IMPRESSIVE IMPRINTS: Main Line Mysteries

Sometime in the mid 1940s Lippincott introduced their most successful and long-running mystery imprint after abandoning the "Masked Man" idea. Main Line Mysteries made use of a clever logo showing a train engine with smoke trailing out of the smokestack in the form of a question mark with the logo name in a railroad crossing sign. The design also doubles as a stylized skull and cross bones. The series began about 1943, flourished throughout the 1950s and ended sometime around 1967. Authors included such stalwart mystery icons as William Irish, Edmund Crispin, Frances & Richard Lockridge and Patricia Wentworth. They also signed on lesser known writers with fairly long careers such as Paul Whelton and his private eye series featuring Garry Dean and Stewart Sterling who created one of the first arson investigator detectives, Fire Marshall Ben Pedley.

As a publisher that began with nursing textbooks it should come as no surprise that the editors were drawn to medical mysteries and detective novels with hospital settings. I found a slew of them in my research and added a few of the DJs from those books to the assortment below. Can't be a coincidence, IMO.

After-Dinner Story (1944)

Darkness of Slumber (1944)

Deadline at Dawn (1944)

Call the Lady Indiscreet (1946)

The Dancing Detective (1946)

Rx for Murder (1946)

Angels Are Painted Fair (1947)
The Main Line Mysteries logo appeared on the DJ spine panel, spine of book, and the title page

Blood Is a Beggar (1946)

Where There's Smoke (1946)

Dead and Dumb (1947)
published in the UK under its better known title: Swan Song

Dead Wrong (1947)

Dead Man Blues (1948)

Diagnosis: Homicide (1950)
An Edgar Award winner for Best Short Story

The Ivory Dagger (1951)

Ladies' Bane (1952)

Death and the Gentle Bull (1954)

Live Bait for Murder (1955)

Murder Is Insane (1956)

The Cactus Shroud (1957)

Death Paints a Portrait (1958)

Clues for Dr. Coffee (1964)

Murder Can't Wait (1964)