Rare Books

The devil in velvet

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Description: Cambridge professor of history Nicholas Fenton, in the England of 1925, makes a bargain with the devil and is sent back in time to London in 1675 to solve a murder that is about to take place, in the body of Sir Nick Fenton. Fenton soon finds himself in love with the intended victim, Sir Nick's wife Lydia, and resolves to alter the course of history by preventing her murder.
Type: Rare Books(Opens in new tab)
Publication date: [1951]
Call number: 660778
Creator: Carr, John Dickson (1906-1977)(Opens in new tab)
Provenance: Purchased from Kim Stanley Robinson, August 2025. From the Kim Stanley Robinson Library. With black ink stamp on front free endpaper: "Charles N Brown, May 2, 1961".

Fire, burn!

Rare Books

Hurled back in time, a London police detective struggles to solve a nineteenth-century murder mystery in Golden Age master John Dickson Carr's thrilling mystery novel. A woman is killed in a well-lit corridor, dying before the eyes of three witnesses who, impossibly, detect no foul play. For more than a century, this baffling murder lies cold in the files of Scotland Yard until it is discovered by Detective-Superintendent John Cheviot, who yearns to apply modern scientific policing to the grisly old case. He is about to get his chance. Taking a cab to Scotland Yard, Cheviot steps out in front of Old Scotland Yard and sees a beautiful woman beckoning him. Suddenly it is 1829 and Cheviot is a member of the newly organized London police force. He might now have an opportunity to solve the most puzzling murder in the Yard's history, but in a time before fingerprints and ballistic analysis, he will find police work to be far more baffling and brutal than he is used to.

660776

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He who whispers : a Dr. Fell mystery story

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When Miles Hammond is invited to a meeting of the Murder Club in London, he is met instead with just two other guests and is treated to a strange tale of an impossible crime in France from years before-the murder of a man on a tower with only one staircase, under watch at the time the murder took place. With theories of levitating vampires abounding, the story comes home to Miles when he realizes that the librarian he has just hired for his home is none other than Fay Seton, a woman whose name still echoes from the heart of this bizarre and unsolved murder of the past.

660817

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The crooked hinge

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"Banished from the idyllic English countryside he once called home and en route to live with his cousin in America, Sir John Farnleigh, black sheep of the wealthy Farnleigh clan, nearly perished in the sinking of the Titanic. Though he survived the catastrophe, his ties with his family did not, and he never returned to England--not even for the funerals of his mother, his father, or, most recently, his older brother Dudley. Now, nearly twenty-five years since he was first sent away, Sir John has finally returned home to claim his inheritance. But another "Sir John" soon follows, a stranger who insists he has absolute proof of his claim to the estate. Before the case can be settled, however, one of the two men is murdered, and Dr. Gideon Fell finds himself facing one of the most challenging cases of his career. To solve it, he'll have to confront a series of bizarre and chilling phenomena, brushing up against witchcraft, magic, and a sinister automation in the process."--Back cover.

660814

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Scandal at High Chimneys : a Victorian melodrama

Rare Books

In 1865, novelist Clive Strickland is relaxing at his club when his friend Victor Damon comes to him in a panic, begging Clive to help him marry off his sister to a cash-poor marquis whose affections reek of gold-digging. Victor doesn't care. Something sinister lurks at High Chimneys and he wants his sisters out of the house before their lives are put in danger. Old Matthew Damon, their father, has long been dogged by scandalous rumors of solitary visits to the cells of women about to be hanged for murder. But when murder is done at High Chimneys, Strickland and private investigator Jonathan Whicher will have to sort out the rumors and look behind the discreetly drawn curtains of High Chimneys for a killer.

660786

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The demoniacs

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When headstrong young heiress Peg Ralston flees London for Versailles, her father sends dashing rake Jeffrey Wynne to bring her home from the court of England's greatest enemy. But upon their return it appears that a mysterious portrait and a child's nursery rhyme link vivacious Peg to a bawdy old seamstress who resided near London Bridge and was quite literally scared to death. The old woman's murder is but one thread in a web of conspiracy that includes blackmail, court intrigue, and an underground club that has made a hobby out of murder. With Peg's life at stake, Wynne will do everything he can to trace the diabolical connection between the two women and resist falling in love.

660790

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Panic in box C

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Dr. Fell and his companion on a transatlantic voyage where a mysterious shooting occurs, leading to a murder at a Connecticut theater's dress rehearsal, where the victim is shot in a locked box, seemingly from nowhere.

660788

The devil in velvet

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