From the Publisher

Mystery Fiction and Mystery Nonfiction

Dirty Proof

Typesetter Suzanne Quering wants Chicago private eye Frank Dragovic to prove that she couldn't have, wouldn't have, absolutely didn't push her ex-lover into the powerful web presses of the Truth-Examiner newspaper.

Sound Proof

Mary Ployd, organizer of a folk music festival at a downstate Illinois farm, hires Frank Dragovic to catch the person who's been stealing stringed instruments. She doesn't seem to care that one of the music instructors is murdered: it's the thefts she interested in. And Frank finds that highly suspicious.

Guide to Writing the Mystery Novel

While writing Sound Proof, Barbara Gregorich kept all her notes and charts specifically so she could write a how-to book such as Guide to Writing the Mystery Novel, which is replete with specific problems she encountered in the writing and how she solved each. The many suggestions, techniques, and examples provided here apply not only to writing mystery fiction, but to writing fiction in general.

A hugely popular author of the 1910s, Earl Derr Biggers went to Hawaii on a vacation, lay on the beach at Waikiki, and came up with the plot for a perfect murder: one that could happen only in Hawaii. In 1925 he finally published a novel based on that perfect murder: The House without a Key, in which he introduced Charlie Chan, who was soon known, loved, and admired around the world. Charlie Chan's Poppa: Earl Derr Biggers brings to life this somewhat-forgotten author and analyzes each of his six Charlie Chan novels.