HERBERT BREAN – Wilders Walk Away. William Morrow & Co., hardcover, 1948. Hardcover reprint: Unicorn Mystery Book Club, 4-in-1 edition, June 1948. Reprint paperbacks include: Pocket #582, 1949; Collier, 1962; International Polygonics, 1988.

   Free-lance magazine writer Reynold Frame comes to the Vermont village of Wilders Lane to do a series of articles on the colonial town and its history. The village’s founding family, the Wilders, are a decidedly curious bunch:

   It is said that no Wilder ever died of old age; they just disappeared. In 1775 patriarch Jonathan Wilder walked down into the cellar of the family house and was never seen again. Another Wilder was a mate on the Mary Celeste. Still another vanished from a sandy beach in 1917, in full view of witnesses.

   But Wilders “walking away” isn’t a phenomenon relegated to past history, as Frame soon learns. First young Ellen Wilder and then Aunt Mary also vanish from watched rooms inside the house, while he himself is on the premises.

   There is plenty of eerie mystery here, a fine sense of small-town New England life circa 1948, and some fascinating bits and pieces of colonial history woven in. Plus a Revolutionary War treasure, secret passages and hidden rooms, an array of offbeat characters, and of course a love interest for Frame (Constance, one of the few Wilders who does not walk away).

   The solutions to the “impossible” occurrences are well set up, if not particularly ingenious — the trickiest is the sandy-beach disappearance — but that doesn’t spoil the book’s appeal.

   Reynold Frame appears in three other novels — The Darker the Night (1949), Hardly a Man Is Now Alive (1950), and The Clock Strikes Thirteen (1952) — all of which likewise make good use of unusual settings, strange doings, and past crimes.

   Brean also created another journalist detective, William Deacon, for The Traces of Brillhart (1960) and The Traces of Merilee (1966).

         ———
   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.

Editorial Comment:   This title is one of those compiled in John Pugmire’s profusely illustrated article “A Locked Room Library,” to be found here on the main Mystery*File website. (Follow the link.)

HERBERT BREAN – The Traces of Brillhart. Harper & Brothers, US, hardcover, 1960. Willliam Heinemann, UK, hc, 1961 (shown). Paperback reprints include: Collier, 1965; International Polygonics, 1988.

   I thought I was reading The MYSTERY FANcier again when I read Herbert Brean’s The Traces of Brillhart and found he had a detective whose first name is Bill and who is called “Deac.”

   This winner of the Bill Deeck sound-alike contest is Bill Deacon, a magazine journalist, like his creator. Brean’s first series character, Reynold Frame, had the same profession. He appeared in four undeservedly forgotten books, including Wilders Walk Away, one of the best first mysteries ever.

   The Traces of Brillhart is a good puzzle about a sleazy musician who keeps dying and returning to life (without the help of anything supernatural), keeping the reader off guard until the end. As Deacon says, “I felt surrounded by Brillhart. He was dead but he was everywhere.”

   The ending is not as good as it might be, leaving some unraveled threads. Still, this is a fine book, even if Deacon’s girl friend is called “Twit-Twit.” As Jack Paar used to say, “I kid you not.” (Her real name is Twickenham.)

HERBERT BREAN – The Clock Strikes Thirteen.

William Morrow, hardcover, 1952. Paperback reprint: Dell 758, [1954]. A shorter version first appeared in Cosmopolitan magazine, June 1952.

   I’ll tell you this, I’ve never read a mystery quite like this one. It takes place on a desolate island, off the coast of Maine. There’s no animal life and no vegetation. It’s completely dead and abandoned, all except for a small group of dedicated research biologists, busily working away on more, even more deadly concoctions for the Defense Department.

   But soon after journalist-photographer Reynold Frame arrives, summoned by a soon-to-be announced discovery, the scientist in charge (not quite mad) is clubbed to death, and several trays of germ culture are overturned. With all contact with the mainland cut off, and with the threat of sudden death constantly in the air, the murder investigation perforce goes on.

   In spite of the bizarre, even grotesque setting, Frame does a more than passable job of detection. However, after recently reading any number of newspaper articles of sheep, nerve gas and the like; and considering what we know now about how easily science can be used to kill effectively and indiscriminately, reading Brean today, he’s not half as frightening as he could have been.

   I’m sure he used all the information about bacteriological warfare that he was allowed access to, but looking back, I think that 25 years ago we were all probably quite naive.

PostScript: This was the last of the four mystery novels that Reynold Frame appeared in. He seems to have walked from the rescue boat onto the Maine shoreline, and into oblivion.

[UPDATE] 02-23-09.   I can’t remember reading this book at all, so I can’t expand on what I said back then. Nor do I know very much about Herbert Brean, I’m sorry to say, only the list of seven titles that are listed under his name in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.

   He was well enough regarded as a mystery writer, though, using Google as a guide, that at one time “he was a director and executive vice president of the Mystery Writers of America, a group for which he also taught a class in mystery writing.” (Wikipedia)

   A series detective named William Deacon (described in several places as a “crack magazine writer”) appears in his last two mysteries, both published in the 1960s. But taken from CFIV, here’s the list of all four in which Reynold Frame did the detecting.

FRAME, REYNOLD     [Herbert Brean]
      Wilders Walk Away (n.) Morrow 1948.   [An impossible crime mystery.]

      The Darker the Night (n.) Morrow 1949.
      Hardly a Man Is Now Alive (n.) Morrow 1950.
      The Clock Strikes Thirteen (n.) Morrow 1952.

From A Reader’s Guide to the American Novel of Detection  (1993) by Marvin Lachman, and posted previously on the Rara Avis Internet group by Tony Baer:

The Shudders, Anthony Abbot

Charlie Chan Carries On, Earl Derr Biggers

Wilders Walk Away & Hardly a Man is still Alive, Herbert Brean

Triple crown, Jon Breen

The Junkyard Dog, Robert Campbell

Hag’s Nook, 3 coffins, crooked hinge, case of the constant suicides, Patrick butler for the defense, the burning court, John Dickson Carr

Kill Your darlings, Max Allan Collins

The James Joyce Murder & death in a Tenured Position, Amanda Cross

The Hands of Healing Murder, Barbara D’Amato

A Gentle Murderer, Dorothy Salisbury Davis

The Judas Window, The reader is Warned, The Gilded Man, She Died a lady, He wouldn’t Kill Patience & Fear is the same, Carter Dickson

Method in Madness & who Rides a Tiger, Doris miles Disney

Old Bones, Aaron Elkins

The horizontal Man, Helen Eustis

The case of the Howling Dog, …the counterfeit eye, ….lame canary, …perjured parrot, …crooked candle, …black eyed blonde, Erle stanley Gardner

What a Body!, Alan Green

The Leavenworth Case, Anna Katherine Green

The Bellamy trial, Frances Noyes Hart

The Devil in the Bush, Matthew head

The Fly on the Wall, Tony Hillerman

9 times 9, Rocket to the Morgue, H.H. Holmes

A Case of Need, Jeffery Hudson

Friday the Rabbi Slept Late, Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry, Harry Kemelman

Obelists Fly High, C. Daly King

Emily Dickinson Is Dead, Jane Langton

Banking on Death, Accounting for Murder, Murder Makes the Wheels Go Rounds, Murder Against the Grain, When in Greece, Emma Lathen

The Norths Meet Murder, Murder Out of Turn, The Dishonest Murderer, Frances and Richard lockridge

Through a Glass Darkly, Helen mcCloy

Pick Your Victim, Pat McGerr

Rest You Merry, Charlotte MacLeod

Paperback thriller, Lynn Meyer

The Iron Gates, Ask For Me Tomorrow, vanish in an Instant, beast in View, Margaret Millar

Death in the Past, Richard Moore

Murder for Lunch, Haughton Murphy

The 120 Hour clock, Francis Nevins, Jr.

The body in the Belfrey, katherin Hall Page

The Puzzle of the Blue Banderilla, stuart Palmer

Remember to Kill Me, Hugh Pentecost

Generous Death & No Body, Nancy Pickard

Unorthodox Practices, Marissa Piesman

The roman Hat Mystery, the French Powder Mystery, The Greek Coffin Mystery, The Egyptian Cross Mystery, The Chinese Orange Mystery, Calamity town, Cat of Many Tails, Ellery Queen

Puzzle for Puppets, Parick Quentin

Death from a Top Hat, Clayton Rawson

The Gold gamble, Herbert resnicow

8 Faces at 3, Craig Rice

Strike Three You’re Dead, Richard Rosen

The Tragedy of X, The Tragedy of Y, Barnaby Ross

The Gray Flannel Shroud, Henry Slesar

Reverend Randollph and the wages of Sin, Charles Merrill Smith

Double Exposure, Jim Stinson

Carolina Skeletons, David Stout

Fer de Lance, The rubber band, too many cooks, some buried Caesar, the silent speaker, in the best families, the black mountain, the doorbell rang, a family affair, rex stout

Rim of the Pit, Hake Talbot

The Cut Direct, Alice Tilton

The Greene Murder Case, SS van Dine

   Steve suggested we might try our hands at a 100 best list, so here with some reservations is mine. Reservation number 1:   I have limited myself to mystery and suspense novels, so no thrillers, adventure, or spy novels.

   Number 2:   I have no short story collections on the list — I couldn’t top the Queen’s Quorum anyway.

   Number 3:   I am skipping the early classics from The Moonstone to The Hound of the Baskervilles. For all practical purposes this list begins with the birth of the Golden Age which most would place with E. C. Bentley’s Trent’s Last Case. The books before that are deserving of a list of their own.

   Also, I have limited myself to one title per writer though obviously some writers should have multiple entries.

   The final reservation is that this is no “best” list. More a favorites list, and of course at different times there would be some variation. Some favorite writers don’t make the list because another, sometimes lesser, writer wrote one very good book. And though they wrote well after the cut off date I’m leaving R. Austin Freeman to the earlier period along with Conan Doyle and Chesterton.

   And warning, this list is extremely eclectic.

   It struck me too how many of these had been filmed so a * marks a film version.

   With those caveats, herewith:

About the Murder of The Circus Queen by A. Abbott *
The Death of Achilles by Boris Akunin
Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham *
Terror on Broadway by David Alexander
Perish By the Sword by Poul Anderson
Hell Is a City by William Ard
The Unsuspected by Charlotte Armstrong *
Murder in Las Vegas by W. T. Ballard
Death Walks in Eastrepps by Francis Beeding
Charlie Chan Carries On by Earl Derr Biggers *
The Beast Must Die by Nicholas Blake *
Bombay Mail by Lawrence G. Blochman *
No Good From a Corpse by Leigh Brackett
Green For Danger by Christianna Brand *
The Clock Strikes Thirteen by Herbert Brean
A Case for Three Detectives by Leo Bruce
The Screaming Mimi by Fredric Brown *
Asphalt Jungle by W. R. Burnett *
The Secret of High Eldersham by Miles Burton
Fast One by Paul Cain *
Circus Couronne by R. Wright Campbell
The Man Who Could Not Shudder by John Dickson Carr
Farewell My Lovely by Raymond Chandler *
Elsinore by Jerome Charyn
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie *
First Prize by Edward Cline
Stolen Away by Max Allan Collins
Brass Rainbow by Michael Collins
The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin
The Wrong Case by James Crumley
Snarl of the Beast by Carroll John Daly
Sally in the Alley by Norbert Davis
The Poisoned Oracle by Peter Dickinson
To Catch A Thief by David Dodge *
My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier *
End of the Game (aka The Judge and His Hangman) by Friedrich Duerrenmatt *
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco *
The Naked Spur by Charles Einstein *
The Eighth Circle by Stanley Ellin
L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy *
Mirage by Walter Ericson (Howard Fast) *
Double Or Quits by A. A. Fair
The Big Clock by Kenneth Fearing *
Death Comes to Perigord by John Ferguson
Isle of Snakes by Robert L. Fish
High Art by Rubem Fonseca *
King of the Rainy Country by Nicholas Freeling
Operation Terror by the Gordons *
Take My Life by Winston Graham *
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene *
It Happened In Boston by Russell Greenhan
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett *
Violent Saturday by W. L. Heath *
Why Shoot a Butler by Georgette Heyer
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith *
Night Has 1000 Eyes by George Hopley (Cornell Woolrich) *
Flush as May by P. M. Hubbard
Ride the Pink Horse by Dorothy B. Hughes *
One Man Show by Michael Innes
An Unsuitable Job For a Woman by P. D. James *
The 10:30 From Marseilles by Sebastian Japrisot *
The Last Express by Baynard Kendrick
Night and the City by Gerald Kersh *
Fata Morgana by William Kotzwinkle
Murder of a Wife by Henry Kuttner
Headed for a Hearse by Jonathan Latimer *
Curtain for a Jester by Richard and Francis Lockridge
Let’s Hear it For the Deaf Man by Ed McBain *
Through a Glass Darkly by Helen McCloy
The Green Ripper by John D. MacDonald
The List of Adrian Messenger by Philip MacDonald *
Black Money by Ross Macdonald
Gideon’s Day by J. J. Marric (John Creasey) *
Died in the Wool by Ngaio Marsh
Guilty Bystander by Wade Miller *
A Neat Little Corpse by Max Murray *
Sleeper’s East by Frederic Nebel *
Let’s Kill Uncle by Rohan O’Grady *
Puzzle for Fools by Q. Patrick
Fracas in the Foothills by Eliot Paul
To Live and Die in L.A. by Gerald Petivich *
Shackles by Bill Pronzini
Cat of Many Tails by Ellery Queen *
Footprints on the Ceiling by Clayton Rawson
Trial by Fury by Craig Rice
The Erasers by Alain Robbe-Grillett *
The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers *
So Evil My Love by Joseph Shearing *
Stain on the Snow (aka The Snow is Black) by Georges Simenon *
The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall & Per Waloo *
Death Under Sail by C. P. Snow
Blues for the Prince by Bart Spicer
One Lonely Night by Mickey Spillane
Judas Inc. by Kurt Steel
Some Buried Caesar by Rex Stout
Rim of the Pit by Hake Talbot
The Bishop Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine *
Above the Dark Circus by Hugh Walpole
Death Takes the Bus by Lionel White
Death in a Bowl by Raoul Whitfield

Editorial Comment:   Previously on this blog have been top 100 lists from Barry Gardner and Jeff Meyerson. Coming tomorrow is another such list from Geoff Bradley, editor and publisher of CADS (Crime and Detective Stories) . Thanks to all!

   Barry Gardner’s recent list has inspired me to do one of my own. I’ve tried to give a good variety by limiting myself to no more than two titles per author (or pseudonym). I’ve also tried to include books that impressed me greatly when read, even if it was twenty years ago and I’d probably not read that book today. On some heavily read authors (McBain, Simenon) titles were chosen nearly at random. Still, it’s a list that I can live with, and one you might find worth checking for titles to try.

Neil Albert, THE JANUARY CORPSE
Eric Ambler, A CORPSE FOR DIMITRIOS
Delano Ames, SHE SHALL HAVE MURDER
Linda Barnes, A TROUBLE OF FOOLS
Lawrence Block, WHEN THE SACRED GINMILL CLOSES
Christianna Brand, GREEN FOR DANGER
Jay Brandon, FADE THE HEAT
Herbert Brean, WILDERS WALK AWAY
Fredric Brown, THE FABULOUS CLIPJOINT
          NIGHT OF THE JABBERWOCK
Paul Cain, FAST ONE
John Dickson Carr, THE THREE COFFINS
Raymond Chandler, FAREWELL, MY LOVELY
         THE LADY IN THE LAKE
George C. Chesbro, BONE
Agatha Christie, AND THEN THERE WERE NONE
          PARTNERS IN CRIME
Liza Cody, BUCKET NUT
Max Allan Collins, TRUE DETECTIVE
K. C. Constantine, THE MAN WHO LIKED SLOW TOMATOES
William J. Coughlin, DEATH PENALTY
Bill Crider, SHOTGUN SATURDAY NIGHT
James Crumley, THE LAST GOOD KISS
Peter Dickinson, KING & JOKER
Jerome Doolittle, BODY SCISSORS
Arthur Conan Doyle, THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES
John Dunning, BOOKED TO DIE
Aaron Elkins, OLD BONES
James Ellroy, THE BLACK DAHLIA
Loren D. Estleman, SUGARTOWN
          PEEPER
Michael Gilbert, DEATH IN CAPTIVITY
Joe Goes, HAMMETT
James W. Hall, UNDER COVER OF DAYLIGHT
Parnell Hall, DETECTIVE
Donald Hamilton, DEATH OF A CITIZEN
Dashiell Hammett, RED HARVEST
          THE MALTESE FALCON
Joseph Hansen, A COUNTRY OF OLD MEN .
Thomas Harris, RED DRAGON
Carl Hiaasen, TOURIST SEASON
Tony Hillerman, DANCE HALL OF THE DEAD
          A THIEF OF TIME
William Hjortsberg, FALLING ANGEL
P. D. James, SHROUD FOR A NIGHTINGALE
Faye Kellerman, DAY OF ATONEMENT
Jonathan Kellerman, WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS
Joseph Koenig, FLOATER
Jonathan Latimer, MURDER IN THE MADHOUSE
Elmore Leonard, CITY PRIMEVIL
Ira Levin, A KISS BEFORE DYING
Michael Z. Lewin, NIGHT COVER
Dick Lochte, SLEEPING DOG
Peter Lovesey, WOBBLE TO DEATH
          THE FALSE INSPECTOR DEW
Arthur Lyons, CASTLES BURNING
Frank McAuliffe, OF ALL THE BLOODY CHEEK
Ed McBain, LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE DEAF MAN
Gregory Mcdonald, FLETCH
John D. MacDonald, THE END OF THE NIGHT
          THE DREADFUL LEMON SKY
Ross Macdonald, THE GALTON CASE
          THE CHILL
Dan J. Marlowe, THE NAME OF THE GAME IS DEATH
Margaret Maron, BOOTLEGGER’S DAUGHTER
Ngaio Marsh, ARTISTS IN CRIME
W. Somerset Maugham, ASHENDEN
Archer Mayor, OPEN SEASON
L. A. Morse, THE OLD DICK
Robert B. Parker, GOD SAVE THE CHILD
Marcia Muller, PENNIES ON A DEAD WOMAN’S EYES
Ridley Pearson, UNDERCURRENTS
Anthony Price, OTHER PATHS TO GLORY
Bill Pronzini, BONES
Ellery Queen, CALAMITY TOWN
          CAT OF MANY TAILS
Barnaby Ross (Queen), THE TRAGEDY OF Y
Dorothy L. Sayers, MURDER MUST ADVERTISE
Laurence Shames, FLORIDA STRAITS
Richard Shattuck, THE WEDDING GUEST SAT ON A STONE
Georges Simenon, MAIGRET GOES HOME
Roger L. Simon, THE BIG FIX
Gerald Sinstadt, THE FIDELIO SCORE
Maj Sjowall/Per Wahloo, THE LAUGHING POLICEMAN
Julie Smith, NEW ORLEANS MOURNING
Richard Stark (Westlake), BUTCHER’S MOON
Rex Stout, TOO MANY COOKS
Grif Stockley, PROBABLE CAUSE
Josephine Tey, THE DAUGHTER OF TIME
Ross Thomas, THE FOOLS IN TOWN ARE ON OUR SIDE
          CHINAMAN’S CHANCE
Jim Thompson, THE KILLER INSIDE ME
          A HELL OF A WOMAN
Arthur W. Upfield, DEATH OF A LAKE
Donald E. Westlake, DANCING AZTECS
Teri White, FAULT LINES
Kate Wilhelm, O, SUSANNAH!
Charles Willeford, MIAMI BLUES
Stuart Woods, CHIEFS
Eric Wright, FINAL CUT

Editorial Comment:   I have one more list like this one to post, and perhaps two. Yours would be welcome, if you’d like to do one. The ground rules are pretty much up to you; any restrictions or boundaries you’d like to place on it are yours to make and to abide by. If you’d care to come up with only a top 10, 15, or 50, that’s fine, too.

    When he agreed to let me reprint this list, Jeff promised to give his reactions when he saw it again. He came up with this list of books and authors 17 years ago, and he hasn’t seen or thought about it since.

    For years I have collected crime books which dealt with music. For example a protagonist is a singer, a musician, a dancer or a DJ. The setting is a night club with musical performances, an opera-house, a record company. The reason for the crime is the corruption in the music business, organised crime and drugs. Stars are being threatened by jealous fans or blackmailers. The murder weapon is a musical instrument. A clue is a melody which leads to the killer, and so on.

    “Music and crime”-mysteries comprehend all subgenres: the traditional puzzle mystery, the hard-boiled detective story, the action thriller, the suspense novel, the crime comedy etc. Some crime stories have such bizarre plot ideas that they might be parodies. Various kinds of music are presented: classical music, blues, jazz, soul, pop and rock music, country, folk music, reggae, rap etc. Most of the books, above all the paperbacks, have really nice covers, even some crime novels which are mediocre or worse.

   Once I had filled four big boxes with this kind of books I stopped collecting systematically. There were just too many books to buy. Now and then I still pick up a crime novel with a music background. Some very interesting novels were written by French and Scandinavian authors (e. g. Pouy, Daeninckx, Bocquet, Edwardson, Nesser, Dahl etc.) which I have read in German translation.

   But my list below contains only crime and detective novels which were written in English (no short stories). I cannot say they are the fifty best music mysteries because there are many left I have not read at all. Every writer is represented only with one novel, even though he or she has written two or more mysteries referring to music.

   The novels are listed alphabetically by author. They should be enjoyable at least for readers which are interested in music and the music scene. Some books are excellent.

   If I were to recommend one book especially, I would select Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly by John Franklin Bardin. It catches the reader with its uncommon atmosphere. One gets the impression that music and crime meet in a kind of deviant behaviour, different from “normal reality” (seen from a rather abstract point of view).

   More information about this novel can be found in Crime and Mystery: The 100 Best Books, by H. R. F. Keating. Everybody who likes the film Black Swan should also like Bardin’s novel.

   Here is the list:

Allingham, Margery: Dancers in Mourning (1937)

Bardin, John Franklin: Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly (1948)

Barnard, Robert: Death on the High Cs (1977)

Barnes, Linda: Steel Guitar (1991)

Bloch, Robert: The Dead Beat (1960)

Box, Edgar: Death in the Fifth Position (1952)

Brown, Carter: Death on the Downbeat (1958); retitled: The Corpse (1960)

Brean, Herbert: The Traces of Brillhart (1960)

Cain, James M.: Serenade (1937)

Chase, James Hadley: What’s Better Than Money (1960)

Cody, Liza: Under Contract (1986)

Coxe, George Harmon: The Ring of Truth (1966)

Dewey, Thomas B.: A Sad Song Singing (1963)

Ellison, Harlan: Rockabilly (1961); retitled: Spider Kiss (1982)

Friedman, Kinky: Greenwich Killing Time (1986)

Goodis, David: Down There (1958); retitled: Shoot the Piano Player (1962)

Gosling, Paula: Loser’s Blues (1980)

Gruber, Frank: The Whispering Master (1947)

Haas, Charlie & Hunter, Tim: The Soul Hit (1977)

Hansen, Joseph: Fadeout (1970)

Hare, Cyril: When the Wind Blows (1949)

Haymon, S. T.: Death of a God (1987)

Headley, Victor: Excess (1993)

Hiaasen, Carl: Basket Case (2002)

Kane, Henry: Dirty Gertie (1963)

Keene, Day: Payola (1960)

Leonard, Elmore: Be Cool (1999)

Lyons, Arthur: Three with a Bullet (1984)

Marsh, Ngaio: Overture to Death (1939)

Martin, Robert: Catch a Killer (1956)

McBain, Ed: Rumpelstiltskin (1981)

McCoy, Horace: They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1935)

McDermid, Val: Dead Beat (1992)

Moody, Bill: Death of a Tenor Man (1995)

Myles, Simon: The Big Hit (1975)

Nielsen, Helen: Sing Me a Murder (1960)

Peters, Ellis: Black Is The Colour of My True-Love’s Heart (1967)

Pines, Paul: The Tin Angel (1983)

Queen, Ellery (Richard Deming): Death Spins the Platter (1962)

Rabe, Peter: Murder Me for Nickels (1960)

Rendell, Ruth: Some Lie and Some Die (1973)

Ripley, Mike: Just Another Angel (1988)

Sanders, William: A Death on 66 (1994)

Spicer, Bart: Blues for the Prince (1950)

Stagge, Jonathan: Death’s Old Sweet Song (1946)

Stout, Rex: The Broken Vase (1941)

Thompson, Jim: The Kill-Off (1957)

Timlin, Mark: Zip Gun Boogie (1992)

Westbrook, Robert: Nostalgia Kills (1987)

Whitfield, Raoul: Death in a Bowl (1931)

    Additional titles of older music mysteries are listed in The Subject Is Murder (1986), Chapter 14, by Albert J. Menendez. Menendez refers especially to an extensive review of the opera mystery by Marv Lachman in Opera News, July 1980.