Giveaway Results Are In

The results of the Cecil M. Wills book giveaway are in.  After a highly scientific method that I left to one of the many Random Number Generators on the internet a winner was selected at random by a machine.  How fitting for our new age of omnipresent AI and robots.

And now for the Lucky Stiff...uh, lucky winner --

Comment #5 assigned to jdf21 was selected.  Congrats to jdf21!  You are the winner of one copy of the Ramble House reprint of Author in Distress.

Got the address. Thanks, JDF!  Book is in the mail. 

 Thanks to those who participated and for the mentions of all your favorite detective novels and mystery books you thought deserved a reprint. Perhaps one or two may soon see the light of day!

 

Cecil M. Wills New Reprint on Sale & Giveaway!

A couple of years ago I bought a small pile of rare hardcover editions of Cecil M. Wills mystery novels.  These included Author in Distress (his debut as a mystery writer), The Chamois Murder and Death Treads.  I read all of them in quick succession, but only reviewed Author in Distress (1934) on the blog.  Shortly after I posted that review I sent a PDF of the entire book to Gavin O'Keefe as a suggestion for a Ramble House reprint. RH has already reprinted Fatal Accident (1936), Wills' sixth detective novel, and I thought it would be a good idea to have another in their catalog. Gavin liked the idea and asked if I wanted to write a foreword.  I agreed and then promptly dropped the ball. Sad forgetful ol' codger that I am.

Flash forward to March-April 2026.  I emailed Gavin again asking if he still wanted to go ahead with the reprint and I had an intro I could offer based on the blog post I wrote.  We emailed back and forth with interesting ideas about how to assemble and present the book.  And now two and a half months later the finished product is available for sale!  You can purchase the book either by visiting the Ramble House site or accessing their small list of titles at Lulu.com (the book printer for this POD reprint). There may be a slight discount if you buy a copy via Ramble House and use the special email address on the page for Author in Distress. 

I received two copies as a standard benefit and today I'm offering one of those books in a giveaway.  Just leave a comment below mentioning any book you think deserves reprinting.  I'll offer those ideas to the "Powers That Be" at Ramble House. That reprint house which offers POD books is now under new management since Gavin and Fender Tucker (the original founder) have stepped aside from the operation.

CONTEST CLOSED

Next week --around Wednesday or Thursday-- I'll choose one of the comments at random to receive the book. You'll have to send me your physical mailing address in order to get the book. But please! DO NOT leave your address in the comments.  The sinister webcrawlers regularly haunt this blog and I'm afraid they will swallow up your personal information and slam you with unwanted spam and who knows what else. We can arrange a private email exchange to get the necessary info.  This giveaway is open to everyone across the globe.  I will pay either Media Mail rate for within the US or First Class International shipping rate to anywhere outside the USA. Good luck!

Winners of The Lake of the Dead giveaway

I put all the names in a hat so to speak.  Using a random number generator I found on the internet I got two numbers. I matched up those numbers with where your comment fell in the order of comments left on the post.  So the lucky winners of a copy of The Lake of the Dead are:

1. Joel

2. Book Glutton

I was thankful that the numbers matched up to people who had signed heir comment or had an ID attached.  Didn't have to deal with all those Anonymous comments and having to ID you by the book or writer you mentioned. Anyway, if you are Joel or Book Glutton please email me with your mailing address and I will ship your book to you.

Click here to email me. The Subject field should fill in automatically.

If you live in Canada, USA or UK you will be receiving your book from Amazon. Anywhere else I'll be shipping it to you via the regular US mail at my expense.

Thanks for all your comments and special thanks to James Jenkins for linking my review on the Valancourt Books Twitter page.  I'm sure a lot of you otherwise would never have read the review.

Winners of Pray for the Dawn giveaway...

The winners of the two copies of the new Ramble House reprint of Pray for the Dawn were chosen entirely at random using our arcane method of colored tokens and coded entrant names.  And they are:

1. Jeff F.

2. Brad, from the "Ah, Sweet Mystery Blog"

I've already emailed each winner and I eagerly await your replies.  The sooner I get your address the quicker I can put your book in the mail.

Congratulations to the lucky winners. And thanks to all for playing. 

(Shown at right is a portion of the original DJ illustration from the 1946 British edition of Pray for the Dawn by Eric Harding)

GIVEAWAY: Pray for the Dawn Released!

Two book giveaways in one month?  What is the world coming to?  (BTW, there was almost a third,...but I'm saving that one for October) For that matter what is this blog turning into?  Seems as much as I've eschewed all forms of social networking, I've succumbed to what the internet does best and become yet another self-promotion marketing machine, my friends. Sorry to disappoint.

I'm happy to hear from at least one of the previous book giveaway winners that the last prize, a copy of A Case for Solomon by Bruce Graeme, proved to be:

"...brilliant. Apart from being a true bibliomystery, it also pulls off one of the best plot surprises/twists I have come across. Thank you for introducing me to such an inventive and innovative series."

 And I can assure you that Pray for the Dawn is just as innovative and surprise filled. Just released from Ramble House last week the new edition of this EXTREMELY scarce book is available nowhere for free online and has never before been reprinted until this year  Here's your chance to win a brand spanking new, hot off the laser jets, copy.

Those who may have read my rave review back in April already are prepared for pulpy horror, genuine thrills, and paranoid ravings from terrified characters who are trying to survive the weekend in creepy house on an isolated island. Paranoid and terrified because they are at the mercy of a murderous and apparently revived corpse. And it's a detective novel to boot!  What do you need to do to win a copy? Just this...

Leave a comment and name your favorite mystery about a group of strangers stranded somewhere at the mercy of a crazed killer. I have two copies and will award one each to two different people. This new edition with an attractively gruesome cover illustration by Gavin O'Keefe also comes with an informative and amusing Afterword by Yours Truly done in a suitably offbeat Ramble House style of banter and wisecrackery.

1.  Open to all readers who live in the USA, Canada or UK.
2.  Winners must provide me with a legitimate email address and name (or nickname) when they leave the  comment.  Comments marked Anonymous or Unknown are not eligible.
3. Winners will be contacted by email and then must provide me with a legitimate shipping address in one of the three countries listed.

CONTEST CLOSED. 

Winners of Terhune Book Giveaway...

Chosen using an extremely unscientific but completely random method here are the winners of last week's book giveaway. May I have the envelope please? And the free copies of A Case for Solomon go to...

1. Allan H

2. Eric

 

Please email your name and preferred mailing address by clicking here

 

Thanks for playing! Congrats to all the winners.

Moonstone Press Giveaway - A Case for Solomon

What makes September a happy month? Another book giveaway, of course.

As announced last month A Case for Solomon, the third of Bruce Graeme’s Theodore Terhune series of detective novels and reprinted by Moonstone Press, has been released. I received my box of books a few days ago and I’m offering two copies in a giveaway.  That's right -- two copies!  One copy each to two lucky people.

Terhune reviews a courtroom transcript of a 20 year old murder trial over the course of the novel and uses the transcript as if it were a literary work, gleaning clues as to the personalities of those testifying based solely on their speech and language as recorded in the court documents. To enter this giveaway, just leave a comment below and mention your favorite courtroom detective novel. If it’s been out of print for decades you might want to mention that and I’ll see what we can do to get it back in print. I’ve been rather successful on the front lately.

This contest is open to readers in USA, Canada and UK. I’m afraid all other parts of the world are affected by significant mail restrictions or delays that are too worrisome for me to risk mailing anything from the US. I’ve read all the warnings from the USPS website and as of August 26 airmail delivery, especially to Australia and New Zealand, is too unpredictable. If you live in either country I apologize that you miss out again.

Anonymous comments will not be eligible. Please make sure that you leave your name or some sort of ID when you leave your comment. If you win you will be responsible for emailing me your name and mailing address. Runners-up will be selected if I do not hear from winners within three days.

CONTEST CLOSED

The Return of Theodore Terhune – and Book Giveaway!

I was delighted to go to my lobby and retrieve a pile of packages yesterday, including one big box from Moonstone Press. Inside were five copies of the latest Bruce Graeme books they have reprinted. And now it's time for me to announce a secret I’ve (almost) kept to myself for over a year. Seven of the eight Theodore Terhune mystery novels are slated for reprinting and all of them will be released at scattered months throughout 2021! Moonstone is releasing them in chronological order so you can read the books as they were first published back in the 1940s and 1950s. The first two pictured here have been out since last month and are available in both digital and paperback versions.  Some good news for US readers who prefer physical printed books is that Amazon in the US can do a POD of the book so you don't have to wait for one to be shipped from the UK.

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!

To celebrate this exciting news of more Bruce Graeme books now readily available to the eager devotees of Golden Age of Detective Fiction I’m offering a copy of each of the two newly released books, Seven Clues in Search of a Crime and the equally impossible to find title House with Crooked Walls, to one lucky reader of this blog post.

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 ***

Surprise! Surprise!

Yesterday I went to the mailbox and found yet another review copy from a publisher who often sends me ARCs. The timing couldn't have been better; I had just finished a book and was looking for a new read for this week's daily commute. I thought to myself, "Hmm... I wonder if this one is worth reading." I opened the package and burst out laughing. It was an ARC for a reprint of The Woman on the Roof by Helen Nielsen. (But you probably already knew that because of the picture over there on the left.) Yes, the very same book I had just finished and written up for FFB three days ago.

So for the handful of you who read my Friday's Forgotten Book post a few days ago here's some fantastic good news for you. A new paperback edition of this very fine noir thriller (which is also a detective novel) is coming to you in November.  Can you stand the waiting?

I bet Stark House never had this kind of ESP/synchronicity from the vintage book blogs for any of their planned reprints. Ever. I seriously had no clue that anyone had any interest in reprinting anything by Helen Nielsen. I am very, very happy that this book is being reprinted. And talk about advance reviews!

PLUS! Here's my first giveaway in many moons. Be the first person to email me with your interest in reading Nielsen's excellent book, and your mailing address of course, and I'll mail this ARC to you. I don't need it at all obviously since I already have a 1954 paperback as well as a 1st edition hardcover.

UPDATE, AUG 24: BOOK IS TAKEN. GIVEAWAY OVER.

Bury Me Deep Giveaway Winners

No Friday's Forgotten Book from me this week. I'm reading a lot, and the reviews are piling up. When I will actually take the time to write them up is a mystery even Holmes can't solve. Too much going on over here.

But I do have some good news.

Chosen completely by an electronic random number generator (the internet is amazing with all these digital gadgets) here are the winners of last week's book giveaway. Each participant was assigned a number based on where they appeared in the list of comments. May I have the envelope please? And the free copies of Bury Me Deep go to...

1. Keishon from Yet Another Crime Fiction Blog

2. TracyK from Bitter Tea & Mystery

3. Bill Selnes from Mysteries and More from Saskatchewan

Please send me an email by clicking here and give me your preferred mailing address. If I get all your replies by Saturday morning I can mail the books tomorrow.

Thanks for playing! Congrats to all the winners.

FFB: Bury Me Deep - Harold Q. Masur

From the Shameless Self-Promotion Department:

Revived and Reissued! Brand Spanking New! Eye-catching Design!

It's the latest reprint of a (somewhat) forgotten pulp classic from Raven's Head Press. Bury Me Deep (1947) by Harold Q Masur was the first of eleven fast paced, semi hard-boiled, detective novels featuring the hip and with it Manhattan lawyer Scott Jordan. Taking his cue from Raymond Chandler who he admits was his inspiration to write for the pulp magazines Masur pens a tale of avarice, manipulation, duplicity and murder. A new trade paperback edition was released a few weeks ago and is now available for purchase from amazon.com or by visiting Raven's Head Press. Our new cover design by artist Doug Klauba is a nod to the original 1st paperback edition (see below) published by Pocket Books back in 1948. Verna Ford, the blond in her underwear, has served as the inspiration for two previous paperback covers. Why not? Scantily clad women -- whether lounging and drinking from a brandy snifter or being threatened and menaced by dark men with guns -- have been the iconic imagery for pulp magazines and paperbacks since the 1920s.

It opens with Jordan discovering Verna in her lingerie helping herself to expensive brandy in the appropriate snifter. She's been waiting for someone in Jordan's apartment but it cant' possibly be him. He was away in Miami and cut his trip short to come home. No one was expecting him. Verna tries to put the moves on Jordan but he won't have any of it. Then she downs her brandy and immediately passes out. Jordan foolishly takes her to a cab, bribes the driver to babysit her until she comes to, and asks him to let her off at her home. But the driver soon discovers Verna is not dead drunk, just dead. The lawyer is immediately suspected of doing her in and trying to dispose of the body. So he decides to find out who she is, why she was in his apartment and who poisoned her brandy. The case becomes a lot more complicated when it turns out Verna was involved in a legal battle involving a will that leaves millions of dollars to the proper surviving relative of a husband and wife who died in a car crash. Lots of down and dirty action that turns pretty nasty. Villainy and double crossing galore! It's a corker, gang.

GIVEAWAY TIME! A full review of the book will appear tomorrow, but I wanted to take the time to help promote the Raven's Head Press release of this new editions. As usual I'm giving away three copies of Bury Me Deep. Don't all raise your hands at once. (First of all I can't see you. This is the internet, you know) Sorry, but this giveaway is confined to USA and Canada. If you'd like to be considered simply leave a comment below. Three names will be selected by a highly irrational process involving a blindfold and a dart board. OK, not really. Winners be selected at random, etc, etc. You know the drill. I'll announce the winners probably next Friday to allow for Labor Day revelers who may be drinking and BBQ-ing and whooping it up away from their computers to catch up on their blog reading.

If you like the good old pulp style action of fist fights in a barroom, slinky dames pawing the detective hero, no good skunks and slimy gangster types, sleazy dives and smoke filled saloons then the Scott Jordan books are right up your alley. I was genuinely surprised that I found Bury Me Deep one of the best of the Chandler imitators. Plus it's set in New York! How can you beat murder and deceit and treachery in late 1940s Manhattan? Harold Q. Masur was quite the interesting guy, too. Read this fascinating interview he gave Gary Lovisi back in 1992 when Masur was 83. Among many intriguing anecdotes he talks about how Bury Me Deep came to be written, his inspiration in Chandler, and how he walked into Simon and Schuster's offices with the manuscript in hand daring them to publish it. What chutzpah! He was also one very involved with the Mystery of Writers of America serving a stint as president in the 70s and as their legal counsel throughout his lifetime.

Doyle's Kids Quiz Results

Below are the answers to the Literary IQ quiz "Children in Sherlock Holmes Stories"posted a few days ago.

According to the rules a perfect score is 96 and required naming the characters (2 pts each) as well as the stories (10 pts).

Lucky winners are:  Noah Stewart (96) and Neer (94).  Sorry, Neeru you got the character's last name wrong for #8 and I couldn't give you the extra points.  Emails with the prize list of books are going out later today.  Thanks for playing!

I'm off to the Printer's Row Book Fest in an hour.  I'll have a post of my finds/purchases tomorrow.

FOUND BOUND: Sherlockians Take Note

While researching an obscure book and the opinions it received at the time of its original publication I serendipitously discovered the following quiz in a 1951 issue of The Saturday Review. If you truly know your Sherlock Holmes according to Doyle then dare to take the literary quiz below.

The story of how the quiz was created and how the editors received it is almost better than the quiz itself!

I cannot resist making this a true contest. CONTEST NOW CLOSED.



The Great Detective by illustrator Frank Wiles

I will confess that this is one type of mystery quiz I will never pass. I never bothered to learn the Holmes stories inside and out. I knew the answer to exactly one. Sad, isn't it? (It was #6, by the way, which I think everyone will know.) I know there is at least one brilliant reader of the Canon who knows not only the character names but the stories themselves. Go on and prove me right. I know you're out there.

Answers will be posted on Saturday, June 7. First three people with the highest scores will be named winners. A prize list of vintage paperbacks and review copies of new books I recently reviewed will be sent to each winner and they can pick what they want. This contest is open to all regardless of where you live.

Good luck!

LEFT INSIDE: Identify this DJ Piece and Win a Book!

Hey gang, this a combination Left Inside post and a contest!

It's not a mystery to me, but it may be to you. I know the book in which I found this fragment of a front panel DJ being used as a bookmark.  But can you identify that book?

Your only hint: I reviewed the book in the past two weeks. The intact front panel of the original first edition DJ was used to illustrate my post. Your mission should you choose to accept it: Locate that post and match the piece shown here to the correct DJ.

Ignore the purple background.  That was a heavy book I needed to place on top of the DJ fragment in order to get it to stay put on the scanner. Pay attention only to the two letters and the yellow and white of the original design.

DO NOT LEAVE THE ANSWER IN THE COMMENTS. Instead, please email your answer. There is an email link on my profile page here.

First three people with the correct answer will receive a free book of your choosing from a list I will email you. The list will be made up of nearly every book -- both new and vintage -- that I have reviewed since the beginning of the year, plus a slew of review copies from this year and 2013 that I have amassed. Here's a chance to get a scarce vintage book or a relatively new one for free!

Good luck, Mr. Phelps.

*   *   *

Well, that was over rather fast.  I got several replies within two hours of the post and all (of course!) were 100% correct. The DJ fragment comes from Death Goes to A Reunion by Kathleen Moore Knight. The three winners are:  Brian Busby, Noah Stewart and Kelly Robinson. Shortly, I'll be sending you the list from which you can choose your book. Thanks to all who participated. Good to hear from some of you "lurkers!"

Desert Town Giveaway Winners

Things got a bit crazy this weekend with the final rehearsals for Corpus Delciti and I nearly forgot about the Desert Town giveaway.  So without further ado...

The two free copies of the Raven's Head Press reissue of Desert Town go to:

1. Jack Welling

2. "bklyn"

This was completely at random and not based on what you wrote or when you replied.

To each winner:  Please send me an email including your mailing address. You can find my email by clicking this link that will take you to my Blogger Profile page, then click on the email link on the left side of the page.

We discovered some errors and typos in the book manuscript and had to correct them.  The first few copies we ordered for the giveaway are being set aside to sell on eBay as "seconds". We are ordering new copies that will be "typo free". When I receive those I'll send out those copies to the winners.

Thanks to all who participated.

Hothouse Melodrama!

Check out that pistol packin' mama!  If Fritzi Haller ever carried a weapon she couldn't look any more threatening. That gorgeous illustration is the cover painting for the latest reprint from Raven's Head Press.  The artist for our new edition is Fernando Vicente whose sexy artwork can be viewed here.

Desert Town by Ramona Stewart is the second release from Raven's Head Press and is now available for purchase here. Our new edition includes a nifty foreword by yours truly detailing the interesting writing career of Stewart from her debut in the pages of Collier's to her offbeat stories for other "slicks" and her culmination as a 1970s occult horror writer.  I'll be receiving a few copies for promotional purposes and once again I'm offering two books as giveaways.

To be eligible for a free copy of Desert Town just leave a comment below. This time in your comment I'd like you to tell me your favorite pulp cover artist or your favorite pulp cover illustration.  Book or magazine, it doesn't matter which.  On Saturday, February 15 I'll announce the two winners who will be chosen by a very amateurish random selection process that I'd rather not divulge.

Unfortunately, the giveaway is limited to the United States and Canada.  We're a small operation here and the shipping is coming out of my pocket. Sorry, I can't afford the $15 or more airmail postage to the UK or parts farther away.

If you missed my review of the book last fall please do read it.

COMMENTS ARE CLOSED. THE GIVEAWAY IS OVER. - Feb 16, 2014

Winners of the Raven's Head Press Giveaway

Though I am reluctant to reveal the unusual process by which the winners were selected at random (a pasta bowl was involved and I will say no more) I am nonetheless happy to announce the winners of the two free copies of The Starkenden Quest are:

1. "Manfred Arcane" - who coincidentally is a lost race fan! (Seriously, his name was truly pulled out at random)

2. "Level 1 Homemaker" - I only wish it were a copy of a Clifford Witting novel I could give you

To each winner: please send me an email with your name and mailing address. You might also tell me if you would like me to autograph the book.

Thanks so much to all those who left comments. I was overjoyed by the many responses and the hearty well wishes. Thanks also to Jeff Pierce who gave me an extra boost when he linked to my post over at The Rap Sheet, his stellar and informative crime fiction blog.

You might be interested to know that in the short three year history of this blog the Raven's Head Press announcement garnered the most comments out of all my posts. Yes, all posts over a three year period! Was that because free books were involved?  Hmm... Michael Hudson and I thank you all from the bottom of our hearts.

Onward and upward!

Raven's Head Press Takes Flight

"Never say Nevermore!"

At long last I can formally announce my involvement with the new independent publisher Raven's Head Press. Our first book -- reviewed here back in March -- is The Starkenden Quest by Gilbert Collins. Plans are to reissue adventure, crime and supernatural fiction that exemplify the kind of gripping and exciting stories published in the long gone pulp magazines and the vintage paperback imprints like Dell Mapbacks and Gold Medal. Future titles being discussed include many books previously reviewed here at Pretty Sinister Books which garnered a lot of interest from you lovely readers in your comments.

We are currently looking at books by Dorothy B. Hughes, Ramona Stewart, Lionel White, Hugh Wheeler (aka Patrick Quentin and Q Patrick), Samuel Taylor and Walter Van Tillburg Clark. We are also in negotiations to obtain exclusive American reprint rights for the reissue of the books of Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. An idea to create a Kickstarter campaign to help bring about this coup is also being considered.

Each reissue will have an informative introduction by yours truly. For The Starkenden Quest I did extensive research on the work of Gilbert Collins and uncovered an unusual event that might explain the reason his writing career was so short. Additionally, we were lucky enough to get permission to include the original Virgil Finlay illustrations that accompanied the Famous Fantastic Mystery pulp magazine reprint. The book is really a handsome edition. I'm proud to have been a part in freeing it from the Limbo of Out-of-Printdom and placing it back into the hands of modern readers.

I have two copies of The Starkenden Quest I am offering for free in one of the first giveaways to celebrate our first book at Raven's Head Press. All you need to do is leave a comment below and give me the name of a writer or book you've longed to see back in print. On Thursday, October 17 I'll take all the comments, throw them in a hat, and randomly select two winners. And if you like autographed books I can even scribble my name inside for you. Winner's choice, of course. Maybe you'll want your copy unsullied and pristine.

The Starkenden Quest is now available for purchase via amazon.com on this page. All future titles will also be available via amazon. For more information about what Raven's Head Press has planned please visit our website.

"Never say Nevermore" is our motto. Good books shouldn't disappear into Limbo and be forgotten. We hope to bring a lot of forgotten books of out the past and into the present for a generation of new readers, and hopefully beyond.

*   *   *

GIVEAWAY IS OVER. COMMENTS ARE CLOSED.

Thanks to all who participated!