Have you seen these new reissues of American mystery classics? Otto Penzler Publishers has a new imprint and will be reissuing Golden Age mysteries that have been long out of print. I want them all, of course, but I have limited myself to just a couple to begin with. It looks like there are half a dozen already released and a half dozen more coming this spring. I'm a sucker for reissues it would seem.
The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan by Stuart Palmer -- "At once a pleasantly complex locked room mystery and a hilarious look at the foibles of Hollywood, The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan finds Palmer, a screenwriter himself, at his most perceptive. Reprinted for the first time in over thirty years, this riotously funny novel shows why Hildegarde Withers was among the most beloved detectives of Golden Age American mystery novel."
The So Blue Marble by Dorothy B. Hughes -- "Drenched in the glamour and luxury of the New York elite, The So Blue Marble is a perfectly Art Deco suspense novel in which nothing is quite as it seems. While different in style from her later books, Hughes’s debut highlights her greatest strengths as an author, rendered with both the poetic language and the psychology of fear for which she is known today."
I think I will have to do a little sampling tonight and see which one to start with. I have been contemplating which mystery to pick up (alongside my ongoing reading of the Kinsey Millhone mysteries, of course).