Bibliomystery from H.W. Gumaer, Bookseller

New York: Viking Penguin, 2006. Hardcover. Near Fine/Near Fine. Pessl's first novel, is this 514-page literary thriller featuring Blue van Meer, a smart, serious young woman undergraduate at Harvard, who decides to write her life story as a way to rid herself of the vision of a dead Hannah Schneider, hanging three feet off the ground from the… Read more about this item

New York: The Mysterious Bookshop, 2019. Original Paper Wraps. Fine. During the December holidays in 1993, Otto Penzler's The Mysterious Bookshop on Warren Street in NYC commissioned a short story from the late mystery writer Donald E. Westlake. The only conditions were that the story was set at Christmas time and that at least part of the story… Read more about this item

New York: Knopf, 2016. Hardcover. Fine/Very Good. The award-winning Fesperman's tenth novel is a historical mystery set in New York City during World War II. It features a former North Carolina police officer, Woodrow Cain, who has left behind an estranged wife, a young daughter and a career marred by the murder of his police officer partner. Cain… Read more about this item

New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990. Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine. In the past few years there has been a revival of interest in the writing of MacDonald Harris, the pseudonymn used by Donald Heiney, sailor, writer and academic, in his fiction. This late novel was published in 1991, only two years before Heiney's death. In 1922, a young Hemingway… Read more about this item

New York: William Morrow/HarperCollins, 2001. First Edition. . Hardcover. Near Fine/Near Fine. The 15th and next-to-last book in the late McGarrity's excellent and intelligent police procedural mystery series featuring Peter McGarr, head of the Dublin Police's homicide division. This time McGarr is called on to investigate the murder of a famous Irish biographer in a case that leads… Read more about this item

New York: Delacorte Press, 1998. First Edition. . Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine. The third and last of Skom's highly praised trio of bibliomysteries featuring Professor Beth Austin, who is leading a class through the works of Charles Dickens at Midwestern University when a woman is murdered in a hospital bed in New York City. When Austin learns her mother's… Read more about this item

New York: Delacorte Press, 1995. First Edition. . Hardcover. Near Fine/Near Fine. The second of three highly-praised bibliomysteries by this Northwestern University writing and literature professor. It features Professor Beth Austin enjoying the warmth of Hawaii while on sabbatical from her frigid midwest campus as she prepares for a seminar on George Eliot's "Middlemarch." Then suddenly there are… Read more about this item

Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1952. Hardcover. Good Plus/Fair To Good. The 25th novel from the legendary mystery writing team of Frederic Dannay and his cousin, Manfred B. Lee, featuring their fictional writer and detective, Ellery Queen. This time Ellery and his father are taken at gunpoint to the Atlantic Ocean island kingdom of Abel Bendigo, wealthy international… Read more about this item

New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015. First Edition. . Hardcover. Fine/Fine. A stand-alone historical mystery from the award-winning author of the Bob Lee Swagger sniper thrillers. Very well realized characters are developed through a serial killer's diary entries, a journalist's memoirs, a prostitute's letters to her mother against a carefully-researched, 1880s London backdrop in a chase to find… Read more about this item

New York: Little Brown & Co., 2009. First Edition. . Hardcover. Near Fine/Very Good. The award-winning Simmons is at his best in this mystery-thriller based on Victorian novelist Charles Dickens and his unfinished work, "The Mystery of Edwin Drood." Based on actual events in Dickens' life, Simmons' "Drood," uses fiction to explore some of the unresolved mysteries of… Read more about this item

New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. First Edition. . Hardcover. Fine/Fine. The fourth novel in Dunning's bestselling bibliomystery series featuring Cliff Janeway, Denver bookseller and former cop. This time around, Janeway is asked to check on a woman friend who is sitting in a cell in a Colorado jail, accused of murdering her husband, a book collector. Janeway… Read more about this item

New York: Dutton/Penguin, 1995. First Printing, First Edition Thus. . Hardcover. Fine/Very Good. The hardcover edition of Bernie Rhodenbarr's (NYC burglar and bookshop owner) first caper, originally issued in paperback in 1977. In this one, Bernie is working on order, breakingf into a posh NYC East Side apartment, grabbing a leather-covered box and delivering it to the guy… Read more about this item

New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992. First Printing, First U.S. Edition. . Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine. This is a treat for readers who like their mysteries with a dash of wit and humor. At a hotel in Rome, a forum on unfinished works of music and literature has been convened to bring closure to Charles Dickens last and uncompleted… Read more about this item

New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. First Edition, First Printing. . Hardcover. Fine/Fine. Beechey's second humorous mystery featuring children's book author and amateur sleuth Oliver Swithin, creator of the Finsbury the Ferret series. Swithin has been commissioned to write a satirical article on modern religious practices from the point of view of his athiest ferret and finds himself… Read more about this item

New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011. First Edition, First Printing. . Hardcover. Very Fine/Very Fine. Lavender's second novel, a psychological thriller and bibliomystery, is as good a read as his bestselling first book, 'Obedience.' In 'Dominance,' Professor Alex Shipley must solve the multiple mysteries surrounding three murders and a famous author's true identity. Signed by Lavender on the… Read more about this item

New York: HarperCollins, 1991. First Edition, First Printing. . Hardcover. Near Fine/Near Fine. Hitt, a senior editor at "Harper's" magazine, created Tim, a man with a '90s sensibilities and '80s wealth, who, having decided to murder his wife, calls together his "advisors" -- Lawrence Block, Sarah Caudwell, Tony Hillerman, Peter Lovesey and Donald E. Westlake -- to help… Read more about this item

New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993. First Edition, First Printing. . Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine. The second novel in Monfredo's fine, historically accurate mystery series set in Seneca Falls, NY, site of the first Women's Rights Convention in 1848, again features town librarian, Glynis Tryon. It is 1854, seven years before the Civil War, and Glynis is facing major… Read more about this item

New York: HarperCollins, 2008. First Printing, First U.S. Edition. . Hardcover. Near Fine/Near Fine. Upson's first novel is this elegant and original historical bibliomystery set in England in 1934 and featuring, in addition to Detective Inspector Archie Penrose, one of the great mystery writers of the 20th century, Josephine Tey. Tey, traveling from Scotland to London by train… Read more about this item

New York: Crown/Random House, 2001. First Edition, First Printing. . Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine. Rabb's second novel is a mystery-thriller featuring Ian Pearse, a young American priest working as a researcher at the Vatican Library, who comes into possession of an ancient scroll after the mysterious death of one priest and the disappearance of another. Translation of the scroll… Read more about this item

Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2007. First Edition, First Printing. . Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. Clarke's second novel is in a league with such classics as "Catch 22," "A Confederacy of Dunces," and "Little Big Man." A novel disguised as a memoir and a bibliomystery cloaked in humor, this book is about truth and honesty… Read more about this item