Hickory Dickory Dock by Agatha Christie (Fontana, 1958)

I found this one at a trash and treasure market:

 

Curious things are happening in a students' hostel.

Various ill-assorted objects disappear--a powder compact, bath salts, an electric light bulb.  A rucksack is slashed, a silk scarf is wantonly cut up.

Hercule Poirot visits the hostel.  He observes the occupants closely--Colin McNabb, the flaming, redheaded medical student; dark, clever Valerie Hobhouse who works in a beauty parlour, and all the others.  At first their relationships and characters, though intricate seem innocent, but Poirot is uneasy.  Gradually his worst fears are confirmed, a murder is committed and one after another all sorts of ugly details come to light.

Once more Hercule Poirot--and Agatha Christie--achieve a masterpiece of detection.

Hmmm.... a "flaming" medical student!

This book is ventures into strange territory for Agatha Christie.  Usually she was most at home in the world of upper-middle class England--a world of retired colonels and village clergymen--with occasional excursions into the haunts of high society.  A student hostel, on the other hand, is not only less genteel than the places she usually sets her novels, but is decidedly more modern as well.  First published in 1955 when Christie was nearly 65, the student characters in Hickory Dickory Dock belong to a much younger generation than the author.  In a way this book shows Christie's discomfort with the changing world of the mid-twentieth century, an unease that became more evident in her stories as the 1950s became the 1960s. 

(Incidentally, are couple on the cover of this edition of Hickory Dickory Dock are meant to be the students in question?  If so, they're oddly middle-aged for undergraduates!)

The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan (Pan, 1967)

From the Green Shed:

 

THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS

a story of adventure which for sheer excitement has never been surpassed

'Remains the definitive story of espionage, intrigue and pursuit - terse, taut, endlessly inventive, and as delightfully fresh as the day it was written'

NEW YORK TIMES

Pan doesn't bother describing the story on the back cover of this book. After all, the plot is well known--having been adapted for film, television and radio. Instead it tells potential readers how good it is.  And it is--one of the classics!

A Penknife in My Heart by Nicholas Blake (Fontana, 1960)

One last book by Nicholas Blake--found at the Lifeline Bookfair:

Charles Hammer was ruthless ; he needed money quickly and he would get it if a certain person died.  When he met Ned Stowe he saw how he could commit the perfect murder.

Ned was by no means ruthless--but he was desperate.  Passionately in love with Laura, he was tied to a neurotic, clinging wife.  He sometimes felt he'd do anything to get rid of her.

Hammer proposes a contract.  As it works out it binds the two men together in a terrible grip which only death can relax.

If this plot seems familiar, it is.  Patricia Highsmith told the same basic story in Strangers on a Train (1950).  (Of course Blake denied having read Strangers on a Train, or having seen the Hitchcock movie of the same name!)

The Lady in the Morgue by Jonathan Latimer (Pan, 1959)

Another piece of loot from my Lifeline Bookfair crime spree:

Lively DEATH

PRIVATE EYE, WILLIAM CRANE, juggles with the identity of one dead blonde and sundry live ones, cuts grim mortuary capers over a volcano of violence and reminds us that there's no place--in crime fiction--like Chicago!

"Hardboiled" would be the only word to describe this book.  The plot involves a stolen corpse, competing gangsters and a murdered morgue attendant (you can see the murderer bringing down a cosh on the poor guy's head to the right of the cover.)   Oh yes, and there are sundry Dangerous Dames floating about the story (including a group of taxi dancers in a sleazy dance hall.)

In brief: generic but fun!

Tibetan Journey by George N. Patterson (Readers Book Club, 1956)

Someone must have taken a keen interest in Tibet, around 1956.  I found this in the Green Shed along with Seven Years in Tibet:

When the Chinese Communists broke into Tibet, George N. Patterson was engaged in missionary work there--a labor of love.  He had to leave in a hurry, and, for vitally important reasons, made a dash for India.  Yet, despite the urgency of his Tibetan Journey - which maintains a throb of excitement all through the book - the author succeeds in presenting a magnificent picture of a superb, secretive and little-known land, with its hair-raising perils, strange customs, and tough, quaint, "earthy" people.

It's strange to think that Tibet is now a tourist destination!  This book was written when travelling to Tibet was the Real Deal--something that only the most hardy and the most adventurous would undertake.  It's not a romantic account of the country (indeed, the author expresses scorn for the "Shangri-La" fantasies some people have about Tibet).  It makes no bones about describing the hardship and poverty the author encountered.  However--and this is Tibetan Journey's best feature--the author never treats any of the people he meets as anything less than individuals.  The book's blurb may describe the Tibetans as "quaint", the author most certainly does not!

The Case of the Fan Dancer's Horse by Erle Stanley Gardner (WDL Books, 1959)

If you find a couple of ostrich-plume fans and a pair of white dancing slippers and advertise it in a "Found" column, you don't expect to receive a reply about a lost horse.  Yet that was what happened to Perry Mason after he and Della Street had witnessed a car accident.  It was amusing, intriguing, yet very deadly - particularly deadly.

But then he is visited by John Callender, who says he is acting on behalf of "Cherie Chi-Chi", a fan dancer.  And hot on his heels comes Mr. Arthur Sheldon, also trying to claim possession of the horse.

So it appears there is a horse!  That maybe... but there is certainly one of the most beautiful clients Perry Mason has ever had, and presently, there is also a corpse, attached to a Japanese sword.

The fan dancer is very much in evidence on the cover.  Not so her horse!

(Actually, the case involves two fan dancers, and the fan dancers' fans play a more of a role in the plot than the horse.  Never mind--The Case of the Fan Dancer's Horse is a thoroughly entertaining little mystery.  It's one of the earlier Perry Mason books too, so it isn't quite as by-the-numbers as later works in this series!)

Head of a Traveller by Nicholas Blake (Fontana, 1962)

Yet another prize from my Lifeline Bookfair Crime Spree!

 

They found the body in the Thames--the head, weeks later, in a string bag hanging on a tree.

 Short and sweet--and oh, boy, doesn't it make you want to read more!

Mind you, the blurb makes the book appear more hardboiled and gritty than it is.  And if it had been published in America, and started with the discovery of a headless corpse floating in the Hudson or San Francisco Bay, this book probably would be that kind of detective story.  One would expect the hero (either a jaded PI or a world-weary cop) to track the murderer through the mean back streets of the city, encountering various underworld types along the way.   However, Head of a Traveller was written by a British author, and the detective is a gentleman amateur who tracks the murderer to the country estate of a poet!