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Crime of the Fictional Variety

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The Antiquity of Man – Arthur Keith – 2 Volumes (Piltdown Man)

1928 edition by Sir Arthur Keith’s first published 1925 as a single volume. Reviewed and enhanced.

A famous work in that it includes several chapters on the greatest scientific hoax ever … The Piltdown Man … there should be a BBC mini-series on this crime. Charles Dawson discovered the skull fragments that were to provide the “missing link” between apes and man. He was then assisted by the distinguished Dr Smith Woodward. In this book Keith is not sure at all and his chapter headed “The difficulties of reconstruction” alludes to error and alternative interpretations and perhaps even the reality. The reality was exposed in1953 when the bones were found to have consisted of the mandible and some teeth of an orangutan combined with the cranium of a small brained modern human. Grafton Elliot Smith a fellow anthropologist sided with Dawson and Woodward at the Royal Society claiming that Keith’s views were motivated by ambition. Keith later recalled “Such was the end of our long friendship”.

Whilst Piltdown makes the book special there are other excellent anthropological finds well written up, not the least being the Pleistocene skull found at Talgai (near Warwick Queensland) in 1884 but brought out of a cupboard in 1914 and properly categorised by Sir T.W. Edgeworth David …. Robert Etheridge also had a hand.

Much could be said about the author Sir Arthur Keith whose interest in the origins of man stemmed from being put in charge of the Museum of the Royal Society of Surgeons at an early age.

We have included an image of the painting of key players investigating the skull of Piltdown Man … Arthur Keith is seated in the middle with Dawson and Smith Woodward standing behind him to the right …. note a painting of Charles Darwin on the wall behind the group.

Early Man and Piltdown examined but not exposed

$90.00

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Antarctic Crime – A Victim of the Aurora – Thomas Keneally – First Edition 1977

Published by Collins a first edition 1977 in pretty good condition.

A mischief-maker is strangled during a pre WWI British Antarctic Expedition, and personalities are revealed in a believable and usual crime story from the great Thomas Keneally. Dedicated to Bob Hawke!

Murder at its Coldest!

$20.00

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The Venetian Key – Upward – First Edition – 1927

Sir Rowland thought to have died of a heart attack – it was murder – was it the Hindu the Lady or the Mexican?

Bizarre Plot

$40.00

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In Cold Blood – Armstrong Livingston – First edition 1931

1931 First Edition and the “Clue of the Hairpin”. Jimmy Traynor assisted by female impersonator Tommy – blackmail leads to murder(s) in this fast moving plot.

Collectable First

$40.00

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The Law of the Talon – Louis Tracey – 1926 First Edition

Superb Art Deco cover to a gripping story involving a branded coward who finds the girl he loves will marry his cousin who will wrongfully inherit – murder romance solved by the inscrutable Detective Furneaux.

$50.00

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The Mirror Room – Christopher London – 1960 First Edition

A military hero come stockbroker who retired early to be first a publican and then writer. A clever story of the pitfalls and benefits of being an identical twin. Fast moving plot.

$20.00

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