Rufus King: 30 books

In five short stories and one long novelette, Rufus King introduces Colin Starr, a young physician whose medical knowledge enables him to detect murder where a less able doctor would have signed a certificate of death from natural causes. Because of his shrewd understanding of human psychology as...

Rufus King (1893–1966) was an American author of Whodunit crime novels. He created four series of detective stories: the first one with Reginald De Puyster, a sophisticated detective similar to Philo Vance; the second one with his more famous character, Lieutenant Valcour; Colin Starr, who appeared...

When the radio operator on a luxury cruise ship is murdered, Lt. Valcour takes charge. While investigating the crew and the passengers, especially a lovely but lethal man-eater, the killer strikes again -- and it's up to Valcour to solve the crimes before anyone else falls victim! Rufus King (1893-1966)...

Welcome to The Fourth Mystery MEGAPACK®! This time we have a stellar lineup for your reading pleasure, drawing stories from a wide variety of sources -- including not only the traditional mystery magazines (such as Ellery Queen's and Alfred Hitchcock's), but also their less-well-known rivals (remember...

Welcome to our second volume of Detective stories! This is a grab-bag volume with contributions by many top mystery authors from the mid 20th Century pulp and digest magazines. There’s something to appeal to every taste, from noir to crime to even holiday capers and a Christmas tale by Johnson McCulley...

Who doesn’t like a good mystery? Here are 25 great noir crime and mystery stories by some of the top fictioneers of the 20th century, ripped from the pages of such magazines as The Black Mask Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Secret Agent X, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine -- and...

Here is a selection of tales that fit the "pulp crime" theme to perfection. They feature private investigators, police officers, and even everyday men and women pushed into extraordinary situations. From lowly bars to city streets to suburbia, no place is safe from the pulp crime writer -- and here are...

Murder -- it's one of the staples of mystery fiction. One of the unwritten rules of the mystery novel is to start your murder in the first chapter...and on the first page, if possible! Collected here are 22 tales of murder. Some are fiendish. ("The Doorbell" is especially chilling.) Some...

"In our opinion the best thing that Rufus King has ever written." -- The New York Times Miriam Lake found herself in an alarming situation the night she came aboard the luxury yacht Donna Louise for an interview with a "Mrs. Murchison" who was seeking a governess for a backwards child. First, Mrs. Murchison...

Here for your reading delectation are 25 outre tales of crime. Since history has proven that there is nothing unusual or unexpected about the human (or inhuman) drive to break the law, it should come as no surprise that the weird, the strange, the supernatural, and the just plain odd often, in fictional...

Rufus King returns to the maritime mystery genre with "Murder on the Yacht." A lawyer disappears from a taxi cab on the way to join a party aboard the giant luxury yacht "The Crusader." Where did he go and what happened to him? Lt. Valcour joins the cruise to find out, mixing with a varied bunch of eccentric...

Rufus King, master of the macabre, penned a modern Bluebeard thriller of such unbearable suspense that Hollywood jumped at the chance to produce it as a movie. MUSEUM PIECE No. 13 (later renamed to match the movie) was filmed as SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR, starring Joan Bennett and Michael Redgrave, and...

In this masterpiece of fear and suspense, Rufus King tackles the dangerous subjects of love and atomic energy. The resulting romantic riddle is a brain-teaser guaranteed to stymie detective fans until the very last page. Ramier Bellamy kisses Drusilla Duveen good-bye and prepares to make himself invisible....

Lt. Valcour did not object to interrupting his vacation in order to help Chief Goodfriend of the Miami detective force solve the oddly similar murders of two distinctly dissimilar women. For one thing, the cases, or case as Valcour felt it to be, interested him and he felt a distinct apprehension that...