August 1940 issue ~ cover art by Rafael DeSoto

August, 1940 issue

better image than previously posted

cover art by Rafael DeSoto

~ Wyatt Blassingame, “10,001 Motives for Murder”, 2nd of 6 stories with The Bishop, political writer on a Southern newspaper, 60ish and peg-legged, 4th of 8 stories in BM

~ George Harmon Coxe, “Case and the Blonde Wren”, 19th of 25 with Flashgun Casey; ‘Wren = Women’s Royal Naval Service officer’, 23rd of 29 stories in BM

~ G.T. Fleming-Roberts, “Rats Breed Rats”, ‘Detective Sergeant Bill Teed, tough cop, & Pop Walter, sentimental reporter’, 1st of 8 stories in BM

~ Eaton K. Goldthwaite, “The Frame Didn’t Fit”, ‘Duke Brian & Franny Steinmetz, ‘ex-felons from Philly’, now private dicks, more or less, Brian narrates’, 1st of 5 stories in BM

~ John Graham, “Too Tough”, ‘Vic Smail, kidnapper’, 2nd of 2 stories in BM

~ Charles E. Jestings, “Jim Gregg: A Prison Poem”, 2nd of 2 stories in BM

~ Stewart Sterling (pseud. of Prentice Winchell), “Ten Carats of Lead”, 1st of 9 stories with ‘Special Squad (pawnshop detail), NYPD, & Det. Mike Hansard’, reprinted in The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories (Vintage, 2010), 4th of 12 stories

~ Roger Torrey, “Murder – For No Reason”, ‘debut of Bryant (4 stories), a regular U.S. Army man, who works in a CCC camp; 1st-person narrator’, 46th of 50 appearances in BM

©Seattle Mystery Bookshop

cover art by Ernest Chiriacka

Gouache on board, 22 x 16-1/2 inches (55.9 x 41.9 cm)
Signed and dated lower right

The work is published in The Bramble Bush by David Duncan (Macmillan, 1948).

1953 Pocket reissue

cover art by James Meese

1953 Bantam reissue

cover art by James Meese