Another bonus: the Terhune series consist entirely of bibliomysteries, a subgenre of detective novels about books and book collecting. Each mystery novel is chockful of intriguing details and lore touching on all aspects of bibliomania including, in one later book, the arcane world of book auctions.
Regular readers of this blog may recall that I reviewed Seven Clues in Search of a Crime, the first of the Theodore Terhune books, two years ago. Several comments on that post lamented that the book was impossible to find due to its scarcity and were hoping for a reprint. Voila! Sometimes your wishes come true, my friends. You just need a little patience.
I have been hired to write introductions to all of the books so you’ll get some interesting detective fiction history on how each book fits into the history of the development of the genre, as gaining insight to Graeme’s favorite themes and genre conventions. The publisher of Moonstone Press put me in touch with Graeme’s granddaughter and I was able to get some interesting anecdotes about her memories of him and bits of her emails to me have been included in the biographical section of the intro that appears in House with the Crooked Walls. He was quite a character!
RULES:
1. Open only to those who live in USA, Canada or UK.
(If you live in the EU or somewhere on the Asian continent I hope you have a friend who will accept the package for you in one of the three eligible countries.)
2. Leave a comment below and tell me the title of your favorite bibliomystery.
3. After one week I will assign entries a number then randomly select one of those numbers through an entirely unorthodox but failproof method that has nothing to do with the internet.
4. Winners will be announced here on March 24.
Good luck to all those who enter!
*** CONTEST NOW OVER ***
My favorite is: Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz. I am hoping it qualifies as a bibliomystery. I have loved everything I have read by Mr. Horowitz.
ReplyDeleteWould love to have one of this newly re-published books by Bruce Graeme.
After far too much thinking my choice is going to be Murder by the Book by Jennifer Rowe.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realise how hard a task it was to pick a title until I tried to do it. I wasn't sure how strict your definition was going to be, as some people have an elastic one which includes any mystery with a writer in, which I thought might be pushing it. Though would something like the Magpie Murders count?
Then when I did manage to find a proper bibliomystery which I had read, I then found it was one I hadn't really liked!
I am sure I will be kicking myself once everyone else submits their choices. A more accurate list of classic crime bibliomysteries would be a nice idea.
Great idea for a competition and I am glad more Graeme novels are available. Seven Clues in Search of a Crime sounds particularly intriguing.
Thank you for introducing me to Bruce Graeme. I'll be sure to explore his books. My favorite bibliomystery has long been THE KING IN YELLOW by Robert W. Chambers. I even found a copy of the original 1895 edition in Toronto's Bakka Bookshop. Many of the stories therein had long-lasting impact on more recent authors from Lovecraft on.
ReplyDeleteThe Shadow of the Wind
ReplyDeleteThat’s a wonderful book! I read the sequel too, but the first one is the better of the two.
DeleteWould Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers count? If so I'll plump for that.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to see them in print, I tried to find affordable copies of the Hale and Hare books (thanks for the reviews.) which again need to be reprinted. That reminds me someone mentioned Robert Hale publishing as next to not being published, Hale specialised in books for UK libraries especially in the 70s, so in the days before PLR (1979) but did continue after. Their early books were very collectable; the company only went bump in the mid-2010s.
Hope this makes sense as I feel a bit fatigued after my Covid jab on Saturday.
Wayne.
This is exciting news. I went ahead and ordered them, so give the copies to other deserving readers. I should have them in hand by the end of the month. Thanks for the tip!!
ReplyDelete- Richard Robinson
Thanks for buying them, Rick! The publisher told me that Amazon was going to do POD versions so US customers could get them within days rather weeks. I guess it’s going to take more time for them to set up that service. Sorry you have to wait for actual books. Looks like the eBooks are delivered instantly. That’s good.
DeleteJohn - thanks for introducing me to Bruce Graeme. As I don't live in the US, UK or Canada, I will let others enjoy your generous offer.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, House with the Crooked Walls sounds brilliant and I ordered a copy of it today to give Bruce Graeme's work a try. Looking forward to this one arriving.
I truly loved House with Crooked Walls. It’s delightfully lurid and thoroughly l creepy— haunted grotto, ghost of a corrupt monk, skeletons... Very, very Gothic! And it’s entirely different from any of the other Theo Terhune mysteries. There is some manuscript detective work so it’s still a marginal bibliomystery, but it reminded me of Poe and the work of the Gothic greats more than a detective novel. Hope you enjoy it!
DeleteMy favorite biblio mystery would be Booked to Die by John Dunning. Thanks for the chance to win the Robert Graeme books!
ReplyDeleteSuperb news, John -- I shall read The Undetective tout de suite in preparation.
ReplyDeleteAS for bibliomysteries...Chesterton's 'The Blast of the Book' is huge fun, I was surprised by just how much I enjoyed that.
My pick is 'The Dumas Club' by Arturo Pérez-Reverte.
ReplyDeleteWhat Fun! I nominate "Dull Thud", by Manning Long. Mystery involving women working in a manhattan bookstore and a missing copy of Poe's Tamerlane.
ReplyDeleteUnintentionally anonymous above.
Delete-Jon
After years of patiently waiting and watching, I finally managed to find a decent, reasonably priced copy of E. Louise Cushing's Blood on My Rug (New York: Arcadia, 1956). I've only just started it, so it's a bit too early to tell whether it is my favourite bibliomystery. That said, if it's anything like the other Cushings I've read (Murder's No Picnic, Murder Without Regret and Maid-At-Arms), it promises to be entertaining. The mystery opens with a Montreal bookstore owner finding a dead body in her back office. Would my favourite bibliomystery title count? I mean, Blood on My Rug! It doesn't get much better than that.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what counts as bibliomystery but I would nominate "The Learned Adventure of the Dragon's Head" by Dorothy L Sayers.
ReplyDeleteShould I be fortunate enough to win, please donate the prize to a charity.
I assume this is the same Bruce Graeme who wrote the Blackshirt novels? I've read a couple of them and they're not bad. I'm rather a fan of the criminal-turned-crimefighter gentleman rogue genre of the interwar years.
ReplyDeleteYes, same writer. Blackshirt actually became a mystery writer who helped the police solve crimes. Graeme was fascinated with the intersection of fictional crime and real crime. He wrote several books about mystery writers whose books end up being replicated, fictional characters that come to life, and books inspiring crimes. Terhune is not only a bookseller but a writer of detective fiction short stories. In the first book we learn he had a story published in the Saturday Evening Post.
DeleteIt looks like Seven Clues in Search of a Crime is going to have to be added to my shopping list.
DeleteNow all we need is someone to re-issue the Blackshirt books.
We shall see. Graeme’s granddaughter is very amenable to seeing the books back in print.
DeleteI am very happy for you, John. I remember your review of the first book and your enthusiasm for it. I hadn't enjoyed the first book but your description of the second book makes me want to give the series another go. Hope the books are doing well.
ReplyDeleteI just finished A Case or Solomon, the third of the series, and will be sending off my intro for that one to Moonstone very soon. It too is another experiment in crime fiction -- an intriguing blend of courtroom drama and police procedural. The only bit of real detective work centers on who owned a book by Swinburne found at the scene of a murder. But it turned out to be very interesting as a legal thriller, introducing to me an arcane concept in British law I'd never heard of and ending with a very neat twist in the final two chapters. Each of the books in the series is very different from the next, but always features something to do with rare books and book collecting. I hope you will like the Gothic chiller House with Crooked Walls if you buy a copy. the next two are due in late summer, around August 2021 if all goes well.
DeleteRichard Robinson says:
ReplyDeleteI ordered the first two the day this posted. They finally came in today's mail, from Moonstone Books, in the UK. I look forward to reading Seven Clues...
I hope that the POD operation with Amazon US will be in place by the time the next two books are released. Sorry it took so long to get your books. The pandemic is screwing up delivery for EVERYTHING shipped from overseas. Hope you enjoy them!
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