Proof; Birds of a Feather; A Trail of Ashes

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:

Dick Francis: Dick Francis is well known for mystery novels set in the world of horse racing. Using few recurring characters, Francis' 43 novels stand alone as masterpieces of investigative fiction. Francis passed away in 2010.

Victor Canning: A prolific writer in the mystery genre, Canning didn't do too much with recurring characters. He had three short series, with the Rex Carver series being the longest at four books. Most of his writing was of stand alone novels, of which he published 50. Canning died in 1986. This is one of his last novels.

Marian Babson: Babson had a writing career that ran from 1971 to 2012. She passed away in 2017. She wrote three short detective series, the longest being the seven edition Trixie and Evangeline series, but Babson also wrote 32 stand alone detective novels. Altogether Babson published 45 novels. A Trail of Ashes has also been published under the title Whiskers and Smoke.