The Ice Axe Murders

London: Geoffrey Bles. Very Good+ in Very Good dj. (c.1958). First Edition. Hardcover. (price-clipped) [ex-rental library book (W.H. Smith & Son; marked as such only by a bookplate on the front pastedown), minor shelfwear, faint foxing and very light soiling to edges of text block, one-time owner's initials plus date & place of purchase in ink along edge of rear pastedown (concealed beneath jacket flap); jacket has tiny bits of paper loss at several spine corners, otherwise quite nice]. A mountain-set murder mystery with a filmmaking angle. The plot involves a movie being shot against the background of Mont Blanc, and features "Sir Abercrombie Lewker, that well-known actor-manager and amateur detective." The was one of the author's seventeen Lewker adventures; most are set in mountainous regions, reflecting the author's self-described lifelong recreation of mountaineering and rock-climbing. (He also wrote numerous book on those topics, usually under the name Showell Styles.) .