Recently I picked up three mystery books by small press publisher, Dark Harvest. This publisher was active from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. I now have 40 books by this publishers, with maybe a dozen more left in order to collect all of their books. Most of these I have as their “trade” editions, with a handful of the “signed/limited” variety.
Invitation to Murder (1991). This is anthology or mystery stories, all with the same premise: a young woman is found dead in a room. Around this time (early 1990s), Dark Harvest appeared to switch from horror/dark fantasy to mystery. It didn’t work, and a couple of years later they closed shop. This anthology collects a few stories with noted mystery writers (as well as writers from other genres). I bought the trade edition, and have just started reading the stories, starting with the first one, by Nancy Pickard; I’ll admit that I didn’t expect the ending on this one. I guess the market for limed edition mystery books is not as sustainable as horror/sf/fantasy books, since a year or so later Dark Harvest stopped publishing anything at all.
Junius Podrug’s Frost of Heaven (1992). I have not yet read this book, nor have I seen any other books by Podrug. I was able to get this book as a limited edition, and my copy is number 4 of 250 signed and numbered copies. The cover is boring, though it does have a nice endorsement by Nancy Pickard. It’s on my To Read list, but I know nothing about it.
Nancy Pickard’s Generous Death is not listed as one of the books from Dark Harvest on ISFDB. It was reprinted by Dark Harvest in 1992, possibly as part of their failed foray into the mystery genre; after they abandoned the horror/dark fantasy books that made their name, they ceased to exist shortly thereafter. Maybe that switch wasn’t the direct cause of their demise, but it’s hard not to associate the switch to them stopping all books.
Generous Death is the first in a series of books about the main character, Jenny Cain. Packard had a significant career in the mystery/crime genre, but this is the first time I’ve encountered any of her books. My copy is signed and numbered 268 of 300 copies. After I bought this book I looked for her books elsewhere, but so far have not found any. Maybe that will chance, as now her books are on my radar.
Out of the ca. 52 books from Dark Harvest’s publication history, I now only need 12 (or so) more. Some of these might be tough to track down at acceptable prices (to me), and as evidenced by the Pickard books, there might be one or two not listed in the publication history. Althought I have a handful of the signed/limited variety of their books, I’ll probably look for the others in trade editions. If I manage to collect them all, that would be quite a feat, at least in my eyes.
