Collectors Press, 2001. Hardcover. New oversized hardcover in a new dust jacket. Pages are clean and free of marks or underlining. (11.25 x 1 x 12.25 inches) Includes an index and prints. 196 pp.

Fast shipping in a secure book box mailer with tracking. New / New. Item #202375
ISBN: 9781888054538

Follow the trail of the smoking gun. Look for clues in the dusty
footprints -but watch out for broken glass! The game is afoot
in the puzzling world of detective fiction and author Max Allan
Collins knows whodunit. Spying through the misty shroud that
enfolds detective stories and film noir, Collins exposes The
History of Mystery.

From Edgar Allan Poe's fictional detective Dupin in Murders
in the Rue Morgue, to the modern detective story, the entire
mystery field comes under sleuth-like scrutiny. The History
of Mystery traces this dark genre from its birth in the pages
of "memoirs" by the first real-life private eye, Allan Pinkerton,
to its full flowering in the critically acclaimed P.I. fiction of
Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald.
The author hunts down and unlocks the secrets of popular
best-selling superstars Erle Stanley Gardner, Rex Stout, Dorothy L. Sayers and Robert B. Parker.

Glorious illustrations abound, from pulp fiction covers to comic strips to portraits of the usual suspects, including Dick Tracy, Sam Spade, Phillip Marlowe, and their veddy British counterparts, the inimitable Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey. Author Collins even seeks out and finds the seldom-seen and largely forgotten female detectives who first appeared in fiction nearly 100 years ago, leading the way for the compelling heroines of modern mystery authors Sara Paretsky, Marcia Muller, and Patricia Cornwell.

Leaving no clue unexamined in his thorough investigation of
mystery, Collins focuses his magnifying glass on every aspect
of the oeuvre. The result? A most delightfully comprehensive
history of mystery.

Price: $29.95