I am looking for a mystery that I last read in 1958. It was hardcover, grayish in color and MOST OF ALL it had a small embossed GOLD DOVE on the upper half of front cover. The story ended in a cemetary with the identity and capture of the killer. The story by author Wilson Tucker “The Dove” comes very close to fitting this description but the 1st edition cover is not in any way the same. I thought the my description might be another book altogether but so far it seems it might just be another later edition. The original publishers were the RHINEHARDT pub co. USA and the CASSELL and co. of London UK. Lastly and again I am absolutely-beyond a shadow of doubt-positive about that small gold dove on a gray hardcover. I have been looking for some 44 years for this particular hardcover but no luck.
Was the small gold dove & greyish colour associated with the dust jacket, or on the hard cover of the book itself? I haven’t found a match to either, but most images tend to be of either the jacket or the hard cover, so it’s very hit and miss.
Did the book title contain the word ‘dove’?
Did the book seem new when read in 1958?
Any recollection of the geographical setting of the plot….e.g. Europe vs USA?
Does this description seem familiar: ‘Members of the Apostleship of Peace try to prevent war,’ which is one description of Francis Gerard’s book ‘The Dictatorship of the Dove’ a tense detective novel, trying to solve a string of murders, where a little enamel button portraying a dove is found next to the dead bodies.
The best description I’ve found for Tucker’s ‘The Dove’ is an old review here
https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_1948-06-20_97_33020/page/n188/mode/1up?q=%22wilson+tucker%22+%22the+dove%22
There’s ‘The Yellow Dove’ by George Gibbs which is a WW1 espionage tale, it has the title words embossed in yellow on the upper half of a greyish hardback cover, but no small illustrative dove (see ebay for a pictures, including a table of contents, note there are other coloured bindings available)
Also having ‘dove’ in the title: the crime book ‘Deadly Dove’ by Rufus King, and a small number of other possibilities published before 1958, as listed in this book…
https://archive.org/details/bibliographyofcr0000hubi/page/130/mode/1up?q=Dove
Unfortunately the Internet Archive has no copies of Tucker or Gerard’s books, so there’s no way of checking for a cemetary showdown.
Gill,
Thank you for trying to help me find this book. The dove was stamped on the book itself, not the dust jacket. Not sure if the title contained the word dove and can’t remember if it was new when I read it. Definitely took place in the U.S., but was not during WWI and was not the Rufus King book. Greatly appreciate your input!