Put Out the Light; The Death Ceremony; Murder in the Queen's Armes

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:

Sara Woods: Woods did her writing in Canada, but all her novels were set in her native England. She created three short detective series under three different pseudonyms, but her main claim to fame is the 48 novels in the Anthony Maitland series. This is the 45th Maitland 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 as three cozy mysteries under the name Hampton Charles. This is the seventh Otani novel.

Aaron J. Elkins: Edgar award winner and two-time Agatha award winner, Elkins created the forensic anthropologist crime solver Gideon Oliver, appearing in eighteen novels, and museum curator crime solver Chris Norgren, appearing in three books, because who ever heard of police solving crimes. Elkins also teamed up with his wife, Charlotte, on two additional series. This is the third Gideon Oliver novel.