The So Blue Marble by Dorothy B. Hughes

Dell Mystery edition of The So Blue Marble from 1946

The So Blue Marble is Dorothy B. Hughes' first novel and foray into mysteries, a genre to which she would go on to dedicate the majority of her career. Hughes was one of the more talented and recognized female mystery writers of the 20th century, and The So Blue Marble marks the beginning of her fun-to-read stories of suspense from 1940. This Inspector Tobin mystery follows former movie star Griselda Satterlee as she comes to glittery, mid-century New York City to relax and stay in her ex-husband's apartment while he's away. Griselda quickly finds herself in the center of a plot to regain an ancient blue marble, which feature the identical, sinister Montefierrow twins, who are convinced that Griselda has the eponymous marble. The reader learns that the marble apparently holds a secret, ancient formula which can be used to master gravity. As bodies pile up around the city, Griselda must work with Inspector Tobin to get the twins off her back and end the string of murders. While the driving force of the plot is a little farfetched, Hughes' book is incredibly engaging to read and one will quickly overlook how fantastical it is. Featuring great cover art of the twins' matching top hats in a pool of blood (by an unknown illustrator), this Dell Mystery edition is a wonderful artifact of the genre.

Back cover featuring the convenient Crime Map, which depicts the relevant areas where a murder took place

The Iron Clew by Alice Tilton

Hardcover first edition of The Iron Clew from 1947

Pictured above is the eighth and final installment of Phoebe Atwood Taylor's Leonidas Witherall mystery series (writing under the pen name Alice Tilton). Published by Farrar, Straus and Company (before Giroux was around), The Iron Clew continues the story of Leonidas Witherall, an anonymous mystery writer himself whose novels recount the adventures of Lieutenant Hazeltine, who is interrupted from his pastime when he must attend a dinner at fellow banker Fenwick Balderston's home. Upon arriving Balderston has been murdered with a bust of Shakespeare, and Leonidas and his band of helpers must set out to solve his murder. Tilton's Witherall novels are all engaging murder mysteries but of a lighter, more whimsical sort, and she comes up with some of the best names in fiction. While the cover of my copy is unfortunately slightly torn at the top, it still shows one the best book cover illustrations I've come across by Ronald Clyne. These mysteries are obviously dated, having been written over half a century ago, but they still exist as a unique, sardonic take on a genre that is almost always overly serious.

Purgatory Street by Roman McDougald

First edition from 1946, published as an Inner Sanctum Mystery under Simon and Schuster

This beautiful pulp-mystery by Roman McDougald (his third book) tells the story of Mona and her husband Chan, who has just returned home from World War II. Except that Chan is not the same man he was before the war—at all. As Mona falls deeply in love with this impostor, she must come to face the grim reality that he has murdered her husband to claim his inheritance and will invariably have to kill again. This simple story from over half a century ago is fun to read despite being incredibly dated. Published by Simon and Schuster as part of their Inner Sanctum Mystery series, Purgatory Street also features amazing jacket design and illustration by H. Lawrence Hoffman.

Rear cover featuring an advertisement for The Widow-Makers by Michael Blankfort

Dagger of the Mind by Kenneth Fearing

Bestseller Mystery edition from 1941 

Originally published by Random House in 1941, Kenneth Fearing's Dagger of the Mind was reprinted in this digest-sized Bestseller Mystery (published by Lawrence Spivak) softcover later the same year. According to the title page, "Titles for the Bestseller Mystery are chosen from those mysteries which have had a large and continuing sale. Sometimes they are reprinted in full, but more often they are cut to speed up the story—always, of course, with the permission of the author or his publisher. This book has not been cut." Publishing has come a long way since 1941 and, thankfully, Fearing's second novel was spared from being ellipsed in any way. Fearing was a progressive mystery writer who began as a poet and brought new stylistic twists to a genre that was usually pretty formulaic. This book, although out of print since the 1960's, along with Fearing's other novels (a couple are currently in print on NYRB) definitely deserve reading.

Close-up of the Bestseller Mystery logo on the back cover

Big Bob by Simenon

1981 First American edition of Big Bob by Simenon

Another book from Simenon's series of "psychological novels," Big Bob was originally published in France in 1954. The reader learns that the eponymous Bob has died on the second page, and the rest of the novel is spent investigating his life and supposedly accidental death. Big Bob is an engaging character study in reverse, from his death forward, and is one of Simenon's better non-Maigret, psychological books in my opinion. This book is maybe most amazing for its cover art designed by Bascove (signed with the "B" on the front cover), who did the covers of most Simenon novels published in America by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Mr. Arkadin "by" Orson Welles

A more recent printing of Mr. Arkadin

This is a newer copy of the novelization of Mr. Arkadin—Welles' largely unsuccessful 1955 film—that remains more or less true to its film counterpart. Combined with the aura of Harvey Lime and the supposed missing memoirs of arms dealer Basil Zaharoff, Welles created what has been referred to as a sort of Citizen Kane in reverse. The film, which was never totally finished and features Welles sporting an insane fake beard, flopped after being edited down into a few different versions. In an attempt to recoup some of the film's losses, Welles sold Mr. Arkadin in book form. The reason the word "by" in the title of this post is in quotations is because Welles more than likely didn't write any of it himself—his assistant was charged with that task and then signed Welles' name to it. In certain ways the book is better than the film because it is a good, consistent and fully-realized story; on the other hand Welles didn't really write any of the book though.

Sunday by Simenon

First edition of Sunday

Above is a first British edition copy of Simenon's Sunday, first published in 1960 by Hamish Hamilton. While this isn't one of Simenon's best books in my opinion, it centers around a pretty decent love triangle and some class issues, which are always interesting. But better than this psychological novel is the amazing cover art by P. Youngman Carter. Carter (sometimes credited as just Youngman Carter) did the illustrations for a number of Simenon novels, as well as the covers for many other British mystery novels and editions from the 1930's up through the 1960's. It should also be said that they are not easy to find and usually worth a pretty penny.