As every detective novel addict knows, there's no greater high than figuring out "whodunit" before the final revelation, resulting in the kind of intellectual satisfaction a shot of bourbon can never offer. Dove takes this reader/writer play to a new level by critically assessing the genre through the principles of Reader Response Theory, outlining the detective story as a special case of reading governed by rules and a specialized formula that traces its genealogy back to Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue. Paper edition (unseen), $18.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Essential reading for all armchair detectives, this collection of 33 classic whodunits is the cream of crime writing.

When Georgie Giraffe decides to become a detective, his family and friends encourage him and bring him cases.

A Thriller Award winner, Best Paperback Original Novel. For three years, Detective Jude Fontaine was kept from the outside world. Held in an underground cell, her only contact was with her sadistic captor, and reading his face was her entire existence. Learning his every line, every movement, and every flicker of thought is what kept her alive. After her experience with isolation and torture, she is left with a fierce desire for justice--and a heightened ability to interpret the body language of both the living and the dead. Despite colleagues' doubts about her mental state, she resumes her role at Homicide. Her new partner, Detective Uriah Ashby, doesn't trust her sanity, and he has a story of his own he'd rather keep hidden. But a killer is on the loose, murdering young women, so the detectives have no choice: they must work together to catch the madman before he strikes again. And no one knows madmen like Jude Fontaine.

In this bestselling book that inspired the hit movie by the same name, starring Frank Sinatra, an apparent suicide forces a PI to reconsider his most famous case Joe Leland returned from World War II with a chest full of medals, but his greatest honor came after he traded his pilot’s wings for a detective’s shield. Catching the Leikman killer made Joe a local hero, but the shine quickly wore off, and it wasn’t long before he left the police force to start his own private agency. Years after his greatest triumph, Joe has a modest income and a quiet life—both of which may soon fall apart. When Colin MacIver dies at the local racetrack, the coroner rules that he took his own life, but his widow knows better. Because MacIver’s life insurance policy doesn’t cover suicide, his wife is left broke, desperate, and afraid for her safety. She hires Leland to find out who could have killed her gentle, unassuming husband—a simple question that will turn this humble city inside out.