Footsteps in the Night by Dolores Hitchens (Pocket Books, 1962)

I found this at the Lifeline Bookfair - source of over 50% of my best finds:

 

Sheriff Ferguson found plenty of skeletons in the closet in the new Dellwood houses--who was prim Miss Silvester's midnight visitor?  Why was Mr Holden terrified of his wife?  Where was tight lipped Mr Arthur's grandfather on the night of the murder?  How did the crippled Dronk boy fit into the picture???

And why was everyone so anxious not to talk?????

This was another book I bought for its cover--and I found a tightly plotted, suspense-filled little murder mystery inside.  It kept me guessing who the guilty party was and worrying about the innocent suspects, right until the very end.  That's exactly what I look for in a whodunnit!

One thing about that cover, though.  If the young lady on the cover is meant to be the murder victim  (and that seems the logical inference) then the artist got it wrong.  The victim was meant to be a fifteen-year old girl wearing capri pants.  Maybe that wasn't glamorous enough for the publisher!

Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie (Pan, 1964)

I found this at a high school book fair:

"Sir Charles Cartwright, the distinguished actor, was giving a party.  Around him, his guests stood talking and drinking.  The Reverend Stephen Babbington sipped at his cocktail and made a wry face.  The other guests continued to chatter.  Suddenly Mr Babbington clutched at his throat and swayed...

It was the beginning of the drama,

a three-act tragedy

with death in every act"

I bought this one literally for its cover, as I already have a copy of this book (along with all the other Christies.)  The still life on the cover depicts the essentials of the plot: one glass containing poison, and one blackmail note.

Creature From the Black Lagoon by Vargo Statten (Dragon Publications, 1954)

Another great find from The Green Shed!

When I was growing up in the seventies and eighties, nearly every popular movie had its novelization.  Videos and DVDs gradually made the genre less popular--though movie novelizations still exist, mainly for those who want to see the characters and the worlds of their favourite films fleshed out.

This novelization of a classic sci-fi movie is a fairly early example of its kind (but not the earliest, as the first movie novelization appeared in 1912!)  Unusually, it's a hardback.  By the standards of 1954, Creature From the Black Lagoon was a glossy and expensive science fiction movie, and apparently the people commissioning this book wanted to keep things (comparatively) classy.  Interestingly enough, this movie was novelized a second time in 1977--this time in paperback as a part of a series of tie-ins to classic Universal horror films.

"Vargo Stratten" was a pseudonym of John Russell Fearn, a pulp writer whose career dated back to the early 1930s.

Gone To Earth by Mary Webb (Virago, 1979)

Ah, the old Viragos!  I found this on the dusty shelves at The Green Shed, dumping ground for people's unwanted furniture and other paraphernalia.  I've come across quite a few treasures hidden among the junk in the depths of the Green Shed.

As usual the cover of this Virago book features a reproduction of a piece of art only tenuously related to the work inside. 

Mary Webb was one of the authors parodied by Stella Gibbons in Cold Comfort Farm.  Her protagonists are Nature's children one and all, swept helplessly along on the tides of their emotions.  I'm convinced that the fey heroine of Gone to Earth (the daughter of a Welsh gypsy and a "crazy bee-keeper"!) was the model for Elfine Starkadder:

Hazel, quite intoxicated with excitement, danced between the slender boles till her hair fell down and the long plait swung against her shoulder.
'If folks came by, maybe they'd think I was a fairy!' she cried.
'Dunna kick about so!' said Abel, emerging from his abstraction.  'It inna decent, now you're a 'ooman growd.'
'I'm not a 'ooman growd!' cried Hazel shrilly.  I dunna want to be, and I won't never be.'

(Page 54)

The Abbey Girls Win Through by Elsie J. Oxenham (Collins, 1949)

I found this book for girls at a church fundraiser last weekend:

 

First published in 1923, this edition dates to 1949.  It must have been someone's prized possession, because unlike most children's books more than sixty years old it still retains its dust jacket!  Opening it up, my eyes fell on this passage:

Norah and Connie were different.  They were a recognised couple.  Con, who sold gloves in a big West-End establishment, was the wife and homemaker; Norah, the typist, was the husband, who planned little pleasure trips and kept the accounts and took Con to the pictures.

Well, OK.  It was a more innocent age!

(I'm told that because of the shortage of men after World War I, many women banded together for mutual support.  However Norah and Connie are referred to as "husband" and "wife" throughout the book, which is a bit ... disconcerting to a modern person, especially when you consider the intended audience for The Abbey Girls Win Through.)