A Zebra Mystery Puzzler #26 - Murder by the Book

It's been fifteen books since we last read the exploits of Kay Barth, assistant district attorney in Aspen, Colorado (Death on the Slopes), which is way too long.  I loved author Norma Schier's first entry into the Zebra Mystery Puzzler series, and this one only solidified my love for her writing. And Schier's love of puzzles and anagrams certainly comes into play again in this mystery, as does her habit of switching points-of-view throughout the book.  Rather than stay with the protagonist, as most murder mysteries do, Schier seems to enjoy following any number of characters throughout her books, which plays mercilessly on the reader's ability to figure out just who the killer really is!

 

Murder by the Book switches the focus from the ski slopes, which featured heavily in the previous book, to book collecting and the victim's bookstore.  Once again, the story begins not with our intrepid sleuth, but rather, with one of the suspects - Adele Bradford, wife of the murder victim - as she flies from New York to Colorado to confront the husband that left her, taking all of the money and disappearing without a trace.  The scene then switches to a sidewalk cafe, where Adele Bradford's daughter, Ronnie, is having lunch with her boyfriend, David Truro - lunch and a rather heated argument that ends with him storming off, telling her, "This can't go on any longer.  I've had it" (p. 9).  And, wouldn't you know it, but the D.A., Kay Barth, and her own boyfriend, Jason Ryder, happened to be lunching at the next table and overheard the entire thing.  Little did they realize then just how important that knowledge would later be!

 

Now, Schier switches scenes yet again to the Poison Pen Bookshop, where "Brad" Bradford is informing a very determined customer - one Frederick Carrington - that his early edition of Edgar Allan Poe's book is not for sale, no matter what offer Carrington makes.  But Carrington is more than determined, and he will get that book no matter what it takes.  Enter Jason and Kay as the dissatisfied man leaves the store.  Jason frequents the store and is familiar with the owner, but Kay is only just now starting her joy of reading mysteries.  Another change of scene takes our dynamic duo to the Green Goose pub, located, conveniently enough, right next to the Poison Pen.  Inside they happen upon Carrington once again, who quickly leaves, informing them he's going to make another offer to Bradford in order to get that book.  They strike up a conversation with the owner of the pub, Lulu Porter, when Ronnie shows up looking for her boyfriend. And to think ... all of this happens in just the first chapter!

 

Schier gives a quick jump in time, and with Chapter Two, we reunite with chief of police, Mark Field, who gets the call that Bradford has been found dead in his bookstore.  His neighbor, Lulu, found him; the overly persistent Carrington saw someone leaving the store; the ex-wife who is not an ex-wife arrived in town the morning before the killing; the daughter's boyfriend, David, has no alibi for the time of the murder; and the estranged son Kevin shows up just in time to "learn" that he and his sister have inherited their father's bookstore - the only problem is, Ronnie has gone missing, and no one knows where to find her.  It's a grand ol' mystery with plenty of suspects, plenty of clues, and plenty of motives.  It's up to Kay, Jason, and Chief Field to sift through it all to uncover the truth - and to hopefully find Ronnie Bradford before she becomes victim number two!

 

It turns out one of the biggest clues is an acrostic that Bradford had on his desk at the time of his death.  The killer clearly did not realize how important the list of names and book titles were, or he/she would have never left it there.  It's interesting, because that paper with the list of names and list of books is the first internal illustration on page 29, and from the moment I saw it, I picked up on the importance of the first letter of each name - however, Schier does not make it that easy.  It's not until nearly the end of the book when the truth regarding that acrostic comes to light, something I doubt very many people would think to consider.  But that revelation leads Kay to the identity of the killer - that, alongside a very important clue on the cover art (one that, I can honestly say, I picked up on right away, which revealed the identity of the killer from the start - I just didn't get the motive until the end).

 

Speaking of the cover - there is no signature or other identifying mark that reveals the identity of the cover artist, which is a shame, as I love the art.  I think Kay looks considerably more attractive in this cover art than she did back on the cover of book 11, and that give-away clue is subtle, but not too-subtle so as to be missed.  You just have to know what you are looking for, and you'll see it.  As far as the internal illustrations go, once again, there is no signature or other identification of the artist, but those internals are gorgeous.  I particularly like the one on page 143, where Kay goes to question Adele Bradford - I think the artist captures the personality and essence of both of these women perfectly, and one can actually feel the tension between the two screaming off  the page! I can almost picture in my mind a Dynasty-style cat-fight between these two.  And since I mentioned it, I cannot ignore the fact that the author has Kay Barth set in Colorado, and one of the characters/suspects in the story happens to have the last name "Carrington."  Now, this book was published in 1979, two years before the Dynasty nighttime soap premiered in January 1981; however, it is quite the coincidence that the television show was set in Colorado and featured a wealthy family whose last name happens to be Carrington.  Of course, Aspen is 160 miles from Denver (where the soap was set), but still...

 

One thing I did catch in the story is that the author managed to mention the Jerome Hotel (a/k/a Hotel Jerome), which Kay refers to as the "grandfather of Aspen hotels."  In the real world, the Hotel Jerome was built in the late 1800s by Jerome B. Wheeler, a co-owner of Macy's, and over the years, it has become quite the landmark in Aspen. A quick look online reveals the hotel to be QUITE expensive - a single night can cost upwards of $2,300 or more!  Definitely a hotel for the upper echelon!

 

I do find it odd that Schier does not stick with her main character, but rather, she constantly switches point of view from one character to another.  It gives the story an almost-soap opera style feel to it, as you are following the lives of several different characters, not just one.  It also makes pin-pointing the killer a little bit more difficult, since you learn a bit more about each of the characters from their own points-of-view, rather than just the protagonist's, and it gives the characters a bit more depth.  At least with this book, Schier did not wait until we were seven chapters in before she brought Kay into the story!

 

Thankfully, there are two more books in the series by Schier, meaning Kay Barth still has some mysteries to solve before this series ends!

 

RATING:  10 telling telephone numbers out of 10 for a creatively puzzling mystery that really tests the reader's powers of observation and analytical skills! 

Kay Tracey Mystery Stories No. 2 - The Strange Echo

In 1934, the Stratemeyer Syndicate offered  up a new series for girls - the Kay Tracey Mystery Stories.  The first book in the series, The Secret of the Red Scarf, was not a particularly good read - it was felt like a jumbled hodge-podge of circumstances and events that were mashed together to create a mystery.  While this second book in the series was written by the same ghostwriter, Elizabeth M. Duffield Ward, I thought perhaps since it was based upon an outline from a different Stratemeyer sister (Harriet, instead of Edna), the story might be more straightforward and more coherent.  Unfortunately, that was not the case.

 

The premise for The Strange Echo is a bit unique, so I can at least give the Syndicate credit for trying to come up with something different.  The main mystery involves some unusual echoes that are heard when Kay Tracey is visiting her friends, Wilma and Betty Worth, at Lost Lake.  The echoes seem to form partial words, but they do not make sense, and Kay must figure out what the echoes mean before she can figure out what is really happening at Lost Lake.  And this is where the mystery starts to go off the deep end, so to speak. It seems in addition to "the strange echo" that is heard, the tourist community is also plagued by thunder and lightning storms that bring no rain; odd glowing lights coming from a nearby valley; ghostly apparitions seen in that valley; and other sundry incidents that have Mr. and Mrs. Worth concerned about the girls going out to investigate the echoes.  Of course, Kay is not afraid, as she does not believe in the supernatural, and she knows everything has a logical explanation.

 

What is not logical are the numerous other mysteries in this book that, eventually, all tie into the strange events taking place at Lost Lake.  First, there is the foreign woman Kay meets in a department store in town who she overhears talking on the phone about echoes in the valley and who appears to be hiding something in her purse.  Second, there is the local bookseller who is upset because an antique book written in a foreign language has had pages ripped out of it, ruining its value (can you see where this is going?).  Third, there is the elderly man Kay and Mr. Worth pick up on their way to Lost Lake who is also headed to the lake in an attempt to locate a fortune his parents supposedly buried many years before when the area was destroyed by a landslide, which, coincidentally, is what created the lake (more on that later).  Fourth, there is the mysterious cabin deep in the woods, in which Kay sees a young man, along with the foreign woman AND the elderly man she met on her way to Lost Lake! Fifth, there is the "Scientific Instrument Company," from which a "sound device" is stolen.  The story has so many threads, Kay and the Worth twins hop from one direction to the next, and one wonders how in the world all of these could possibly be tied together by the end?!?!

 

In addition to the strange echo being heard, a major emphasis is placed on Mr. Nelson and his search for his family's treasure in Faraway Valley (yes, that is the name given the valley just below Lost Lake).  He appears repeatedly in the story, and Kay eventually learns that his story about the town being buried beneath a landslide many years ago, ultimately forming Lost Lake in the area, is true.  What is interesting is that Lost Lake is, indeed, a real lake located in Oregon that, once a year, completely disappears down a big hole in the lake bed (which hydrologists believe fills during the winter when streams leading to the lake are high, and then during the summer when rainfall lessens, the lake slowly drains).

 

What is more interesting about Lost Lake, however, is that 28 years after this book came out, the Stratemeyer Syndicate published their 24th Dana Girls mystery, titled, aptly enough, The Secret of Lost Lake (1962).  And before you ask, yes, the mystery centers around a community buried under a landslide many years prior, which landslide created the "lost lake."  There are other elements from this Kay Tracey mystery that appear in the Dana Girls' book - an elderly individual (in this case, a woman), whose parents were killed in the landslide, searching for a treasure in the area; unscrupulous people trying to find the treasure first; and a clue to the mystery being heard in a mysterious echo bouncing around in the valley!  In addition, one of the characters in Lost Lake is named "Simpson," which is also the name of the department store in The Strange Echo where Kay overhears the foreign woman speaking.  I suppose Harriet was running short on ideas for stories in the early '60s and decided to simply recycle a plot from a series that was not in print at the time!

 

A few tidbits from the story that are worth noting - the first is when Mrs. Tracey and Kay's cousin Bill are discussing the young sleuth, Mrs. Tracey observes that "Kay is like her father ... Roger was a newspaperman by profession, but I always felt that he should have been a detective.  He had a passion for apparently unimportant little details that most people would have passed by.  He used to work out the solution of criminal cases just for fun, and he was usually correct" (pp. 17-18), to which Bill replies, "He would have made a good lawyer.  And his daughter is like him -  a regular chip off the old block" (p. 18).  This description almost reads like a mixed description of Anthony Parker and Carson Drew!  The second tidbit is the breakfast served by Mrs. Worth at their cottage near Lost Lake - ham, eggs, and "corn pone" (p. 37).  I had never heard of corn pone before, so I had to look it up.  It turns out corn pone is a dense, unleavened bread made from cornmeal, salt, and water and usually fried or based in a skillet (sometimes using bacon drippings for flavor).  One thing we can always count on series books doing is teaching us something new every time we read one!

 

The final observation I want to make regarding this story is the utter vagueness used with regard to all of the mechanical and technological devises used in the story.  The author is so nebulous about all of them that it leaves the reader in a state of disbelief about all of them.  From the ambiguous name of the scientific company - "Scientific Instrument Company - to the vague descriptions of the various devices, such as the sound distortion machine, the strong wind device, the mechanical gadgets used to create glowing eyes and growls, and the unexplained tool used to draw in Kay and her cousin Bill, causing her to see distorted images; none of the technology is ever fully explained, nor is there any description of how they work (nor even any technical name given to the devices).  The story reads almost like one written by an elementary school student who wants to use strange devices but has no scientific knowledge to describe the machines or explain how they actually work.  This is a great disappointment coming from a Syndicate that thrived for many years on including detailed, educational explanations in their series books that provided readers with true learning experiences.  (For that matter, the fact that the "foreign" woman Hilda Arno, as well as her sister, Mrs. Alice Crosby, are both referred to as having accents and referenced as foreign women on multiple occasions, the author never actually identifies from what "foreign" country the women hail, leaving the reader to guess as to the national heritage of these sisters!)

 

The art for the original edition of this book appears to have once again provided by E.A. Furman (1879-1965), featuring a cover painting that shows Kay searching for those missing pages of the book in the isolated cabin and an interior illustration that finds the girls following Mr. Nelson into the woods.  The later Books, Inc. reprint of the book has another painted cover by "ELAINE," that unidentified artist known only by the one name, always written in all caps. Still another edition of the book, reprinted in 1964 by Berkley Highland Books, gives readers a third cover art, which depicts a rather exciting moment when Kay, Wilma, and Betty are out on the lake with a quickly approaching storm.  This third cover art is beautifully rendered and, quite honestly, could easily have been used for a Nancy Drew cover, since the characters are a redhead, a blonde, and a brunette with expressions that accurately display the personalities of Nancy, Bess, and George from that series.  The artist is unidentified, but I personally find this cover to be the most dramatic of them all and the one I prefer the most.

 

I must admit, these first two books do not provide high hopes for the rest of the series.  After reading these two, our book club has decided to move on to other books, as these are simply too convoluted and not written well enough to hold our interest.  Perhaps one day, I might come back and give some other books in this series a chance (and who knows, since Mildred Wirt took over writing of the series with book three, perhaps it improved from there!); but, for now, I think I am giving the Kay Tracey Mystery Stories a rest.

 

RATING:  5 crumpled pages torn from an antique book out of 10 for at least giving readers a unique premise on which to base a mystery, even if it lacks a well-executed follow-through. 

 

 

Florida Antiquarian Book Fair - 2025 - Part Two

The book-gasm that is the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair continued its two-day extravaganza in St. Petersburg today.  Words simply cannot possibly convey just how magnificent this show really is - it is a book lover's ultimate dream, to be able to spend hours and hours in a room filled with more books than you could possibly look at in a year!  The show is put on by FABA (Florida Antiquarian Booksellers Association), who realize just how important it is to preserve ideas and our cultural heritage of the history of civilization as we know it - they see significance in context, finding books that contain histories and first accounts; but they also study fiction and how it reflects and influences its cultural context - and how the ways in which we put things on a page have changed, how language has morphed and patterns of thought have shifted.  Great books preserve, for us, humanity in its most basic and in its loftiest forms.  As Bettina Drew wrote, "The past reminds us of timeless human truths ... and is the basis for self-understanding."  And there is no greater reminder than those books we hold so dear!

 

One of the things I love about the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair is that, while it does offer a plethora of books of all kinds, it also provide attendees with other paper ephemera, such as maps, postcards, art, prints, photographs, and numerous other paper products from throughout history.  New World Maps, Inc., from Lake Worth, has been selling original antique and collectible maps for over thirty years, with some of the maps in their inventory being over 400 years old!  While some of maps they had for sale depict the world as we know it now, others are so old they show the "Old World" as man thought it existed hundreds of years ago!  Along with the many maps of all sizes and colors, they also had a limited number of books for sale which, not surprisingly, dealt with maps and the history thereof.  This just goes to prove that at the FABF, no matter where your interest lies, you are definitely going to find it there!

 

And speaking of finding interesting things, over the years that I have been coming to the Book Fair, I have had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know Mike Cotton, with Back in Time Rare Books.  Mike is members of both FABA (the Florida Antiquarian Booksellers Association) and ABAA (not the singing group, which is spelled slightly different, but rather, the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America), meaning he has a wealth of knowledge and a superb selection of great books!  Some of his favorite items that he brings to the show are his pulp paperbacks and special magazines - "I'm a sucker for magazines which feature first appearances of authors such as Stephen King," he says.  But one of the select items that caught my eye upon entering is booth was the first printing of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird that he had for sale!  Now that's a true classic that would make a great addition to anyone's collection!  (While I did not pick up that first printing, I did walk away from his booth with one of those pulp novels, as well as an unused coloring book and a Crazy! magazine!)

 

Just across the aisle from Mike's booth, I discovered another ABAA member. Keith Botelho and his Crow Hop Rare Books traveled to Florida from Woodstock, Georgia to provide book lovers with a wide selection of African-American and LGBTQ+ material, some of them dating back quite a few decades!  Talk about having history right there in your hands!  Keith showed me a signed Muhammed Ali playbill for a play the boxer performed called Buck White in the George Abbott Theatre in New York back in 1969.  He also had a collection of 64 African-American Inmate Cards (including one female prisoner) from the Atlanta Prison Farm (1947-77), which operated from the 1930s until (shock!) the middle of the 1990s and in which the manual labor of the inmates on the farm produced food for themselves and those at the main penitentiary.  Where else in the world can you find such unique looks at our history like this?

 

This year also provided me the opportunity to meet Eric Albritton, with Ed's Editions Bookstore.  Another dealer with a wide selection of books, including a signed copy of With the Old Breed by Eugene Sledge.  He also had photo albums from the 1800s and World War I era, along with other military books, such as a 1918 book about the Red Baron (look out, Snoopy!).  Eric indicated the most popular books that people have been looking at are those about the clans and tartan of Scotland, as well as a Jerusalem Bible illustrated by Salvador Dali!  Now there's something you don't see every day!  But Eric had something at his booth that held special interest for me - a Free Mason's Handbook by William H. Drew that was barely bigger than the height and width of a man's hand, dating back to 1867; and right beside that was a pair of Masonic hymn books from 1916.  As my Dad is a Mason, I am always intrigued when I find antique books about the brotherhood - my dad would have loved to see those items.

 

Another dealer that caught my eye was Reagan Bisharat with Reagan's Rare Books out of Virginia.  His booth was filled with beautiful leather-bound books of all kinds, and I have to admit - I'm a sucker for the beauty of those old leather-bound volumes.  They simply do not craft book bindings like that any more!  One book in particular was the two volume set of The Marquis de La Fayette in the American Revolution by Charlemagne Tower, Jr., LL.D., published by J.B. Lippincott Company back in 1895. Just looking at that dark red/brown leather binding is enough to get a collector excited - but to look inside and find a handwritten letter (in French, which neither Reagn nor I could read!) signed by La Fayette himself (!!!!) that dates back hundreds of years, perfectly preserved in between the pages of the book - now that, my friend, is a true treasure, indeed!  Reagan got his start when he received an 1880 copy of Charles Spurgeon's autobiography, which inspired him to find and restore antiquarian books for others to enjoy.  As Reagan said while we were talking, the 19th century bookbinding is a snapshot of history, when they actually took care in binding books.  He also had a collection of Virgil's works in a rare quarto size edition with copper plates, beautifully bound in leather.

 

With so many dealers and so many books, it was virtually impossible to talk with each and every one at the show,  as much as I would have loved to; but, of course, that would have taken a week or longer!  I did manage to sneak in a few moments with my friends, Kerry Johnson and Sharon Kissell, both of whom offered up some wonderful children's series books for sale, and I also had a long chat with Charlie over at Intergalactic Trading Company, from whom I used to buy comics nearly 35 years ago!  Obviously, we had a lot to catch up on.  I also made a quick stop by the Cardtique booth, from Osprey, Florida, where they had a wide selection of old cards, booklets, and pamphlets of all kinds - another reminder that the FABF is more than just books.  And, of course, there was Michael Tormey Books from Fort Pierce, offering up a superb selection of old mystery novels in stunning condition; the Book Bazaar, who had a huge selection of original Oz novels by L. Frank Baum; the Rio Verde Co., which displayed some great children's books (The Tough Coughs as He Ploughs the Dough - read it out loud, and you'll catch the meaning of the title!), and the Bookleggers Fine Books, another ABAA member who came to Florida all the way from Park Ridge, Illinois!

 

Last, but not least, I would be remiss if I did not mention one particular book that I saw at the show that I would absolutely love to have for so many reasons.  I saw a copy of the book at last year's show, and I was attracted to it because the cover art reminds me of the original cover to The Hidden Staircase (1930), the second Nancy Drew mystery.  However, the copy that I saw at this year's show has an even greater reason to be sought after - it is a copy that was owned and signed by H.P. Lovecraft, most famously known for creating the Cthulu Mythos!  The book alone, with its cover art and uncanny tales of horror inside, is worth finding - but add to it an autograph by Lovecraft, and you have something that I was literally salivating over (well, okay, not literally, as I would not want to dribble on the book and damage it, but you get my drift).  Something like this only shows up once in a lifetime, and while I was not able to purchase it, I definitely felt privileged by just having the opportunity to see it!

 

Each year, it is always bittersweet to reach the end of another show.  I could spend another week or more going through all of these booths, breathing in the smell of those antique pages, taking in the beauty of those painted covers and leather bindings, talking with fellow collectors and dealers about our shared passions.  Of course, with one show over, it just means we only have one year to wait until the next show and our next opportunity to find some amazing books! To stay updated, you can check out the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair website (Florida Antiquarian Book Fair) or follow them on Facebook (FABF - Facebook) or Twitter (@FloridaBookFair).  

RATING:  10 hard-to-find copies of Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit? out of 10 for another amazing show with the opportunity to purchase some new additions to my own ever-growing collection of books!

Florida Antiquarian Book Fair - 2025 - Part One

For a number of years now, I have been attending the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair in St. Petersburg, Florida.  The Book Fair celebrates the written word and its important role in the human experience.  Their mission is to encourage the collection and preservation of written and printed materials, to promote literacy, and to support educational programs and research into the study of rare books.  At the Book Fair, attendees can see, touch, evaluate, and discuss fine books, maps, manuscripts, ephemera, photographs, and prints, and discuss with the sellers the history, condition, and special qualities of each book.  As someone who has loved books since the first moment I could get my hands on one, there is no way I could NOT be in attendance each year!  Simply put, browsing at the Book Fair is a true (although some might say "old fashioned") pleasure that can be re-discovered by people who have been confined to looking for books solely by means of electronic lists and search engines!

 

For the 2025 Florida Antiquarian Book Fair, there were 88 distinguished booksellers and specialists who gathered together on Saturday, March 1, 2025 and Sunday, March 2, 2025.  It was a book-lover's paradise inside the walls of The Coliseum, the location of the Fair in downtown St. Petersburg in the local historic district.  The unique design of the building only adds flair and a special feel to the already spectacular event.   When you walk through those doors and onto the showroom floor, you almost get a sense of being transported back in time - the smell of all those books, the feel of those bindings and pages in your hands, the gorgeous painted covers, the hardbacks, the paperbacks, the autographed copies, the first editions, the centuries-old manuscripts, and so much more.  In this age when more and more people seem to have become dependent on electronics and technology, it is absolutely wonderful to be able to experience the joy of holding the physical copies of these books, maps, cards, manuscripts, etc. in your hands.  Truthfully, for anyone who loves books, there is no greater feeling in the world!

 

Matt Whalon, hailing from Lakeland, Florida, has been a vendor at the FABF for a number of years now, and his family were there with him to share the weekend of bookselling!  Whalon Books specializes in children's series books (such as Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, Judy Bolton, Cherry Ames, etc.), as well as history, science fiction, and horror.  This year, Matt was celebrating Stephen King, with his booth showcasing a number of King's books for sale, including hardbacks, paperbacks, trade size editions, early printings and special editions.  But most noticeable was a beautiful red leather bound set of the master of horror's novels ("Stephen King Library") that are stunning to see on the shelf!  I can't imagine any Stephen King fan not wanting that amazing set as a part of their collection!

 

Just a few aisles away, you'll find some great pirate treasures at The Unbound Bookery booth! Here, you'll meet Sandy Silverman and her lovely assistant, who take joy in dressing up each year with a different theme.  This year, Sandy focused on books with beautiful Margaret Armstrong illustrated covers, among other exciting pieces - including a gorgeous antique set of Egyptian history books that are stunning to behold in person.  Sandy is another dealer who has been coming to FABF for some time, and her booth (as well as her store in Lakeland) always offers something for everyone.  Thus, whether you are looking for art, for history, or for some great reading, Sandy and The Unbound Bookery offer it all up for you to find!

 

Now, if you are looking specifically for children's books, then you definitely have to stop by Jennifer Mentzer's booth, which is "Roses and Onions."  The name comes from something her grandmother used to say: "Everyone's life has both roses and onions; things that make you happy and things that make you cry."  And let's face it - books will do both of those things, and so much more!  Jennifer, who retired after working in a children's library for quite a while, specializes in children's books - everything from Elizabeth Taylor paper dolls, to series books such as Nancy Drew, the Bobbsey Twins, and the Hardy Boys, to picture books, to Dr. Seuss books, to a first edition of Little Rascal, the story about the famous raccoon! Jennifer says if you are looking for a specific children's book, they just might have it at their booth (and, honestly, I can attest to that, since I was able to pick up the third Connie Blair book in picture cover format, a book I've been trying to find for some time now!).

 

As you stroll through the showroom, make sure you check out those alcoves along each side, as they have some excellent treasures to find! In the last alcove on the right side of the hall, you'll find Mallory Books, where Kenneth Mallory (who travelled all the way from Decatur, Georgia to be here!) has a huge collection of vintage Dell paperbacks for sale, from authors such as Agatha Christie, Mignon G. Eberhart, John MacDonald, and countless other names you might recognize.  Kenneth also had on display some nice pulp magazines, such as Weird Tales, as well as a number of African-American pieces of literature.  He has a wide variety of books from a wide range of decades, so you would be hard-pressed to walk away without buying something.  And I have to admit, I looked through those Dell paperbacks again and again, there were so many there, I felt as if I were going to miss something if I was not thorough enough!

 

Not far from the entrance is Cathy Graham's booth.  Cathy, who runs the Copperfish Bookstore in Punta Gorda, Florida, sells both new and used books in her store; however, for the FABF, she brought mostly her older books.  She has been attending the Book Fair for 15 years, and she brought a few gems with her this year - one of them being a very early copy of The Federalist!  While not a first edition, it is definitely an early printing in really nice shape with the original leather binding.  It is a beauty to behold!  She also has a signed Maya Angelou book, she has Florida circus programs, all kinds of Florida cookbooks, some pop-up books and other children's literature.  Cathy's love of books just bubbles to the surface when you get her talking about them, and you cannot help but share in that excitement as you browse her booth!  She got me so excited, I just had to buy one of the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators books she had on her shelves!

 

With nearly 90 booths full of books and other ephemera, it is nigh impossible to see everything the show has to offer in just one day. There are so many leather-bound copies just asking to be taken home; there were plenty of L. Frank Baum Oz books just calling my name; and countless first printings, early editions, signed copies, and special editions, that your eyes cannot possible take it all in.  I think I walked the showroom floor at least three times, if not four, and I talked to so many wonderful dealers, shared the love of books with quite a few of my fellow attendees, and managed to find a few treasures for myself, as well as some friends of mine (including a first printing of the very first Hardy Boys book, The Tower Treasure!!!).  But wait!  That's not all ... the show is far from over!  After all, it does run for two whole days...

 

RATING:  10 hard-to-find copies of Beloved Belindy out of 10 for providing book lovers and collectors with an oasis of books, books, and more books to bring a level of joy only fellow book lovers will ever understand!

Florida Antiquarian Book Fair - 2024 - Day Three

Well, the third and final day of the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair (Florida Antiquarian Book Fair) has come and gone.  It was a truly fantastic weekend, and it was so good to see so many friends I have made over the years at this show!  I wish the show could last longer, but, then again, I don't think my bank account could handle it.  While not as crowded as yesterday, there were still a good number of people there, browsing through the thousands upon thousands of books or sale.  I was right there with them, wanting to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Today, I made a new connection and new friend with a book dealer I didn't even realize was right in my backyard (my backyard being DeLand).  Richard Oates of Blind Horse Books was set up right there next to Kerry (also of DeLand!), and he was offering up a variety of vintage and antique books, particularly ones associated with travel exploration and geography.  Richard was great to chat with, and I learned he even runs a daily blog, sharing information and history about authors and their works, which for avid readers like me presents a whole new doorway to knowledge (check it out at Blind Horse Books).  Will and I browsed through his amazing display of books, magazines, pamphlets, and other paper ephemera, and quite frankly, I'm still in awe thinking about all he had there.  But there was one book in particular...

Based on the cover, I immediately thought that perhaps The Log of the Flying Fish by Harry Collingwood was part of a children's series, or at the very least, written by an author of children's books.  Well, I was half right - turns out Collingwood is a pseudonym for British author William Joseph Cosens Lancaster, who wrote more than 40 boys' books of adventure, most of them nautical in nature (think Jules Verne).  Published in 1886 (more than 100 years ago!), the copy of this book at Richard's booth was beautiful - one would never guess it is more than a century old!  And the "flying fish" is not an actual fish, which I first thought when I saw the title, but it is about a ship that goes under water and also flies in the air.  Hmmm, maybe a precursor to Stratemeyer's Tom Swift series, eh?  Oh, and one must not forget the 12 beautiful full page illustrations by Gordon Browne, who illustrated a number of children's books in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

 

One of my finds this year was Molly Brown's Orchard Home by Nell Speed (in dust jacket!!!!).  I had never heard of this series until Friday, when Will and I when antique mall shopping in St. Petersburg before the Book Fair started.  At one of the malls, we found a copy of Molly Brown in Kentucky (without dust jacket, unfortunately), and since I'm originally from Kentucky, I picked it up, curious to see what parts of my home state would be featured in the book.  So, imagine my surprise when we were looking at the various books in one of the booths and I came across Molly Brown's Orchard Home!  To go from having never heard of the series to stumbling across two books in the series in the same weekend - well, the odds are astronomical!  Needless to say, it's yet one more series I now find myself collecting!

Another awesome dealer at the show this year was Heartwood Books and Art out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  This is the dealer from whom I bought those two pulp novels I mentioned in yesterday's blog post.  They specialize in vintage mystery and detective fiction, sci-fi and fantasy, as well as horror and supernatural books - and, of course, old pulp magazines.  They had quite an amazing display of first edition hardcover books from authors such as Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, Sax Rommer, Alan Moore, William Irish, Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Wyndham, Rod Serling, and many others.   The books are in utterly superb condition, and it's anyone's guess how they have survived the years in such beautiful shape!  They also had a shelf filled with more pulp novels of all genres - from sci-fi to detective to fiction to risque - among them, I saw two different versions of Night Nurse by David Charlson.  I already have this book, but I only have one of the covers - I was so tempted to buy that other cover, but I managed to restrain myself.

What did interest me, however, was one of the books in their glass case - The Quest of the Sacred Slipper by Sax Rohmer.  The title definitely sounds like a children's mystery series book, and this title in particular brings to mind the Nancy Drew book, The Scarlet Slipper Mystery.  This particular book in Heartwood's collection was a first Canadian edition with its dust jacket in tact (not perfect, but still in beautiful shape considering it is over 100 years old!).  For those who may not be familiar with the author, he is known for his Fu Manchu series of books, which featured a supervillain as the title character.  Apparently this book has been reprinted a number of times in various formats, but this particular one is a very early printing.

Two other books this dealer had that caught my eye were anthologies from the early 1900s.  The first is titled Creeps (a collection of uneasy tales), which features a tagline that reads "Horror Stalking in Many Places."  As a fan of horror tales, I was immediately drawn not only to the title and the tag, but also to the very haunting cover itself.  The cover art appears to be by Nat Long (based on the signature and what I could find online to compare with), and it features a woman climbing to the top of a staircase with a candle lighting her way and an expression of fright on her face.  Does this sound familiar?  Well, any fan of Nancy Drew books would immediately realize the cover hearkens back to the original Tandy cover to The Hidden Staircase!  This book was published two years after the Nancy Drew book, so who knows - perhaps it inspired Long to paint this one!

The other book is titled Shivers, and this was a third collection of "uneasy tales" in the same series as Creeps.  This book features the tagline "Terrors and Ghouls of Night" and contains nine stories by various authors.  Also published in 1932, it features a strange and frightening cover (again by what appears to be Nat Long) of a blond young lady turning in fear to see an elongated creature behind her about to pounce off of a bed!  The pose of this young lady seems to almost be a mirror pose of that of Nancy Drew from her first mystery, The Secret of the Old Clock, as rendered by Russell Tandy - just sans the clock.  While neither book is an exact copy, there are certain similarities that leaves one wondering if Long perhaps saw those Nancy Drew covers and was influenced when he produced the covers to these books.  In any event, they both caught my attention and made me wish I could afford these copies!

 

One thing about this year's show that did stump both Will and me is the fact that so many booths had Edgar Rice Burroughs books - from Tarzan to John Carter to Jungle Girl to countless others.  The show was advertised to be celebrating the 120th birthday of Dr. Seuss (which it did on Saturday!), and yet we saw WAY more Burroughs books than Seuss books, and there was even one dealer that had nothing but books by Burroughs!  We don't believe the dealers planned it this way, but it was definitely a coincidence that so many brought them, and it left us wondering how we missed getting the memo!  This month marks the 74th anniversary of Burroughs' death, so perhaps that was the reason?

And once again, the three day event came to a close, and with a back seat loaded up with books, but for ourselves and others, we had to bid farewell to old friends and new friends.  It was a fantastic show, and we just wish we had more time to spend going through all those booths!  And while the show will not be back until next year, their Facebook page (Florida Antiquarian Book Fair - Facebook) allows me to follow along for any updates and to keep my anticipation going strong! 

RATING:  100 vintage pulp paperbacks out of 100 for giving me access to worlds that only books can provide and bringing together collectors from all over to share their love and enjoyment of books in one place!

Florida Antiquarian Book Fair - 2024 - Day Two

Saturday - what a day!  Today was the second day of the fun-tastic and Seuss-tacular Florida Antiquarian Book Fair (Florida Antiquarian Book Fair), and boy, was it crowded!  Which, of course, is a great thing for the many dealers that are there this weekend.  The Book Fair has been sharing some of the excitement on their Facebook page (Florida Antiquarian Book Fair - Facebook), but honestly, if you are not there in person, there's no way you can experience the joy of breathing in the smell of all those books or overloading your senses with the look and feel of hardcovers, paperbacks, magazines, and every other imaginable paper ephemera you for which you could be looking.  Despite the crowds, Will and I, along with our friend Ray who joined us today, managed to go through booth after booth after booth to find some more treasures!

We started off on the same path we took yesterday - heading right up the far left aisle, checking out some dealer shelves we missed yesterday, and chatting up with the guy at the Intergalactic Trading booth.  We finally made it to the last booth in that aisle, which was none other than the Inkling Book Shoppe out of Lakeland!  It's always great to catch up with Matt Whalon (pictured), as well as Finley Walker (not pictured), and they had some fantastic books for sale!  I picked up a couple of early printing, red-board Hardy Boys, as well as an early printing of The Secret of the Caves and a couple of wrap spine Hardy Boys for a close friend, and was very tempted to get The Three Investigators no. 39 that he had for sale (I may still pick that up tomorrow if he still has it!). They had plenty of other books for sale, from classics to sci-fi, some Dungeons & Dragons, along with a number of Tom Swift, Sr. in dust jacket, some Dana Girls, Ted Scott, Red Randall, Rover Boys, and so much more.  He also had stack of dust jackets for sale for collectors who have un-jacketed Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books!  But there was one book that stood out above all the rest...

 

...and that book would be the last Tom Swift, Jr. book, number 33 - Tom Swift and the Galaxy Ghosts! Matt has a beautiful copy of this book for sale, and for Tom Swift collectors, this is a much sought-after book.  I was fortunate enough to receive one as a gift back in 2006 from a dear friend, otherwise, I would have likely scooped this beauty right up!  It's not often you see this book out in the wild, so to speak, and the copies I see for sale online are nowhere near this good of shape!  It's well worth the price, and if someone misses out on it this weekend, that would be a true loss!

Another great seller on hand this year is Gary Overmann, who always has such a wonderful selection of children's books from which to choose.  He has plenty of Oz books by Baum, Thompson, Neil, and others, as well as classics such as Pooh, Little House, Raggedy Ann, and more.  But, of course, my eye is always on the lookout for those series books, and Gary never disappoints.  I'm not sure how he manages to have such a great inventory of these books, but clearly I wasn't the only one there looking for them - he said someone at the show bought him out of every Nancy Drew had with him this weekend!  But that's okay, because he still had plenty of others left for me, Ray, and Will to pour over and buy.

 

Gary has for sale Judy Bolton, Hardy Boys, Dana Girls, Cherry Ames, Tom Swift, Boxcar Children, Happy Hollisters, Thornton Burgess, Uncle Wiggly, Tarzan, the Little Colonel, Bomba the Jungle Boy, and the list goes on and on.  He had both picture covers and dust jacket editions, and he even still had one of the two Nancy Drew picture books (which surprised me that the Nancy Drew collector from earlier had not bought that with the rest of the Nancys!).  He also had two of Mildred Wirt's Brownie Scouts books, which I don't see too often.  He had so many books, that some where shelved behind the ones in front, making it a fun scavenger hunt for collectors like us, who pulled out the books in front for the hope of finding one of the treasures we need hidden behind.   While Will stood there looking through each of the Hardy Boys books to determine which ones he still needed (he had already bought a Vicki Barr and a Dana Girls from Gary yesterday!), I was combing through the Happy Hollisters to search for ones on the list a friend gave me to find for her, as well as the Dana Girls for the ones I needed to fill in my gaps. As I said, Gary is always guaranteed to have something we need, so he truly is a must-go-to for children's series book collectors!

 

Now, I would be remiss if I did not share the wonderful even that was celebrated today at the show.  In honor of Dr. Seuss's 120th birthday, the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair hosted a birthday sing-a-long and served cake to all who attended.  The Cat in the Hat, along with Thing 1 and Thing 2 were also present, and they walked around reminding everyone just how much fun reading can be!  Dr. Seuss was, in actuality, Theodor Seuss Geisel, wrote and illustrated more than 60 books under the guise of "Dr. Seuss."  His birthday, March 2nd, was adopted as the annual "National Read Across America Day," which encourages reading and teaches the importance, value and fun of reading!  Thus, it was only appropriate that the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair would celebrate this awesome day - and in case you were wondering, there were LOTS of dealers at the show offering Dr. Seuss books for sale.  And what better way to start your child on a journey of fun and discovery than with a Dr. Seuss book?

Now, I have to share two very interesting finds that I picked up at the show today.  While browsing through a shelf of pulp novels, I came across one titled Three Loose Ladies by M. H. Gropper, which featured a red head, a blonde, and a brunette on the cover, along with the tagline, "They were the cover girls on the book of temptation.  This is their intimate story."  Will and I laughed, joking the girls hair colors made us think of Nancy, Bess, and George.  Well, just a few books later, I came across another book with the exact same cover art (except instead of a red background, this one featured a white background).  However, this book was titled Three Gorgeous Hussies, was written by Jack Woodford, and was published by a different company.  Even more odd, the book featured the same exact tagline as the first!  I was intrigued enough to purchase them both - and after taking a cursory look at them, I discovered they are completely different stories, despite the same art and tagline!  Needless to say, my research into these two books is only beginning...

 

And that just goes to show, you never know what fun and exciting (and unique!) things you'll find at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair!  Can't wait to see what surprises I'll find tomorrow!

 

RATING:   50 copycat covers out of 50 for surprising me with books I didn't even know I needed or wanted and opening the door for research that I'm eager to dig into as soon as possible!

Florida Antiquarian Book Fair - 2024 - Day One

The Florida Antiquarian Book Fair - a book lovers' paradise! This is one event that I fervently look forward to every year now, and anyone who loves books should know why.  The opportunity to walk up and down aisle and aisle of book dealers selling books from hundreds of years ago to just a few years ago - from fiction to non-fiction and everything in-between - from science fiction to mystery to romance to children's series - I'm telling you, this Book Fair has it all!  And this year's event celebrates the birthday of one of children's most beloved authors - Dr. Seuss!  Check it out at their website (Florida Antiquarian Book Fair) or on their Facebook page (Florida Antiquarian Book Fair on Facebook).  The show started on Friday, March 1, 2024, and let's just say, I was all in!

 

Friday is my day to familiarize myself with the booths - visit each booth, check out the books, see which booths have what type of books, mark down which ones have children's series books (of course!), and spend time chatting with the dealers who I have come to know over the years.  For those who have never been, you are missing an amazing experience.  There are dealers who have children's series - everything from Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, to Oz and Harry Potter, to Whitman and A.L. Burt, to aviation and westerns, to Little Golden books and Big Little books, and just about everything in-between.  There are dealers who have paperbacks ranging from pulps to sci-fi to film and TV novelizations to romance, and more.  There are dealers who have classics, vintage and modern.  There are dealers who have books that date back hundreds of years, and there are dealers that have books that date back tens of years.  There are dealers who have magazines, coloring books, TV Guides, author correspondence, and other ephemera.  If it is book-related, you name it, and you will more than likely find at least one dealer, if not more, that has it.  While I go every year with a list of specific books I am searching for, every year I end up walking out of there with books I never even knew I needed or wanted (but which I am glad to now own!)

Thankfully, Fridays are not extremely busy (like Saturdays and Sundays).  So, I had the chance to sit and talk a bit with Sharon Kissell, who always has children's series books, among others.  We reminisced a bit about Judith Weaver, a wonderful friend who lived in Melbourne and who had an unbelievable library of mystery books - children and adult.  I also introduced her to my friend, Will, who came with me to the show this year and who is a fellow series book collector.  Will was looking for Judy Bolton books, and, of course, Sharon had some for sale.  (For those not in the know, Judy Bolton is a contemporary of Nancy Drew from back in the 1930s, but it ended in 1967 with the 38th book.)  However, several of them were far from ordinary Judy Bolton books!  A couple of them were actually autographed by the author (Margaret Sutton) to her daughter - definitely something any Judy Bolton fan would love to have in their collection.  

 

But the true gem she has for sale this year is a TRUE FIRST printing of The Haunted Attic.  This is the second book in the Judy Bolton Mystery series, and when it was first published, it had something later printings did not.  As die-hard fans know, Judy's birthday is mentioned in the invitation set forth on page 160 of this book and it only appears in this first edition - her birthday is removed for all other printings.  I've never actually seen one of these in person, let alone held one in my hands - so, to see this book here for the first time was a real treat!  And the dust jacket on this book?  While not perfect, it was darn near close!  For a book that is 92 years old, it is in AMAZING condition!  The colors are vibrant, there is not a lot of chipping as you see in most dust jackets this age.  Whoever had this book all these years definitely took good care of it.  This is a treasure for any series book collector, and I'm wondering who is going to be the lucky collector who gets to add this book to their collection this weekend?

But Sharon has more than just the Judy Bolton books - series book collectors will also find Nancy Drew books, Mildred Wirt books (including the extremely hard to find Carolina Castle reprint!), Dana Girls books, Connie Blair , Melody Lane , Hal Keen , Cherry Ames, and even a Barbie book (c'mon - don't tell me you haven't seen the movie yet?!).  She even had a copy of Peggy Hertz book on the 1977 television show, as well as a Walt Disney magazine featuring the Hardy Boys.  In addition, she has a number of other books as well, so it's not all just children's mysteries.  I will definitely be stopping by her booth again this weekend to pick up a few more things.

I know, I know - I seem to be focusing on the children's mystery books, as if that were the only thing at the show.  Well, let's remember - that is the focus of my collecting, so naturally, I'm going to gravitate towards those books and to the dealers who have those books at their booths.  Yet, I do collect other things, and as such, I do check out other dealers who have other books to offer - such as old pulp, gothic, mystery, and romance novels, as well as Big Little books and coloring books, and even pop-up books (and for those wondering, yes one of the dealers had the Nancy Drew pop-up (of sorts) book.

One of those dealers is Kerry Johnson, who owns The Family Book Shop in DeLand.  I've known him ever since he took ownership of The Family Book Shop (I've been going there for years and years!), and he offers such a great selection of books.  I've bought a number of gothic novels, as well as some romance and mystery novels from him over the years.  For the show, he brought a number of sci-fi and pulp paperbacks (including a couple of Dark Shadows novels by Marilyn Ross - unfortunately, I already have both of the ones he has for sale).  He also has some Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming, and Ellery Queen books, as well as some classics and poetry. This year, he offered up some "mystery" vintage books - they were wrapped up in brown paper, each one with a clue as to the book hidden within that paper.  It was a fun way to get a vintage book, and let me tell you, those things sold like hotcakes!  I'm guessing people liked the idea of purchasing a book without knowing what it will be - like unwrapping a gift at Christmas time!

However, the biggest draw for me at his booth were the two issues of The Strand magazine that he has for sale.  I'm sure everyone knows that The Strand magazine is where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, gained a lot of his popularity.  These two issues (from 1904 and 1923, respectively), feature some important moments in Holmes' history and are definitely 'must-haves' for Holmes aficionados.  While I have seen some issues of The Strand over the years, I've got to admit, I've never seen any that look this good, and I hope they manage to find a good home this weekend.  He also has a couple of other issues of The Strand, but I was so enthralled with these first two, that I didn't even notice the others until I got home and was looking at the picture!  I guess when I go back tomorrow, I'll take a look at those other issues and see what rarities they might hold inside!

These are just two of the more than 65 dealers at the show - book dealers who come here from all over the country!  Today was only a small taste of what is in store for the weekend, and after covering the show floor twice today, I think I've got a pretty good feel of it and know which booths I will be hitting up tomorrow for a more careful search through the books to see just how many more treasures I'll find!  Plus, tomorrow is the big Dr. Seuss celebration, and I am looking forward to see what they have planned for the day!

 

(And if you are wondering whether I made any purchases today, well, let's say I definitely found a couple of great buys to start my weekend right, and I already know of several more I'll be buying tomorrow!)

RATING:  10 red fish and 10 blue fish out of 10 for a superb start to a weekend of antique book hunting!