Marvin Minkler Modern First Editions

08/17/2026

Even The Wicked.
Ed McBain.
First Avon Books Printing. Pbk. 1991
Originally published under the pseudonym Richard Marsten in 1958.

Found this near fine and unread copy at a yard sale.
At 117 pages it could almost be a novella.
The police called the death of newscaster Zach Blake's wife an accident. But championship swimmers don't drown "accidentally."
Hailed as a master of the police procedurals, this is one of his early crime novels, before the 87th Precinct bestsellers.

08/16/2026

The Invisible Crusade.
The Adventures of Zana O'Savin #5
Craig McDonald.
Night Town Books. Ohio First Edition/Inscribed Hardcover.

When I first unpacked the box and opened the wrapping paper, the first thing that struck me was the incredible artwork that filled the front of the hardcover book drawn by the also incredible artist, Douglas Klauba, and cover designer, JT Lindroos. Superbly capturing the legendary adventurer, Zana O'Savin against a darkened sinister background.
Opening the book to a humbling inscription from the award-winning author and creator of the Zana O'Savin series, Craig McDonald, my day was made.
The endlessly entertaining Zana O'Cavin saga began with, The Blood Ogre, followed by; The Mothman Menace, The Death Killers and The Night Shepard.
The Invisible Crusade #5, will bring to a close the riveting homage to the stories that laid the foundation for the golden age of rip-roaring yarns, of the 20's, 30's, and 40's, and brought back Pulp Fiction to a new generation of new readers of the genre.
Pulp lives.

08/16/2026

Found in used book store yesterday. Had never seen this U. K. edition of the novel.

The Maltese Falcon.
Dashiell Hammett.
Crime Master Works 1.
Orion Books. London, U.K. 2002.

"Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse...he did over and over again what only the best writers can ever do at all," Raymond Chandler.

08/15/2026

Found in a used book store for $2.00.
Masques.
Bill Pronzini.
Black Lizard Books.
Berkely. CA. 1988 Pbk First Edition.
Cover art: Kirwan.
The city of New Orleans has gone mad, and Steve Giroux has gone mad for it. Or had he? Fleeing one woman, Giroux found himself hooked up with another during Mardi Gras. With Jelly Roll Morton's "Cannonball Blues" pounding in the background, and countless shots of vodka down his throat, he couldn't have cared less, until he found out about the murders.
From one of the most prolific and talented crime writers in our time.

08/13/2026

The Last Good Kiss → The Mexican Tree Duck → The Right Madness.
The Wrong Case → Dancing Bear → The Final Country.
Bordersnakes

James Crumley was a first-rate American writer, and he explored the American West and its mythology as well as anyone, its damaged people, its land, its drug and booze filled antics.
His high caliber crime novels listed above are for anyone who likes their fiction tough and tenacious, funny, violent, and at many times poetic.
Damn, he could write.

08/13/2026

The Muddy Fork & Other Things.
Short Fiction and Nonfiction.
James Crumley
Clark City Press. Livingston, Montana - First Edition
1991

"There was a time. It didn't start with the Vietnam War, and it didn't quit just because we did. Maybe it started with Elvis mumbling something to Ed Sullivan, and maybe it ended with the Arabs squeezing our nuts at the gas pumps. But somewhere in there, I swear, there was a time when we were free. Our choices were our own, and they seemed important. Black was beautiful, fat was funny, and hairy legs mingled when love was free."
"But that was then and this is now. The insidious forces of oppression have taken a form we never would have guessed."

- from The Mexican Tree Duck, a novel in progress. - Novel beginnings, The Muddy Fork and Other Things.

08/11/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1cBmd9Eptz/

On the "keep watch" list.

Forthcoming now from LOA.

08/11/2026

The World's Finest Mystery & Crime Stories.
Third Annual Collection.
Edited by Ed Gorman & Martin H.
Greenberg
A Tom Doherty Book/Forge. NY. October 2022.
First Edition/First Printing. Hardcover.

The first fifty pages are backed with valuable and fascinating material, and this is before the reader has even started the stories.
Stories included from around the world, Germany, Belgium, and the U.K. Winners of the Silver Dagger, Edgar Award, and other major awards in the field.
Writers include: Lawrence Block, Jeffrery Deaver, Joyce Carol Oates, Nancy Picard, Donald E. Westlake, Max Allen Collins, Peter Lovesey, S. J. Rozen, Ed McBain, Val McDermid, Bill Pronzini, Marcia Muller, Bill Crider, Wolfgang Burger and many others.

08/08/2026

The Twenty-Year Death.
Ariel S. Winter.
Hard Case Crime. NY. First Edition.
August 2012 - Hardcover.
Cover painting for HC Crime by Charles Pyle.
A unique and ingenious debut crime novel, written in the form of three separate novels, each set in a different decade and written in the style of a different giant of the mystery noir genre.
Georges Simenon? Raymond Chandler? Jim Thompson?
The novel was printed in paperback and this special edition is the hardcover one from Hard Case Crime.. See less