So the other day, my blogging buddy Kate, over at Cross Examining Crime, sounded me out over a new experiment. You may well be aware that she runs the Reprint Of The Year award. Well, on the suggestion of Neeru, from A Hot Cup Of Pleasure, she’s decided to run the Dream Reprint Of The Year poll.
And what, pray tell, is the Dream Reprint? Well, it’s the book that hasn’t been reprinted in a while that, quite frankly, needs to be. But there are some rules…
I should say, this is all set out in some detail on Kate’s announcement page – let’s face it, I’m going to forget a detail or three, so if there’s anything different between what I say and what’s on the official page, well, she’s right and I’m wrong. But basically, we’re asking for people to nominate books that they’ve read in 2025 that they feel need to be brought to a wider audience. Bear in mind that our blogs are read by people who work for the publishers who reprint this sort of thing, so you never know, dreams might come true?
Who can take part? Anyone who has read an appropriate book.
What’s an appropriate book? Apart from you reading it in 2025, it needs to have been initial published before 1970 (so I can’t nominate Invisible Green, for example) and it must be currently out of print and not reprinted after 2015 (so that excludes The Wooden Overcoat, which I definitely would have nominated [SARCASM ALERT!])
How do I nominate? Well, if you’re a book blogger – well done – then you post a nomination post on Saturday 7th February. If you’re not a book blogger – and why not? – then put your nomination, with a little smidge of justification, on one of the nomination posts, this post or, ideally, Kate’s post. You’ll have a week to do this.
And then you get to vote, when Kate runs a poll. Simple.
And what am I nominating? Well, I haven’t decided yet. Maybe Beware Your Neighbour by Miles Burton. Maybe Lewker in Tirol or Lewker In Norway by Glyn Carr. Into Thin Air by Winslow & Quirk? Death Of A Peeping Tom by Belton Cobb? Twice Dead by John Rhode? The Organ Speaks by E C R Lorac? When The Devil Was Sick by Carol Carnac? How Doth The Little Crocodile by Peter Anthony? The Case Of The Gilded Lily by Erle Stanley Gardner? Maybe even The Mystery Of The Trail Of Terror by M V Carey?
Well, let’s see…
In the meantime, check out Kate’s original post and put your thinking caps on…
In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel 
Glyn Carr seconded. There are still a few I’ve not read and Sir Filthy is among my very favourite sleuths. I wish when he’d run out of ways to kill people in mountainous terrain he’d given us some theatrical murders, with more of Lady Lewker too.
Otherwise, how so few Rhode/Burton books are in print is a mystery in itself. Why did the BLCC only go for two Burtons (if you see what I mean)?
I’d also love to get my hands on more Belton Cobb, if only to discover whether Cheviot B ever tackles murders using methods other than poisoning. They’ve become a bit pricey of late.
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Yeah, Cobb going up in price is probably me, even if I’ve been rude about his books at times. I probably didn’t help with the Glyn Carr prices either.
As for the BL and Burton/Rhode, I know Martin isn’t a massive fan – although he has enjoyed a Rhode or two recently – not sure if that has anything to do with it, but something like Death In The Hop Fields would seem a good fit.
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I picked up 2-3 Cobbs cheaply a while back but since then only a couple more. All poisonings. Other than the paperbacks, the GCs were always pricey but increases are irrelevant to me, i.e. from “can’t afford it” to “don’t even think about it”. I’ve occasionally picked one up affordably, I think there are half a dozen I don’t have.
Even if ME isn’t a big fan I’d’ve thought Burton/Rhode would sell pretty well, easy to market and there are plenty of really good ones. Agree on Hop Fields, you can just see the BLCC cover, can’t you? I’ve got what looks like a print-on-demand PB of Dr P Investigates, then why didn’t Collins do more than four? Judging by the number of second-hand copies they must’ve sold OK. Again, I’ve picked up affordable copies of others, mostly HBs without DJs and often quite tatty but as long as they’re readable I don’t mind. I’ve only got half a dozen or so Burtons and a couple of the Waye books DSP did. People say the later books tail off in quality and, while I can see that from the point of view of the ingenuity, I’ve yet to read one I didn’t at least enjoy in a snackish kind of way.
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