We'll be open regular store hours this holiday weekend, except for Saturday, when we'll close at 4 p.m. Hundreds of hardbacks will be drastically marked down Friday-Sunday! We hope you're able to drop by & take advantage of this sale. Regardless, please have a safe & well-read Independence Day!

There's Murder and Intrigue this summer at the MFAH! July 2–August 16

The season opens with a great repertory double-feature: a rare, restored Godard and the noir that inspired it. Two 1969 classics round out the selection featuring indelible performances by legendary actors Michel Piccoli (Dillinger is Dead) and Yves Montand, Irene Papas, and Jean-Louis Trintignant (Z).

The Big Sleep (Directed by Howard Hawks; USA, 1946, 114 min.)
Based on Raymond Chandler's novel, The Big Sleep ($13.95).
Thursday, July 2, 5:00 p.m. / Friday, July 3, 5:00 p.m. / Saturday, July 4, 3:00 p.m.
Private eye Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) is hired to protect a rich man’s daughters (Martha Vickers and Lauren Bacall) and ends up falling in love. “The Big Sleep is a film noir touchstone . . . The daughters are involved in nefarious affairs in the underworld of Los Angeles. There’s blackmail, gambling, and quite a few dead bodies. Marlowe is called on to get to the bottom of it all, but even co-scriptwriter William Faulkner (yup, that William Faulkner) admits not ever figuring out who sent the chauffeur to his watery grave.”—Washington Post

Made in U.S.A. (Directed by Jean-Luc Godard; France, 1966, 90 min., subtitled)
Based on Richard Stark's Parker novel, The Jugger ($14).
Thursday, July 2, 7:15 p.m. / Friday, July 3, 7:15 p.m. / Saturday, July 4, 5:15 p.m. / Sunday, July 5, 5:00 p.m. Restored print

A young woman (Anna Karina) finds herself caught up in murder and a Cold War conspiracy. “Godard told an interviewer that he had been inspired to remake Howard Hawks’s 1946 version of The Big Sleep with Karina in the [Humphrey] Bogart role. As The Big Sleep has a notoriously impenetrable plot (even Hawks could not explain one of its numerous murders), so Made in U.S.A. represents Godard’s most sustained derangement of narrative convention. The key sequences are regularly pulverized just at the point of resolution, and crucial passages of dialogue are purposefully obscured by street noise as, alternately seductive and indifferent, Karina’s detective goes in search of a lover who is apparently lost, perhaps to assassination, in a labyrinthine, never-fully-explained, international political intrigue.”—Village Voice

“[Godard’s] Molotov cocktail of American pulp and Parisian paranoia (fueled by the Ben Barka affair) finally gets a proper theatrical run after years of sporadic . . .showings.”—Time Out New York

Books available at Murder By The Book! Go here for more information on The Big Sleep or to purchase tickets. Go here for more information on Made in U.S.A. or to purchase tickets. Go here for MFAH's complete summer schedule.

We have a limited number of signed & dated first editions of Katherine Howe's acclaimed debut, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane (Voice; $25.99), which debuts at #2 on June 28th's New York Times best-seller list!

James Lee Burke's 2nd Hack Holland novel, Rain Gods (Simon & Schuster; $25.99), goes on sale July 14th, and all of our copies will be signed first editions. Reserve your copies now! When Hackberry Holland became sheriff of a tiny Texas town near the Mexican border, he’d hoped to leave certain things behind: his checkered reputation, his haunted dreams, and his obsessive memories of the good life with his late wife, Rie. But the discovery of the bodies of nine illegal aliens, machine-gunned to death and buried in a shallow grave behind a church, soon makes it clear that he won’t escape so easily.

The 1st Hack Holland, Lay Down My Sword & Shield, is out of print in the U.S., not to be reprinted until early 2010. Murder By The Book is importing paperbacks from the U.K. for $15.95. Hack Holland is a product of the South, both old and new. Hard-drinking ex-POW and wealthy, progressive Democrat, he stands in the long shadow cast by his ancestors. When Holland's candidacy for a congressional seat brings him increasingly into conflict with those around him, his almost unwitting involvement with a violent civil rights conflict forces him to reassess his future -- and his past. One of David's favorite JLB books!

To order or reserve these or any other books, please call (713-524-8597 / 888-424-2842) or e-mail Murder By The Book.

Reed Farrel Coleman profiled by Maureen Corrigan on NPR's Fresh Air! Hear / read the story here. Coleman is published by MBTB asst manager David Thompson's Busted Flush Press.

Houston Press editors have picked Murder By The Book as
Best Bookstore in Houston (2008)! Find more local winners here.

Nominated for Publishers Weekly's Bookseller of the Year
(2007, 2008, 2009)!

Follow our Twitter! Keep up with our signing events, used book sales, new arrivals, and more.

Thank you for supporting independent booksellers & local businesses!
Want to find a IndieBound independent bookstore near you? Please go here.
Or how about another independent mystery bookstore? Please go here.

Signing soon at Murder By The Book:
David Liss, Sophie Hannah, Kat Richardson, Megan Abbott, Mark Schweizer, Daniel Silva, Brad Thor, Ridley Pearson, Sara Rosett, Joe R. Lansdale, Rhys Bowen, David Morrell, James Rollins, Peter Lovesey, James R. Benn, and many more! Go here for a complete list.

We have SIGNED FIRST EDITIONS of new books by:
Diane Mott Davidson, Paul Levine, Sean Doolittle, Val McDermid, Peter Robinson, Mary Higgins Clark, Carol Higgins Clark, Charlaine Harris, Jonathan Stroud, and more! Go here for a complete list.

New from Busted Flush Press!
(BFP is owned by MBTB assistant manager David Thompson.)

Impolite Society (by Cynthia Smith; paperback; $13)
The second Emma Rhodes high-society mystery. For fans of Marne Davis Kellogg, Jane Stanton Hitchcock, and Kerry Greenwood!

"You want a heroine who never takes guff from anyone? Who does things her own way and be damned to anyone who doesn't like it? Then sit down with this book, and enjoy the immensely entertaining, never boring Emma Rhodes."—Dean James, award-winning author of the Wanda Nell Culpepper mysteries (writing as Jimmie Ruth Evans)

Just Another Day in Paradise (by A. E. Maxwell; paperback; $13) Back in print, the first Fiddler & Fiora novel! One of David's all-time favorite series! Originally published by Doubleday in 1985, this title is now available again from David's Busted Flush Press. For fans of John D. MacDonald, Randy Wayne White, Don Winslow, Robert Ferrigno, and Robert Parker!

"The writing is lean and restrained, and Fiddler, growing from book to book, gives Travis McGee a real run for his money."—Los Angeles Times

To order or reserve this or any other books, please call (713-524-8597 / 888-424-2842) or e-mail Murder By The Book.

Visit Busted Flush Press's new blog here.

Have you read the mysteries written by MBTB employee Dean James?

An Unkindest Cut (by Dean, writing as "Honor Hartman"; Obsidian; paperback original; $6.99) Emma Diamond, a recent widow with a passion for bridge, takes a retreat with her friends to the Texas Hill Country, which happens to be hosting two battling bridge instructors. These professional contenders are infamous enemies -- and only one will survive the weekend. Includes bridge tips.

Flamingo Fatale (by Dean, writing as "Jimmie Ruth Evans"; Berkley Prime Crime; paperback original; $6.99) Meet waitress-single mom Wanda Nell Culpepper. After a full day slinging hash at Kountry Kitchen and then surviving the graveyard shift at Budget Mart, the last thing Wanda Nell needs is to to find her no-account ex-husband, Bobby Ray, flashing cash and stirring up trouble. Things can't get much worse -- until the next day when she finds her missing pink flamingo stuck in his very dead body.

ALSO AVAILABLE:
Murder Over Easy ($6.99)
Best Served Cold ($6.99)
Bring Your Own Poison ($6.99)
Leftover Dead ($7.99)

Posted to Death (by Dean; Kensington; $5.99) Edgar nominee and Agatha Award-winner Dean James offers his own delightful take on a classic British cozy mystery...starring an attractive, sophisticated man who just happens to be a vampire!

"A delight from start to finish. Everything you could wish for in a British cozy." -- Dorothy Cannell

ALSO AVAILABLE:
Faked to Death ($5.99)
Decorated to Death ($5.99)
Baked to Death ($6.99)

Signed/inscribed copies of Dean's books available on request.

Murder By The Book wins a 2007 James Patterson PageTurner Award!  The 2007 James Patterson Awards are intended to celebrate the people, companies, schools and other institiutions who find original and effective ways to spread the excitement of books and reading. For more information on the awards, please go here.

Read up on Busted Flush Press, the Edgar Award-nominated publishing venture of MBTB employee David Thompson.

Murder By the Book is the proud recipient of
Mystery Writers of America's Raven Award and Houston Press's Best Bookstore 2006

Watch our video:
Murder By The Book former manager (and award-winning mystery writer) Dean James talks about the store, how it's laid out and what makes us a special place to visit.
Real Media or Windows Media formats.

Who are we?
MURDER BY THE BOOK is one of the nation's oldest & largest mystery specialty bookstores, established in 1980 by Martha Farrington. The store stocks over 25,000 books -- new & used, hardbacks & paperbacks, first editions, collectibles, gift items, mystery magazines, and more. We host dozens of the hottest mystery and crime authors for book signing events every year (we've had everyone from Dick Francis to P. D. James, Sue Grafton to Robert Crais, Michael Connelly to Patricia Cornwell, James Lee Burke to Daniel Silva).

Where are we?
MURDER BY THE BOOK is located in Houston, Texas, within five minutes of the Texas Medical Center & Rice University, and ten minutes from the Galleria. Off U.S.-59, take the Greenbriar exit; head south on Greenbriar; one light from 59 is Bissonnet St.; turn right on Bissonnet; we're ahead on the right (2342 Bissonnet), between Kirby & Greenbriar. View Map

Murder By The Book's McKenna Jordan & David Thompson (along with Crimespree Magazine's Jon Jordan) will host the 2011 Bouchercon World Mystery Convention in St. Louis! Guests of Honor include: Robert Crais, Charlaine Harris, Val McDermid, and Colin Cotterill. Toastmaster: Ridley Pearson.