The Black Pigeon, first published in 1929, is a mystery centering on the murder of “Handsome Harry” Borden, a lecherous, unethical stock promoter, who had cost many investors their life-savings. Borden’s secretary, a suspect herself, convinces Detective Sergeant McMann that she can be of assistance, and sets out determine the true identity of the killer. There were plenty of reasons for “Handsome Harry” Borden to be murdered. After all, he had cost numerous investors their life savings with questionable securities. And he had left his wife for a string of actresses and dancers, only to shed each in turn for a new flame. And the office boy that he had bullied. Not to mention the jealous boyfriend of his secretary to whom he had made unwanted advances. So there were plenty of suspects when was found dead of a gunshot wound in his office. The question is, which of them actually committed the crime? Everyone but the titular bird seems to have a motive for killing Handsome Harry Borden. But when the lecherous stock promoter is shot, his beautiful secretary Ruth and her new fiancé Jack are among the main suspects. Fortunately, Ruth is as bright as she is beautiful, and convinces the policeman in charge to let her help. Of course, he’s hoping she’ll give something away, but she uses her observation of the other suspects to find the true solution. For fans of the puzzle genre, Austin has daringly provided a solution that reflects back to the beginning of the book. Very clever!

The pigeon is the quintessential city bird. Domesticated thousands of years ago as a messenger and a source of food, its presence on our sidewalks is so common that people consider the bird a nuisance—if they notice it at all. Yet pigeons are also kept for pleasure, sport, and profit by people all over the world, from the “pigeon wars” waged by breeding enthusiasts in the skies over Brooklyn to the Million Dollar Pigeon Race held every year in South Africa. Drawing on more than three years of fieldwork across three continents, Colin Jerolmack traces our complex and often contradictory relationship with these versatile animals in public spaces such as Venice’s Piazza San Marco and London’s Trafalgar Square and in working-class and immigrant communities of pigeon breeders in New York and Berlin. By exploring what he calls “the social experience of animals,” Jerolmack shows how our interactions with pigeons offer surprising insights into city life, community, culture, and politics. Theoretically understated and accessible to interested readers of all stripes, The Global Pigeon is one of the best and most original ethnographies to be published in decades.

Humans have always bred, farmed, raced, and lived alongside pigeons. Some of us shoo them away and others care for them as the city’s most famous wildlife. The New York Pigeon, now in its second edition with spectacular new images, is a one-of-a-kind, intimate study of this worldwide neighbor. The New York Pigeon reveals the unexpected beauty of the omnipresent pigeon as if Vogue devoted its pages to birds, not fashion models. In spite of pigeons’ ubiquity in New York and other cities, we never really see them closely and know very little about their function in the urban ecosystem. This book brings to light the intriguing history, behavior, and splendor of a bird so often overlooked. While The New York Pigeon is primarily a photography book, it also tells the five-thousand-year story of the feral pigeon. Why are pigeons so successful in cities and not in the countryside? Why do they have such diverse plumage? How have pigeons adapted to survive on almost any food? Why are pigeons able to fly up to 500 miles per day but rarely do? How did Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner teach pigeons to do complicated tasks, from tracking missile targets to recognizing individual human faces? Why can pigeons see in the ultraviolet light spectrum, and why is half of their brain used for visual perception? The second edition of The New York Pigeon, with its fresh portraiture and new essay from Catherine Quayle of the Wild Bird Fund, presents dramatic, hyper-real studio portraits capturing the personalities, expressiveness, glorious feather iridescence, and deeply hued eyes of the New York pigeon.

Originally published in 1953, STOOL PIGEON is a dark tale of New York gangsters in Little Italy and the revengeful cop who plans to bring down an old nemesis.