*Crime, Spies & Sleaze: Often dubbed ‘the poor man’s Sherlock Holmes’, there’s still no doubting the popularity of Sexton Blake, who has probably had far more fiction written of him than the world’s greatest detective. In the Crime, Spies and Sleaze category of our Books section, we have four new digests from the famous Sexton Blake Library. These are picture library sized, but mainly text. The series ran from 1915 to 1968, and these date from the late 1950s (we think), following the 1956 revamp by W Howard Baker when the covers took on a more gangster/sleazy mode and were drawn by notable artists, such as David Wright who concerns us here. David Wright was a book jacket and commercial artist whose work graced many a cover at the time and is highly collected today. Four examples are shown here (we’re not 100% sure that #355 is his work, but it certainly looks like it; the others are confirmed and listed in a book on Wright). Condition is pretty good on all these, with the obligatory rusty staple in evidence to varying degrees. 
PICTURED: SEXTON BLAKE LIBRARY
#355 VG £7 Devil’s Can-Can by W. Howard Baker SOLD
#356 VG £7 By Whose Hand? by Rex Hardinge
#358 VG £7 Decoy For Murder by Peter Saxon SOLD
#359 GD/VG £6 Frightened Lady by Howard Baker