Raymond Chandler

Sep 2015 5

Vintage Mysteries Star at Antiquarian Book Fair

2015 Articles, Mysteryrat's Maze

by Carol J. Perry

I love a good mystery. So do millions of other readers, and some of them don’t mind paying a premium price in order to acquire a particular volume. The 34th annual Florida Antiquarian Book Fair, held recently at St. Petersburg’s handsome 1920s vintage Coliseum Ballroom was, as usual, a veritable literary feast. A hundred dealers from around the country displayed their wares in well lighted, neatly piped and draped booths, and mysteries were prominently featured in many of them.

Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer: Three Decades of California Cool

2014 Articles, Mysteryrat's Maze, Sharon Tucker

by Sharon Tucker

Detective novels set in California---particularly San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara (or Santa Teresa) are particularly attractive to us in the rest of the country. What makes them seem out of the ordinary involves both the paradise syndrome of the California that exists only in our imaginations, as well as the schadenfreude we experience as the underside of the great Hollywood dream factory is lovingly detailed in fiction ---especially detective fiction.

Raymond Chandler’s Final Wish

2013 Articles, Mysteryrat's Maze

by Jill Amadio

A disturbed grave. Wrenching separation. An unfulfilled desire. A literary detective’s discovery of a “hidden truth,” the granting of a wish after death, and gin gimlets to finalize the deal.