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 Man, Phantom Lady, Rear Window, The Bride Wore Black, Mississippi 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

The Return of Penguin Greens

 

From the 1930s onwards crime novels published by Penguin had covers using a lot of green ink. This led to a clear distinction between two different kinds of novel – effectively all other novels (orange) and crime novels (green). This had the unintended effect of implying that these were different reading experiences or had different statuses when, of course, some ‘crime’ novels are simply among the best novels of any kind whereas orange novels came to seem more middle- to-upper brow even if they might be in practice be much less well written, ambition and plausible than novels by Dorothy M. Sayers, say, or Raymond Chandler. 

Famously it was on returning from a visit to Agatha Christie that Allen Lane, standing on a platform at Exeter station, had the idea for Penguin paperbacks and in the 1950s he once celebrated Christie’s birthday by printing in one go a million copies of her books (10 different novels x 100,000).

Crime of every description has therefore, from the most horrific to the most genteel, always stood at the heart of the entire Penguin enterprise. For reasons not now clear in the 1980s it was decided to drop the green spine and publish all fiction with an orange spine. Then design moved on again, often restricting the Penguin element to the bird logo itself and only keeping hints of Penguin orange. Around the same time light blue Pelicans were also dropped, with the Penguin colour schemes restricted to the black-spined Penguin Classics or the various shades of eau-de-Nil and grey for Penguin Modern Classics.

I have published various series as a Penguin employee over the years—Great Ideas, Little Black Classics and others—and it is really almost with a sense of embarrassment that it has taken until 2023 to realize that one of the most potent and fun traditional Penguin colour codes was simply lying around waiting to be reused: Green for Crime. I mention this because it is at some level shameful that it should have taken so many years to come up with something so straightforward that it barely qualifies as a concept or an idea: why didn’t we do this a decade ago? Two decades?

Lurking within Penguin Modern Classics we already published some of the greatest crime writers – Dorothy B. Hughes’s sensational In a Lonely Place, Eric Ambler’s great pre-War thrillers, Chester Himes’s wonderful, frenzied fantasies of Harlem, Ross Macdonald’s novels of southern California’s squalor lurking under the pretty surface. I am myself responsible at Penguin for the backlist of two great writers in the genre, John le Carré and Len Deighton, and yet had not noticed until very recently that these could be assembled into a matchless series of the greatest crime writers.

Once, very belatedly, we decided to proceed with the idea it seemed a shame not to add other writers. We already published Georges Simenon’s extraordinary books, of which he wrote so many (and at such a consistent level of excellence) that it would make sense to showcase a couple simply to give readers a way into his enormous oeuvre. Josephine Tey’s novels had just come out of copyright, so this provided the opportunity to publish her superb, unsettling The Franchise Affair and Brat Farrar. We also had C.S. Forester’s wonderfully nasty little shocker Payment Deferred about a murderous South London miser (written long before Forester became famous for the Hornblower novels).

For the series to be fresh though it needed some new discoveries and a lot of time was spent reading sometimes terrible books (please do not read anything by Peter Cheyney!) but also books which had just aged badly. I was particularly sorry that Helen MacInnes now seemed so lacklustre as my parents had loved her novels of international espionage when they were published – but now they seemed to consist predominantly of people endlessly walking around, having meals and checking into hotels, with very occasional outbursts of unengaging and tasteful violence.

Battling through some quite neither-here-nor-there stuff though made it much easier to spot wonderful things. Many recent crime novelists remain in print because of Kindle editions or print-on-demand versions, but it was very exciting to find two giants of British thriller writing from the 1970s and 1980s, Anthony Price and Michael Gilbert, available to be discovered. Both giants in their day, their work still has an ingenuity and excellence which has in no way dated – so Price’s Other Paths to Glory and Gilbert’s Game Without Rules joined the list. And I was tipped off to try Dick Lochte, whose 1985 debut Sleeping Dog is a classic, extremely funny piece of neo-noir with the simple but useful advice: if you are a jaded private investigator in L.A. and a girl on roller-skates asks you to help her find her missing dog, don’t say yes. The other great find was the Japanese writer Edogawa Rampo (real name Tarō Hirai – his pen name derives from the Japanese pronunciation of Edgar Allen Poe). Between the wars he wrote a number of thrilling and disturbing classics, some with a wonderful Tintin-like flavour (Gold Mask and The Black Lizard) and others with the depravity dialled up (Beast in the Shadows). All three of these are in the series. 

We are now finishing work on a third set of ten, including some just wonderfully recommendable stuff! Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Ian Fleming’s From Russia with Love, Anthony Price’s The Labyrinth Makers and John le Carré’s The Night Manager. Best of all (but of course they are all best) is a long forgotten classic of New York City noir, The Deadly Percheron by John Franklin Bardin, set in a gloomy wartime Manhattan and Coney Island. The fate of its decent psychiatrist hero as he unwillingly wades deeper and deeper into an inexplicable, surreal and truly horrible urban underbelly has to be experienced to be believed.

Here are the three sets, with the third not published until June 2024:

1. Davis Grubb NIGHT OF THE HUNTER
2. Edogawa Rampo BEAST IN THE SHADOWS
3. Dorothy B. Hughes IN A LONELY PLACE
4. Josephine Tey THE FRANCHISE AFFAIR
5. Eric Ambler JOURNEY INTO FEAR
6. John le Carré CALL FOR THE DEAD
7. Georges Simenon MAIGRET AND THE HEADLESS CORPSE
8. Len Deighton SS-GB
9. Ross Macdonald THE DROWNING POOL
10. Chester Himes COTTON COMES TO HARLEM
11. Dick Lochte SLEEPING DOG
12. Raymond Chandler THE BIG SLEEP & FAREWELL, MY LOVELY
13. Anthony Price OTHER PATHS TO GLORY
14. Michael Gilbert GAME WITHOUT RULES
15. Georges Simenon MAIGRET’S REVOLVER
16. C.S.Forester PAYMENT DEFERRED
17. Edogawa Rampo THE BLACK LIZARD
18. Eric Ambler THE MASK OF DIMITRIOS
19. Josephine Tey BRAT FARRAR
20. John le Carré TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
21. Anthony Price THE LABYRINTH MAKERS
22. Chester Himes A RAGE IN HARLEM
23. John le Carré THE NIGHT MANAGER
24. Edogawa Rampo GOLD MASK
25. Ian Fleming FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
26. Georges Simenon NIGHT AT THE CROSSROADS
27. John Franklin Bardin THE DEADLY PERCHERON
28. Ross Macdonald THE UNDERGROUND MAN
29. Shirley Jackson WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE
30. Cornell Woolrich I MARRIED A DEAD MAN

Any suggestions anyone might have for unfairly out-of-print crime and espionage classics would be warmly received!

Simon Winder is the Publishing Director at Penguin Press. 

Current List of authors and titles available from The Murder Room

Boucher, Anthony      Nine Times Nine

Boucher, Anthony      Rocket to the Morgue

Boucher, Anthony      The Case of the Seven of Calvary

Boucher, Anthony      The Case of the Crumpled Knave

Cain, James M.          Double Indemnity

Cain, James M.          Mildred Pierce

Cain, James M.          Serenade

Cain, James M.          The Postman Always Rings Twice

Chase, James Hadley           Come Easy - Go Easy

Chase, James Hadley           Eve

Chase, James Hadley           Just Another Sucker

Chase, James Hadley           Mission to Sienna

Chase, James Hadley           Mission to Venice

Chase, James Hadley           More Deadly Than the Male

Chase, James Hadley           No Orchids for Miss Blandish

Chase, James Hadley           Not Safe to Be Free

Chase, James Hadley           Shock Treatment

Chase, James Hadley           What's Better Than Money

Cheyney, Peter           The Man is Dangerous

Cheyney, Peter           Poison Ivy

Cheyney, Peter           Dames Don't Care

Cheyney, Peter           Can Ladies Kill?

Cheyney, Peter           Don’t Get Me Wrong

Cheyney, Peter           You'd Be Surprised

Cheyney, Peter           Your Deal, My Lovely

Cheyney, Peter           Never a Dull Moment

Cheyney, Peter           You Can Always Duck

Cheyney, Peter           I'll Say She Does

Ellin, Stanley  The Stronghold

Ellin, Stanley  The Luxembourg Run

Ellin, Stanley  Very Old Money

Ellin, Stanley  The Speciality of the House

Ellin, Stanley  The Eighth Circle

Fleming, Joan            Two Lovers Too Many

Fleming, Joan            The Man Who Looked Back

Fleming, Joan            A Daisy-Chain for Satan

Fleming, Joan            The Deeds of Dr Deadcert

Fleming, Joan            The Gallows in my Garden

Fleming, Joan            The Good and the Bad

Fleming, Joan            He Ought to be Shot

Fleming, Joan            Maiden's Prayer

Fleming, Joan            Polly Put the Kettle On

Fleming, Joan            You Can't Believe your Eyes

Gores, Joe      Hammett

Gores, Joe      Interface

Gores, Joe      Spade and Archer

Higgins, George V.    The Friends of Eddie Coyle

Higgins, George V.    Cogan's Trade

Household, Geoffrey The Courtesy of Death

Household, Geoffrey Doom's Caravan

Household, Geoffrey Face to the Sun

Household, Geoffrey The Last Two Weeks of Georges Rivac

Household, Geoffrey Red Anger

Household, Geoffrey Summon the Bright Water

Hubbard, P. M.          The Causeway

Hubbard, P. M.          Cold Waters

Hubbard, P. M.          The Custom of the Country

Hubbard, P. M.          The Dancing Man

Hubbard, P. M.          Flush as May

Hubbard, P. M.          The Graveyard

James, Bill     You'd Better Believe It

James, Bill     The Lolita Man

James, Bill     Halo Parade

James, Bill     Protection

James, Bill     Come Clean

James, Bill     Take

Kaye, M. M.    Death in Kashmir

Kaye, M. M.    Death in Berlin

Kaye, M. M.    Death in Cyprus

Kaye, M. M.    Death in Kenya

Kaye, M. M.    Death in Zanzibar

Kaye, M. M.    Death in the Andamans

Knox, Ronald The Body in the Silo

Knox, Ronald Double Cross Purposes

Knox, Ronald The Footsteps at the Lock

Knox, Ronald Still Dead

Knox, Ronald The Three Taps

Knox, Ronald The Viaduct Murder

MacDonald, Ross      Black Money

Margaret Millar         Beast in View

Meynell, Laurence     Danger Round the Corner

Meynell, Laurence     The Frightened Man

Meynell, Laurence     Too Clever By Half

Meynell, Laurence     Death By Arrangement

Meynell, Laurence     The Thirteen Trumpeters

Meynell, Laurence     The Fairly Innocent Little Man

Price, Anthony           The Labyrinth Makers

Price, Anthony           The Alamut Ambush

Price, Anthony           Colonel Butler's Wolf

Price, Anthony           October Men

Price, Anthony           Other Paths to Glory

Price, Anthony           Our Man in Camelot

Price, Anthony           War Game

Price, Anthony           The '44 Vintage

Price, Anthony           Tomorrow's Ghost

Price, Anthony           The Hour of the Donkey

Price, Anthony           Soldier No More

Price, Anthony           The Old Vengeful

Price, Anthony           Gunner Kelly

Price, Anthony           Sion Crossing

Price, Anthony           Here Be Monsters

Price, Anthony           For the Good of the State

Price, Anthony           A New Kind of War

Price, Anthony           A Prospect of Vengeance

Price, Anthony           The Memory Trap

Thompson, Jim          The Getaway

Thompson, Jim          The Killer Inside Me

Thompson, Jim          After Dark, My Sweet

Thompson, Jim          Pop 1280

Thompson, Jim          The Grifters

Thompson, Jim          A Hell of a Woman

Thompson, Jim          A Swell-Looking Babe

Thompson, Jim          Nothing More Than Murder

Thompson, Jim          Savage Night

Household, Geoffrey Watcher in the Shadows

Household, Geoffrey A Time to Kill

Chase, James Hadley           A Can of Worms

Chase, James Hadley           A Coffin From Hong Kong

Chase, James Hadley           An Ace Up My Sleeve

Chase, James Hadley           An Ear to the Ground

Chase, James Hadley           Believe This . . . You'll Believe Anything

Chase, James Hadley           Believed Violent

Chase, James Hadley           Consider Yourself Dead

Chase, James Hadley           Do Me a Favour, Drop Dead

Chase, James Hadley           Goldfish Have No Hiding Place

Chase, James Hadley           Have a Nice Night

Chase, James Hadley           Hand Me a Fig Leaf

Chase, James Hadley           Have a Change of Scene

Chase, James Hadley           Have This One on Me

Chase, James Hadley           Hit Them Where it Hurts

Chase, James Hadley           I Hold the Four Aces

Chase, James Hadley           I Would Rather Stay Poor

Chase, James Hadley           Just a Matter of Time

Chase, James Hadley           Knock, Knock! Who's There?

Chase, James Hadley           Like a Hole in the Head

Chase, James Hadley           My Laugh Comes Last

Chase, James Hadley           Not My Thing

Chase, James Hadley           One Bright Summer Morning

Chase, James Hadley           So What Happens to Me?

Chase, James Hadley           Tell it to the Birds

Chase, James Hadley           The Joker in the Pack

Chase, James Hadley           The Soft Centre

Chase, James Hadley           The Vulture is a Patient Bird

Chase, James Hadley           The Whiff of Money

Chase, James Hadley           Try This One For Size

Chase, James Hadley           Want to Stay Alive?

Chase, James Hadley           We'll Share a Double Funeral

Chase, James Hadley           Well Now, My Pretty

Chase, James Hadley           You Can Say That Again

Chase, James Hadley           You Have Yourself a Deal

Chase, James Hadley           You Must be Kidding

Chase, James Hadley           You're Dead Without Money

Cheyney, Peter           Urgent Hangman

Cheyney, Peter           Dangerous Curves

Cheyney, Peter           You Can't Keep the Change

Cheyney, Peter           It Couldn't Matter Less

Cheyney, Peter           Sorry You've Been Troubled

Cheyney, Peter           They Never Say When

Cheyney, Peter           Uneasy Terms

Cheyney, Peter           Dark Duet

Cheyney, Peter           The Stars Are Dark

Cheyney, Peter           The Dark Street

Cheyney, Peter           Sinister Errand

Cheyney, Peter           Dark Hero

Cheyney, Peter           Dark Interlude

Cheyney, Peter           Dark Wanton

Cheyney, Peter           Dark Bahama

Conan Doyle, Sir Arthur        Sherlock Holmes's Greatest Cases

Connington, J. J.       Almighty Gold

Connington, J. J.       The Boathouse Riddle

Connington, J. J.       The Case with Nine Solutions

Connington, J. J.       The Castleford Conundrum

Connington, J. J.       Commonsense Is All You Need

Connington, J. J.       The Counsellor

Connington, J. J.       The Dangerfield Talisman

Connington, J. J.       Death at Swaythling Court

Connington, J. J.       The Eye in the Museum

Connington, J. J.       For Murder Will Speak (AKA Murder Will Speak)

Connington, J. J.       The Four Defences

Connington, J. J.       The Ha-Ha Case (AKA The Brandon Case)

Connington, J. J.       In Whose Dim Shadow (AKA The Tau Cross Mystery)

Connington, J. J.       Jack-In-The-Box

Connington, J. J.       A Minor Operation

Connington, J. J.       Murder in the Maze

Connington, J. J.       Mystery at Lynden Sands

Connington, J. J.       Nemesis at Raynham Parva (AKA Grim Vengeance)

Connington, J. J.       No Past is Dead

Connington, J. J.       Nordenholt's Million

Connington, J. J.       The Sweepstake Murders

Connington, J. J.       Tom Tiddler's Island (AKA Gold Brick Island)

Connington, J. J.       Tragedy at Ravensthorpe

Connington, J. J.       Truth Comes Limping

Connington, J. J.       The Twenty-One Clues

Connington, J. J.       The Two Tickets Puzzle (AKA The Two Ticket Puzzle)

Fleming, Joan            Alas, Poor Father

Fleming, Joan            The Chill and the Kill

Fleming, Joan            Death of a Sardine

Fleming, Joan            Dirty Butter for Servants

Fleming, Joan            Every Inch a Lady

Fleming, Joan            Grim Death and the Barrow Boys

Fleming, Joan            Hell's Belle

Fleming, Joan            How to Live Dangerously

Fleming, Joan            In the Red

Fleming, Joan            Kill or Cure

Fleming, Joan            Malice Matrimonial

Fleming, Joan            The Man From Nowhere

Fleming, Joan            Midnight Hag

Fleming, Joan            Miss Bones

Fleming, Joan            No Bones About It

Fleming, Joan            Nothing is the Number When you Die

Fleming, Joan            Screams From a Penny Dreadful

Fleming, Joan            To Make an Underworld

Fleming, Joan            Too Late! Too Late! The Maiden Cried

Fleming, Joan            You Won't Let me Finish

Gores, Joe      Hammett

Gores, Joe      Interface

Gores, Joe      Space and Archer

Higgins, George V.    At End of Day

Higgins, George V.    The Digger's Game

Higgins, George V.    Outlaws

Higgins, George V.    The Patriot Game

Higgins, George V.    The Rat on Fire

Hubbard, P. M.          High Tide

Hubbard, P. M.          A Hive of Glass

Hubbard, P. M.          Kill Claudio

Hubbard, P. M.          Picture of Millie

Hubbard, P. M.          The Quiet River

Hubbard, P. M.          A Rooted Sorrow

Hubbard, P. M.          A Thirsty Evil

Hubbard, P. M.          The Tower

Hubbard, P. M.          The Whisper in the Glen

James, Bill     Club

James, Bill     Astride a Grave

James, Bill     Gospel

James, Bill     Roses, Roses

James, Bill     In Good Hands

James, Bill     The Detective is Dead

James, Bill     Top Banana

James, Bill     Panicking Ralph

James, Bill     Lovely Mover

James, Bill     Eton Crop

James, Bill     Kill Me

James, Bill     Pay Days

James, Bill     Naked at the Window

James, Bill     The Girl With the Long Back

James, Bill     Easy Streets

James, Bill     Wolves of Memory

James, Bill     Girls

James, Bill     Pix

James, Bill     In the Absence of Iles

James, Bill     Hotbed

James, Bill     I am Gold

McCloy, Helen           Dance of Death

McCloy, Helen           The Man in the Moonlight

McCloy, Helen           The Deadly Truth

McCloy, Helen           Who's Calling

McCloy, Helen           Cue for Murder

McCloy, Helen           The Goblin Market

McCloy, Helen           The One That Got Away

McCloy, Helen           Through a Glass, Darkly

McCloy, Helen           Alias Basil Willing

McCloy, Helen           The Long Body

McCloy, Helen           Two-Thirds of a Ghost

McCloy, Helen           Mr Splitfoot

McCloy, Helen           Burn This

McCloy, Helen           The Pleasant Assasin and Other Cases of Dr Basil Willing

McCloy, Helen           Panic

McCloy, Helen           Before I Die

McCloy, Helen           The Imposter

McCloy, Helen           The Singing Diamonds and Other Stories

Meynell, Laurence     Don't Stop for Hooky Heffernan

Meynell, Laurence     Hooky and the Crock of Gold

Meynell, Laurence     Lost Half Hour

Meynell, Laurence     Hooky Gets the Wooden Spoon

Meynell, Laurence     Papersnake

Meynell, Laurence     Hooky and the Villainous Chauffeur

Meynell, Laurence     Hooky and the Prancing Horse

Meynell, Laurence     Hooky Goes to Blazes

Meynell, Laurence     Silver Guilt

Meynell, Laurence     The Open Door

Meynell, Laurence     The Affair at Barwold

Meynell, Laurence     Hooky Catches a Tartar

Meynell, Laurence     Hooky on Loan

Meynell, Laurence     Hooky Hooked

Meynell, Laurence     Third Time Unlucky

Meynell, Laurence     The Creaking Chair

Meynell, Laurence     The Breaking Point

Meynell, Laurence     The House in Marsh Road

Meynell, Laurence     One Step From Murder

Procter, Maurice        Rich is the Treasure

Procter, Maurice        The Pub Crawler

Procter, Maurice        Three at the Angel

Procter, Maurice        The Spearhead Death

Procter, Maurice        Devil in the Moonlight

Procter, Maurice        The Dog Man

Procter, Maurice        I Will Speak Daggers

Procter, Maurice        Hell is a City

Procter, Maurice        The Midnight Plumber

Procter, Maurice        Man in Ambush

Procter, Maurice        Killer at Large

Procter, Maurice        Devil's Due

Procter, Maurice        The Devil was Handsome

Procter, Maurice        A Body to Spare

Procter, Maurice        Moonlight Flitting

Procter, Maurice        Two Men in Twenty

Procter, Maurice        Death Has a Shadow (AKA Homicide Blonde)

Procter, Maurice        His Weight in Gold

Procter, Maurice        Rogue Running

Procter, Maurice        Exercise Hoodwink

Procter, Maurice        Hideaway

Thomas, Donald        Belladonna: A Lewis Carroll Nightmare

Thomas, Donald        The Ripper's Apprentice

Thomas, Donald        Jekyll, Alias Hyde

Thomas, Donald        The Arrest of Scotland Yard

Thomas, Donald        Dancing in the Dark

Thomas, Donald        Red Flowers for a Lady Blue

Thomas, Donald        The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes

Thomas, Donald        Sherlock Holmes and Running Noose

Thomas, Donald        Sherlock Holmes and the Voice From the Crypt

Thomas, Donald        Flight of the Eagle

Thomas, Donald        Dead Giveaway

Thomas, Donald (as Francis Selwyn)          Crackman on Velvet

Thomas, Donald (as Francis Selwyn)          The Hangman's Child

Thomas, Donald (as Francis Selwyn)          Sergeant Verity Presents his Compliments

Thomas, Donald (as Francis Selwyn)          Sergeant Verity and the Blood Royal

Thomas, Donald (as Francis Selwyn)          Sergeant Verity and the Imperial Diamond

Underwood, Michael Murder on Trial (1954)

Underwood, Michael Murder Made Absolute (1955)

Underwood, Michael Death on Remand (1956)

Underwood, Michael False Witness (1957)

Underwood, Michael Lawful Pursuit (1958)

Underwood, Michael Arm of the Law (1959)

Underwood, Michael Cause of Death (1960)

Underwood, Michael Death by Misadventure (1960)

Underwood, Michael Adam's Case (1961)

Underwood, Michael The Case Against Philip Quest (1962)

Underwood, Michael Girl Found Dead (1963)

Underwood, Michael The Crime of Colin Wise (1964)

Underwood, Michael The Anxious Conspirator (1965)

Underwood, Michael The Man Who Died on Friday (1967)

Underwood, Michael The Man Who Killed Too Soon (1968)

Underwood, Michael The Shadow Game (1970)

Underwood, Michael Trout in the Milk (1971)

Underwood, Michael Reward for a Defector (1973)

Underwood, Michael The Unprofessional Spy (1975)

Underwood, Michael A Pinch of Snuff (1974)

Underwood, Michael Crime upon Crime (1980)

Underwood, Michael Double Jeopardy (1981)

Underwood, Michael Goddess of Death (1982)

Underwood, Michael A Party to Murder (1983)

Underwood, Michael Death in Camera (1984)

Underwood, Michael The Hidden Man (1985)

Underwood, Michael Death at Deepwood Grange (1986)

Underwood, Michael The Injudicious Judge (1987)

Underwood, Michael The Uninvited Corpse (1987)

Underwood, Michael Dual Enigma (1988)

Underwood, Michael A Compelling Case (1989)

Underwood, Michael A Dangerous Business (1990)

Underwood, Michael Rosa's Dilemma (1990)

Underwood, Michael The Seeds of Murder (1991)

Underwood, Michael Guilty Conscience (1992)

Underwood, Michael The Juror (1975)

Underwood, Michael Menaces, Menaces (1976)

Underwood, Michael The Fatal Trip (1977)

Underwood, Michael Murder with Malice (1977)

Underwood, Michael Crooked Wood (1978)

Underwood, Michael A Crime Apart (1966)

Underwood, Michael Shem's Demise (1970)

Underwood, Michael The Silent Liars (1970)

Underwood, Michael Anything But the Truth (1978)

Underwood, Michael Smooth Justice (1979)

Underwood, Michael Victim of Circumstance (1979)

Underwood, Michael A Clear Case of Suicide (1980)

Underwood, Michael The Hand of Fate (1981)

BOND, ARCHER & GIVENS are Back

JAMES BOND at the BARBICAN CENTRE, LONDON

I have always been a sucker for the James Bond franchaise and was pleased to find out that between 6 July - 5 Sep 2012, London's Barbican marks the 50th anniversary of James Bond with a unique exhibition showcasing the inside story of how design and style combined to create the world’s most influential and iconic movie brand. Designing 007 will transform Barbican spaces including The Curve and The Pit in a multi-sensory experience where screen icons, costumes, production design, automobiles, gadgets, special effects, graphic design, exotic locations, weapons, stunts and props combine to immerse the audience in the creation and development of Bond style over its auspicious 50 year history.
"Do you expect me to talk?"
"No, Mr Stotter, I expect you to drool."
Tickets on sale now!

Over in the website, Walter Sattherthwait recently wrote an appeciation of Ross Macdonald. Could Hollywood have been reading our website?  Word reaches me that Warner Bros and Silver Pictures have set Peter Landesman to adapt The Galton Case, one of the titles in the Ross Macdonald mystery series about private detective Lew Archer. Landesman will look to reinvent the mystery series as Silver Pictures tries to launch a franchise. The series was previously turned into two movies; Paul Newman played Archer in the 1966 Warner Bros film Harper and 1975 film The Drowning Pool. The 1959 novel The Galton Case was the eighth book in the series. In The Galton Case, Archer is hired to track down the lost heir to the Galton fortune. His path leads him through a trail of murder, deception and a tangle of secrets. To date there has been no actor linked to play Archer, but keep 'em peeled.

Justified  has got to be one of the best series on TV at the moment. Elmore Leonard-created marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), is currently airing its third season Stateside. With the average rating now at 4.3 million has encouraged FX to give the green light to a fourth season.  “Justified is one of television’s best series and this season has reinforced that excellence,” said Nick Grad, FX Executive Vice President of Original Programming, in a statement. “Graham Yost and his writing team continue to deliver compelling material and richly drawn characters brought to life by the brilliance of Timothy Olyphant and our terrific ensemble cast. Their work is validated by universal acclaim, awards, and ratings that have grown every year. We look forward to many more seasons to come.”

Meanwhile, if you can't get enough of the US Marshal's antics, then get a copy of Leonard's new novel Raylan (Orion UK).