Court of Crows is a court drama originally published in 1961 in hardcover and then published at least twice in paperback by Popular Library, in 1963 and 1967. Although reviewed in the New York Times when released it is so unknown today as to not even be found on Goodreads.
From the back cover "A fascinating journey into the devious twistings of adultery, murder and betrayal among a decadent people..." and "...because she was an adulteress, she stood trial for murder...an impressively substantial novel..." There are a fair number of copies available on the secondary market. Fourteen copies on Biblio, for example, as low as $5.99. Information on Knowlton himself is harder to find. He was an officer in the Navy and an editor at the United Press. Born in 1914, he died young in 1968. His father was a well-known trial lawyer in Massachusetts.
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Romance and Mystery are by far the two largest genres of fiction. Harlequin capitalized on this with their Intrigue series.
Romantic Suspense was first popularized in the 1950s and 1960s with the likes of Mary Stewart, Victoria Holt, and Phyllis Whitney. Harlequin launched Intrigue, with contemporary timelines and characters, in 1984. The Intrigue series, like other "harlequin" series, developed subseries within, usually based on a family (The McKenna Legacy), an organization (The Colby Agency) or a location (The Rose Tattoo). The subseries could be written by a single author, as our example today where all 12 volumes in The Rose Tattoo subseries were written by Kelsey Roberts, or multi-author, like the Colby Agency subseries. Her Mother's Arms combines an adopted heroine looking for her biological mother, a sexy ex-CIA agent, and someone looking to kill the heroine for the truths she may uncover. As with most serial romances the story unrolls quickly and ends predictably but it is a fun ride. Intrigues run to about 250 pages, still well within a single evening's sitting. Her Mother's Arms is a typical example of the genre and the series. It gets a 4.0 rating on Goodreads. Her Mother's Arms is available on Biblio for as little as $3.97. "A provocative...novel of love and divorce among the moderns." it says on the cover. From the blurb on the back: Ward Galvin could not have told you why his marriage was on the rocks. His wife, Myra was still a beautiful woman, desirable to every man - except to himself.
Then he met Trina. Trina Macklyn was the kind of girl even a good man dreams of once. Vina Delmar was a prolific writer from the 1920s through 1976. She and her husband wrote short stories, plays, and novels. This one was written after her husband died and was the only one of her last ten that was not historical in nature. Her work is not often read these days but has an average rating on a scattering of reviews on Goodreads of about 4, which is relatively high. The Breeze from Camelot is available on Biblio for as little as $7.99. On Throwback Thursday I will bring a brief re-introduction to a book out of print.
Last week it was a serial romance; this week I push back even further, to 1964 with a hard-boiled espionage thriller from Edward S. Aarons, Assignment Sulu Sea. This book was originally published in 1964 and went right to paperback. It was reprinted three more times, all by Fawcett - 1968, 1974, and 1981. It is the 20th book by Aarons featuring CIA agent Sam Durrell. It has a 3.54 star rating on Goodreads. This novel, like the other 41 in the series, was set outside the U.S. and in the same temporal period as it was written (i.e. the 1960s). So the themes are the Cold War themes of the day. Aarons sold over 23 million books in the Durrell series, rivalling, at the time, Ian Fleming's James Bond novels in popularity. Assignment Sulu Sea is short, only 160 pages, so can be read in an evening. Durrell finds himself in a mystery with a missing submarine, friends in unexpected places, murder, and political intrigue in a Pacific island chain. It can be bought for as little as $5.63 on Biblio. |
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