Hildegarde Withers Books
A trip to the New York Aquarium leads spinster sleuth Hildegarde Withers into an investigation into the murder of Wall Street broker Gerald Lester, whose body is found floating in the pool of the Galapagos penguins
The bumbling teacher Miss Withers stumbles on a corpse and takes the investigation into her own hands.
Hildegarde Withers heads for Catalina Island when a man is murdered on a passenger plane in full sight of the other passengers and yet no one saw him die. First published in 1933.
Spinster sleuth Hildegarde Withers and Inspector Oscar Piper are on the case of murder among the dog breeders, in a case reminiscent of S.S. Van Dine's "The Kennel Murder Case" (1933).
Hildegarde Withers discovers the body of Violet Feverel, a fashion model, along the Central Park bridle path and realizes that it is not a riding accident, but murder
Hildegarde Withers heads down Mexico way where the death in the afternoon involves neither a matador nor a bull. Inspector Oscar Piper is off on a junket to Mexico in the summer of 1937 (surrounded by a bunch of Democrats, huffed Miss Withers) when a customs inspector on a train headed for Mexico City sniffs a very potent bottle of cheap perfume and promptly drops dead. Quite naturally, Oscar telegraphs Hildegarde in Manhattan about the perfume and quite naturally Miss Withers packs her bags and heads south of the border, figuring Oscar is out of his depth if he has to rely on deductive reasoning rather than a rubber hose. Why any of the occupants of the train should want to kill a harmless Mexican customs inspector is so puzzling that everyone assumes that the real intended victim is a self-made rich american woman who seemingly has rededicated her life to shopping. Her husband ought to be the prime suspect but he seems devoted to her, although he was spotted giving cash to a pretty young redhead when he thought no one was looking. Then there were the two American fast buck artists who figured they could get rich buying up all the gasoline-powered generators in Mexico on the eve of a strike by utility workers. They looked especially guilty when their shady, double-crossing associate – a somewhat accomplished ladies’ man – becomes the second person to die. A blue banderilla, usually used to slow bulls down, is driven through his back during a Sunday afternoon bullfight in Mexico City. Miss Withers borrows a technique from Sherlock Holmes himself to show that a banderilla makes for a lousy murder weapon, a conclusion also reached by a rather odd young Mexican man whose English seems to come and go. First published in 1937, this lighthearted mystery displays all the charm that made Miss Withers Anthony Boucher’s favorite female sleuth as well as a favorite of moviegoers during the early days of the talkies.
After a screenwriter is murdered on a film set, a street-smart school teacher searches for the killer. Hildegarde Withers is just your average school teacher―with above-average skills in the art of deduction. The New Yorker often finds herself investigating crimes led only by her own meddlesome curiosity, though her friends on the NYPD don’t mind when she solves their cases for them. After plans for a grand tour of Europe are interrupted by Germany’s invasion of Poland, Miss Withers heads to sunny Los Angeles instead, where her vacation finds her working as a technical advisor on the set of a film adaptation of the Lizzie Borden story. The producer has plans for an epic retelling of the historical killer’s patricidal spree―plans which are derailed when a screenwriter turns up dead. While the local authorities quickly deem his death accidental, Withers suspects otherwise and calls up a detective back home for advice. The two soon team up to catch a wily killer. At once a pleasantly complex locked room mystery and a hilarious look at the foibles of Hollywood, The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan finds Palmer, a screenwriter himself, at his most perceptive. Reprinted for the first time in over thirty years, this riotously funny novel shows why Hildegarde Withers was among the most beloved detectives of the Golden Age American mystery novel.
To clear a veteran’s name, Miss Withers investigates a society murder The war in Europe is over, and America’s fighting men are coming home. Lieutenant Pat Montague spent the war dreaming of a return to his beloved: society princess Helen Abbott. But when Uncle Sam finally lets him go, Pat finds that Helen has become Mrs. Huntley Cairns, and he has nothing to return to at all. He goes to see Helen at the Cairns mansion, only to stumble upon his rival’s murdered corpse. The jealous soldier is the obvious suspect, but Pat’s friends know he is innocent, and entreat Hildegarde Withers — elementary school teacher and talented sleuth—to clear his name. Huntley was rumored to be involved in the black market, and Miss Withers soon discovers his killer was far more sinister than a soldier with a grudge. Miss Withers Regrets is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard .
Stuart Palmer’s “Four Lost Ladies,” a Hildegarde Withers mystery “Incomparable.”—The Saturday Review “Full of fun and delightful people. A really terrific plot.”—The Chicago Daily News No use to scream. No use at all. One of the proudest boasts of the Hotel Grandee was that its thousand rooms were all completely soundproof. She could shriek until she was blue in the face, but nobody would hear her. Nobody but the man who blocked her way to the door, to the phone. Love-starved Harriet Bascom was dressed for the occasion … unmentionables trimmed with Chantilly lace; the sheerest of dark, flattering nylons; a daringly décolleté gown with a Paris label. ... It was her armor. She was dressed to kill but instead—someone killed her! And she was only the first victim in “Four Lost Ladies” by Stuart Palmer “An exciting novel, fully up to the best Withers performance."—August Derleth “A hair-raising adventure.”—The Springfield Republican “Numerous amusing twists and turns.”—The Cleveland Plain Dealer More adventures of the "old battleax," Hildegarde Withers: The Cases of Hildegarde Withers Murder on Wheels
Miss Withers has nine days to save a press agent from death row On a steamy day on Staten Island, a speeding car tears past a couple of beat cops and smashes into a delivery truck. In the front seat is Andy Rowan, pale and unconscious. In the back is a blonde—beautiful, naked, and dead. She was an aspiring Miss America, minted in the wilds of Brooklyn, and he was the press agent who wanted to make her a star. Now she will never walk a runway again. Police, judge, and jury all consider the case open and shut, and a year later, Andy’s awaiting his turn in the electric chair. But Hildegarde Withers, a retired schoolteacher with a zest for crime, believes the frightened little man innocent of the killing. She has nine days to save his life. It will take a miracle, but Miss Withers has worked miracles before. The Green Ace is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard .
Stories included are: *Fingerprints Don't Lie *The Hungry Hippo *The Long Worm *Miss Withers and the Unicorn *The Monkey Murder *The Purple Postcards *The Riddle of the Double Negative *Tomorrow's Murder
When a Hollywood cartoonist is poisoned, sharp-witted sleuth Miss Withers must draw her own conclusions. “[Miss Withers is] . . . still one of the best” (Anthony Boucher). At Hollywood’s most renowned cartoon studio, there are a few things you simply do not draw: snakes, cows with udders, violence, and death. So when Janet Poole finds a doodle of the studio’s famous cartoon penguin with a noose around its neck, she takes the drawing as a threat. Someone at the studio has murder on the mind. The top brass reach out to Hildegarde Withers, a retired amateur sleuth who has come to Los Angeles to relieve her asthma. The obvious suspect is Larry Reed, a disturbed cartoonist with a dark sense of mischief, but on Miss Withers’s first day working the case, something happens that suggests Larry is likely innocent: He’s murdered. This studio may work in animation, but Miss Withers will find the violence on the lot anything but cartoonish. Cold Poison is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard .
A comedian is dead, a witness is missing, and only Miss Witherscan set things right In comedy, timing is everything. If Tony Fagan were a better comic, perhaps he would’ve known when to keep his mouth shut. After weeks of jokes at the expense of businessman Winston H. “Junior” Gault, the sponsor of Fagan’s television show, Fagan is found with his head bashed in, and Gault is charged with the murder. The case seems open and shut, but Gault has the money to buy himself an acquittal. The only witness against him is Ina Kell—a small-town dreamer who came to New York to find fame—and she’s disappeared. It’s up to Hildegarde Withers, a retired schoolteacher with expertise in solving crime, to find the vanished witness. Ina may have come to New York seeking excitement, but she didn’t deserve to get caught in the line of fire. Nipped in the Bud is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard .
The spinster sleuth is out to rescue a young woman whose hippie adventure turns deadly in this classic mystery from the author of The Penguin Pool Murder . During a six-week college break, Lenore Gregory does what all the young girls are doing in the winter of 1969: She heads to Greenwich Village to protest the Vietnam War, painting flowers on her Volkswagen. And just as she’s starting to fit in, she disappears, becoming yet another missing hippie—and a problem for Detective Oscar Piper of the New York Police Department. Lenore’s last known whereabouts are New Mexico, on the road to Los Angeles, and there is only one person in California whom Piper trusts with the case. To find the missing girl, retired sleuth Hildegarde Withers is willing to go to the edge of consciousness and beyond. She has plenty of experience dealing with middle school children—can a flower child be any different? Hildegarde Withers Makes the Scene is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard .
HILDEGARDE IS BACK! Hildegarde Withers, the creation of Stuart Palmer (1905-1968), is the original schoolmarm detective. After she first appeared in The Penguin Pool Murder in 1931, she was so popular that a series of movies starring Edna Mae Oliver and James Gleason followed, and Palmer wrote short stories about Miss Withers for Mystery, a slick-paper magazine sold only in Woolworth's stores between 1933 and 1935. These stories, filled with the sights and sounds of New York during the depression museums, flea-circuses, burlesque shows, Latin gigolos are genuine forgotten classics. The introduction is by Stuart Palmer's widow, Jennifer Venola. This is the 4th volume is "Crippen & Landru Lost Classics."