The Books · Where to Find Them

Where to Buy.

Trade paperback. Kindle e-reader. Your phone in a waiting room. Or, best of all, off the shelf at an independent bookstore.

Four series, a growing catalog, and a whistle-stop on the way to your reading chair. Pick your favourite path to the page.

Dark Lantern Tales book collection at Park Road Books in Charlotte, NC.

Shop Local · Charlotte, NC

On the shelf at Park Road Books.

Our favourite independent bookstore. Real books, real shelves, real people who know what you might want to read next. Worth a trip to Charlotte just for the stop.

Or go straight to the series

Browse by series.

The Flagship

Joe Phenix Detective Series

The long-running New York detective. Albert W. Aiken, 1878–1894. Eleven volumes.

Browse the series →

Search on Amazon →

Vintage detective book cover for Dark Lantern Tales by Albert W. Niken.

Stand-Alone Novels

Gilded Age Detective Stories

Frisco Detective, Actress Detective, Hilda Serene, Tom of California. Aiken stand-alones.

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Frisco Detective on Amazon →

Vintage crime story poster featuring detectives Daring Desmond and Gideon Gault.

Industrial Thrillers

Steam-Age Crime Stories

Daring Desmond (1884) and Gideon Gault (1897) — two novels, one paperback.

Browse the series →

Paperback on Amazon →

Vintage Sherlock Holmes-themed detective illustration with scientific tools and laboratory scene.

Sherlock Before Sherlock

Old Marvel, the Scientific Detective

Joe Rainone’s 1884 American discovery, three years before the first Holmes novel. Limited hardback + paperback.

Read about the book →

Buy on Amazon →

Available In

Trade paperback · Kindle · your phone.

Trade paperback (5″ × 8″). Kindle e-reader. iPad. Even your phone, via the free Kindle app — handy for waiting rooms, airports, and anywhere else the world is running slow.

Every Dark Lantern Tales Title

Available on Amazon.