 Pan/Macmillan reissue – cover photo by Robert Golden
[post reworked 7/4/25, 3/1/26]
cover art by Tom Dunn
better image than previously posted
cover art by Robert Maguire
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
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
[*covers from owner’s own copies]
[updated 6/6/25]
cover art by James Meese
better image than previously posted
December 1957 Cardinal paperback reissue, first printing
cover painting by Mitchell Hooks
better image than previously posted
cover art by Robert McGinnis
1958 Morrow hardcover, first edition of the 55th Perry Mason novel
June 1960 Pocket paperback reissue, first printing
cover art by Charles Binger?
better image than previously posted
June 1964 Pocket reissue, 6th printing
cover art by Robert McGinnis
better image than previously posted
1953 Laurie publication, this the later, 1955, Pocket paperback
February 1959 Cardinal paperback reissue, first printing
cover painting by John Fernie
better image than previously posted
November 1963 Pocket paperback reissue, 8th printing
cover painting by Robert McGinnis
better image than previously posted
one of SMB founder Bill Farley’s Top Five Mysteries of all time. Sir Eustace is a cad of the first water, with a specialty in other men’s wives, and the list of people who might want to do him in could fill a London phone book. But which of them actually sent the chocolates with their nasty hidden payload? Scotland Yard is baffled. Enter the Crime Circle, a group of society intellectuals with a shared conviction in their ability to succeed where the police have failed. Eventually, each member will produce a tightly reasoned solution to the Case of the Poisoned Chocolates, but each of those solutions will identify a different murderer. First published in 1929, this is both a classic of the golden age of mystery fiction, and one of the great puzzle-mysteries of all time.
SMB Noir 