High Stand; Nobocy Here by That Name; Go Gently, Gaijin

The Detective Book Club produced volumes of three crime novels from 1942 to 1999. Originally monthly, near the end they dwindled down to just a few per year. Many famous detective and crime novelists had their early works featured in DBC editions. Often, books were published in DBC editions before, or at the same time as they were published in mass market form. A little about our authors:

Hammond Innes: Innes wrote 37 mysteries and thrillers, some under the alternative pen name of Ralph Hammond. He also published six nonfiction books. Innes died in 1998. High Stand is one of Innes' thrillers.

Donald MacKenzie: Canadian Donald MacKenzie started out his working life as an international criminal on both sides of the Atlantic. He turned to writing about crime while incarcerated in an American prison. MacKenzie published over three dozen novels and a pair of autobiographies. Sixteen of those novels were in the John Raven series. MacKenzie died in 1993. This is the eleventh Raven novel.

James Melville: Melville, a member of the RAF during WWII, went on to become a diplomat, spending much of his career in Japan. There he began to write about the country and its people, creating a crime novel series involving an inspector called Otani. This series had 13 volumes. Melville wrote four other novels as well. This is the eighth Otani novel.