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Laurie King - Edgar Winning Mystery Author
Laurie King's first book entitled A Grave Talent, won the Edgar Best First Novel award in 1994. The protagonist is Kay Martinelli, a San Francisco Homicide detective.
Her second book, The Beekeeper's Apprentice, starts a second series with the team of detectives Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes. She then goes back to Kay Martinelli in her third book ... and alternates between the two series for the next three books.
Due to the fact that A Grave Talent only had a very small first printing of 2000 books ... and it won an Edgar ... this was a $600 book back in 1999.
Needless to say I couldn't afford it back then. The Beekeeper's Apprentice was also an expensive book back in 1999 at $325. This information is from the Bookline Mystery Newsletter. Jim does have these books as he bought them soon after they came out.
Laurie King now has a total of 17 novels as shown in the table:
Title
Year Published
Publisher
A Grave Talent
1993
St. Martin's
The Beekeeper's Apprentice
1994
St. Martin's
A Monstrous Regiment of Women
1995
St. Martin's
To Play the Fool
1995
St. Martin's
With Child
1996
St. Martin's
A Letter of Mary
1997
St. Martin's
Moor
1998
St. Martin's
A Darker Place
1999
Bantam
O Jerusalem
1999
Bantam
The Birth of A New Moon
1999
Harper Collins, London
Night Work
2000
Bantam
Folly
2001
Bantam
Justice Hall
2002
Bantam
Keeping Watch
2003
Bantam
The Game
2004
Bantam
Locked Rooms
2005
Bantam
The Art of Detection
2006
Bantam
Here are charts of Ms. King's first two books that show the distribution of prices in Dec. 2007:
As can be seen in the charts, both books average about the same price as in 1999, nine years ago.
Hypermodern book prices can increase quickly over a short period of time but may decline over the next few years.