Gary Menchen
855 Authors. 2,739 Titles. The Detective Book Club, in nearly 60 years of existence, created an enormous repository of detective fiction.This reference volume lists the more than 900 3-in-1 mystery omnibuses published by Walter J. Black, Inc, and its successors, between 1942 and 2000. There were, in all, more than 2700 different mysteries-thrillers-suspense novels. There were well-known prolific and successful writers who were reprinted dozens of times, and there were hundreds of lesser-known writers who appeared only once. Arrangement is chronological, to the degree possible. There are complete author and title indexes.For each volume, the three novels included are given with their author, and name and year of the American edition being reprinted.1989. 220408929Hillerman, Tony. A Thief Of Time. 1988 Harper.Nabb, Magdalen. The Marshal And The Madwoman. 1988 Scribner.Wood, Ted. When The Killing Starts. 1989 Scribner.The great majority of entries also include a WorldCat id (20408929 in the examples above) , which will enable users to locate more bibliographic information, and identify libraries that may hold copies of the volume.An introduction has a bit of history of the book club, and discussions of various curiosities, such as: was Agatha Christie’s Blood Will Tell, issued by the club in January, 1951, the true first edition of this title (otherwise known as Mrs. McGinty’s Dead) ? Perhaps not, but some book club publications were certainly first American editions (five by Roy Vickers as an example), or even original publications in book form (such as The Famous McGarry Stories by Matt Taylor, 1958.
