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Welcome to Mystery on Main Street.
Memories of Yesterday
 Back in 1930, Nancy Drew hit the scene and the girl detective was born. While she aged only two years in the course of a decade, and lived with her father and a servant, she had plenty of time in her post-high school days to volunteer, or engage in the arts while sniffing out criminals in River Heights. She was a girl's girl, living well and living positively in Depression Era America.
She was followed in 1932 by Judy Bolton, a more realistic young woman who matured over the life of the series. The first book, The Vanishing Shadow, was based on the author's experiences during the Austin (Penn.) flood of 1911. Judy's life is full with a brother, two parents and two serious suitors, and she eventually marries in book 10, The Riddle of the Double Ring. And unlike Nancy, Judy was written from start to finish by her creator, Margaret Sutton.
Now Applewood Books, which resurrected the old Nancy Drews, has begun to republish the Judy Bolton series, complete with original cover art and illustrations by Pelagie Doane.
The first 20 in the series are now available in paperback at $14.95, or you might like the Judy Bolton Set (the first five tales in hardcover at $60).
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 Those of us who grew up with comic characters like Secret Agent X- and The Spirit can get a nostalgia fix with The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics (Running Press, $17.95). This collection of noir comics, edited by Paul Gravett, is a treasure trove of black-and-white comics representing some of the best from 1934 to 2008. Here's a partial line-up of writers and illustrators: Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Johnny Craig, Dashiell Hammett, Alex Toth, Bernie Krigstein, Jack Cole, Mickey Spillane, Jacques Tardi, Gianni De Luca, Ed McBain and Paul Grist. This is a great collection brimming with gats, gunsels, dames, deception and dark alley doings. And as in life, even noir heroes can encounter a grisly end; it's life lived in black and white.
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We try to update this site weekly, but every once in a while we have more to say than will comfortably fit on this webpage, hence:
www.mysteryonmain.blogspot.com
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 Silks
by Dick Francis and Felix Francis
(Putnam, $25.95)
Barrister Geoffrey Mason finds himself caught in the middle of a sinister web of intimidation and danger when he reluctantly becomes involved in the case of jockey accused of killing a fellow steeplechase rider. (hardcover)
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 Devil Bones
by Kathy Reichs
(Scribner, $25.95)
When a plumber discovers the remains of a murdered girl and various dark religious objects in the cellar of a client's house, Temperance Brennan is called in to investigate the case and finds her efforts challenged by vigilante upheavals against Wiccans and occultists. (hardcover)
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 Rough Justice
by Jack Higgins
(Putnam, $25.95)
In Kosovo, agent Blake Johnson joins forces with British operative Harry Miller to stop a Russian officer's plan to torch a mosque.
more new releases > |
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 Deception's Daughter
by Cordelia Frances Biddle
(Minatour, $24.95)
The disappearance of the heiress to one of Philadelphia's oldest and wealthiest families sends Martha Beale and her secret lover, Thomas Kelman, on a search for answers that uncovers a dark and complex plot that could implicate members of every level of mid-nineteenth-century Philadelphia society. By the author of The Conjurer.
Meet Cordelia Francis Biddle at our store, Friday, October 3 at 7 p.m. and have your volume signed.
more new releases >
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