Thursday 25 April 2024

10 new additions to the Penguin Green Crime Classics.

Penguin have announced 10 new additions to their Penguin Green Classics. The books are due to be published on 6 June 2024. Two specific new additions in particular have been out of print in the UK for quite some time. These are - 

The Chinese Gold Murders by Robert Van Gulik

An intricate, puzzle-like murder mystery set in Imperial China, featuring the indefatigable Judge Dee. A fantastically enjoyable tale by the master of the Tang dynasty mystery! Judge Dee is about to step into the shoes of a dead man…Most people would refuse the job of Magistrate at the lonely port town of Peng-lai – especially as the last occupant of the post has been found poisoned in his library, his papers missing. But Judge Dee is not most men. He arrives ready to get to the truth, only to find his life complicated even further by a missing bride, a vanished artisan, a man-eating tiger and an evil conspiracy. 

Robert Van Gulik was a Dutch orientalist, diplomat, musician, and writer, best known for the Judge Dee historical mysteries, the protagonist of which he borrowed from the 18th-century Chinese detective novel Dee Goong An.

I Married a Dead Man by Cornell Woolrich

 A wild and wildly compelling noir novel about a train crash and a case of a mistaken identity. What if you woke up to discover everyone thought you were somebody else? Pregnant and abandoned, all Helen Georgesson has is five dollars and a one-way ticket to San Francisco. Then she is involved in a train crash, and regains consciousness only to discover that she has given birth – and, in a bizarre twist of fate, has been mistaken for somebody else. Helen decides to claim this opportunity to make a new life for herself and her son. But eventually her past will catch up with her, in terrible ways…

Cornell Woolrich (1903-68) was one of the most admired and influential of all 20th century American crime writers. His work inspired many films, including most famously The Leopard ManPhantom LadyRear WindowThe Bride Wore BlackMississippi Mermaid and Union City. He led a strange and often very unhappy life, latterly as a recluse in a Manhattan hotel.


The list of ten new titles is as follows for the new Penguin Green Crime Classics 

The Deadly Percheron by John Franklin Bardin

From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming

I Married a Dead Man By Cornell Woolrich

The Labyrinth Makers by Anthony Price

The Gold Mask by Edogawa Rampo

The Underground Man by Ross Macdonald

We Have Always Lived in a Castle by Shirley Jackson

The Night Manager by John Le Carre

Night at the Crossroads by Georges Simenon

The Chinese Gold Murders by Robert Van Gulik


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