San Francisco History Cases

By "cases," I refer not only to mystery-related criminal cases, but to the San Francisco History Center's glass-fronted bookcases in the reading room , a section of which houses San Francisco-related fiction. Within these cases, dubbed "SF History Cases" in the online catalog, you can find 20th century mystery novels either written by San Francisco authors, or set in San Francisco. Many of them are cataloged only by title and author, with no subject heading to help you find them by searching under the aforementioned Mystery fiction or Mystery and detective stories.

Here is a sampling of our holdings; Don Herron's essay "Collecting San Francisco Mysteries" mentions the last four authors listed:

• Death Traps by Kay Cleaver Strahan

• The Man Who Didn't Mind Hanging by Nancy Barr Mavity

• Murder on Russian Hill by Lenore Glen Offord

• Kill and Tell by Howard Rigsby

• Death and Taxes, and many other titles by David Dodge: San Francisco History Center has his mystery novels, and Book Arts & Special Collections has his travel writings.

• A Dirge for Her and others by Virginia Rath

• The Five Fragments, The Long Death, and The People Ask Death by George Bell Dyer

• Murder Loves Company by John Mersereau

• Kojak in San Francisco

Come up to the San Francisco History Center to read some of these gems. Many of them can only be found in this department of the Library.