Stuart Palmer Books in Order
Explore Stuart Palmer books in order, from Hildegarde Withers to Howie Rook, with quick summaries, series notes, and easy advice on where to start.
Last updated: July 4, 2026
As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases (at no extra cost to you).
Publication Order
21 books
The Penguin Pool Murder
by Stuart Palmer
1931
Third-grade teacher Hildegarde Withers takes her class to the New York Aquarium and finds a murdered stockbroker in the penguin pool. Her first clash and partnership with Inspector Oscar Piper is funny, brisk, and full of sharp clues.
Murder on the Blackboard
by Stuart Palmer
1932
Miss Withers discovers a fellow teacher murdered after school, only for the body to vanish before Inspector Piper arrives. With the killer still somewhere inside the building, the school becomes a locked-in crime scene.
Murder on Wheels
by Stuart Palmer
1932
A young man is found hanged after his roadster crashes in Manhattan traffic, and his twin brother falls under suspicion. Miss Withers and Inspector Piper face an impossible street murder with a neat, nasty twist.
The Puzzle of the Pepper Tree
by Stuart Palmer
1933
While vacationing on Catalina Island, Miss Withers insists that a man who dies after a short seaplane flight was murdered, not felled by illness. The island setting gives this case a breezy surface and a tricky core.
The Puzzle of the Silver Persian
by Stuart Palmer
1934
Crossing the Atlantic, Miss Withers sees a young woman disappear after a public humiliation aboard ship. The trail continues to London, where more deaths follow and even a haughty silver Persian cat has a part to play.
The Riddle of the Blueblood Murders
by Stuart Palmer
1934
At a high-society dog show, Miss Withers and Inspector Piper step into a tidy little world of pedigrees, money, and spite after murder strikes. It is a compact Golden Age puzzle with a lively show-ring setting.
The Puzzle of the Red Stallion
by Stuart Palmer
1936
A glamorous model is found dead after an early-morning ride in Central Park, and the only clear witness is her horse, Siwash. Miss Withers quickly sees that an apparent riding accident hides a carefully staged murder.
The Puzzle of the Blue Banderilla
by Stuart Palmer
1937
When Oscar Piper lands in trouble in Mexico after a suspicious death, Miss Withers heads south to sort it out. Bullfights, wealthy Americans, and a bizarre public killing make this one of the series' most colorful cases.
The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan
by Stuart Palmer
1941
Miss Withers goes to Hollywood as a consultant on a film about Lizzie Borden and walks straight into studio intrigue. When a threatened insider turns up dead, accidents and murder begin to blur.
Miss Withers Regrets
by Stuart Palmer
1947
A veteran returns from World War II, finds his old rival dead in a swimming pool, and becomes the obvious suspect. Miss Withers steps in to clear his name and uncover uglier motives beneath a polished social surface.
Four Lost Ladies
by Stuart Palmer
1949
When a former neighbor disappears, Miss Withers starts tracing a pattern of middle-aged women who vanished after coming into money. Her search leads to a hotel, an undercover gamble, and a killer who trades on romance.
The Green Ace / At One Fell Swoop
by Stuart Palmer
1950
A man on death row leaves Inspector Piper money to reinvestigate the murder that sent him there. With only days to spare, Miss Withers races to prove that the case was never as open-and-shut as it looked.
The Monkey Murder
by Stuart Palmer
1950
This collection gathers Miss Withers short cases, including the title mystery, and shows Stuart Palmer in quick, playful form. The stories mix odd murder methods, brisk detection, and the familiar Piper-Withers friction.
Nipped in the Bud
by Stuart Palmer
1951
A television comic is murdered after insulting his sponsor on the air, and the one witness who could nail the case disappears. Miss Withers has to find the missing young woman before someone reaches her first.
Cold Poison / Exit Laughing
by Stuart Palmer
1954
Retired in Los Angeles, Miss Withers is drawn into a poisoning case at a cartoon studio after a threatening sketch appears. When the obvious suspect is killed, the case turns nastier and far less simple.
Trap for a Redhead
by Stuart Palmer
1955
A television comedian is dead, a key witness has vanished, and the easy suspect may be too easy. Miss Withers follows the missing woman through a tangle of show-business vanity, money, and fear.
Unhappy Hooligan
by Stuart Palmer
1956
Former newspaperman Howie Rook is hired to look into a suspicious death after a wealthy circus enthusiast is found dead in clown makeup. To crack the case, he has to go undercover beneath the big top.
Rook Takes Knight
by Stuart Palmer
1968
A violent rich man is killed in a hit-and-run, and suspicion falls fast on his much younger wife. Howie Rook digs into the couple's private wars and finds no shortage of people with motive.
Hildegarde Withers Makes the Scene
by Stuart Palmer
1969
A missing college student drifts into the counterculture of the late 1960s, and Miss Withers follows the trail west. The search pulls her and Oscar Piper into hippie circles, generational conflict, and murder.
Hildegarde Withers: Uncollected Stories
by Stuart Palmer
2002
This volume gathers previously uncollected Miss Withers stories from magazine pages and restores a lively part of the series. The cases are short, tightly plotted, and rich with Depression-era New York atmosphere.
The Riddles of Hildegarde Withers
by Stuart Palmer
2022
This short-story collection lets Miss Withers work in quick bursts, from dinner-party killings to blackmail puzzles and locked-room deaths. It is a good look at how well Palmer could compress wit and detection.
Where should I start?
If you want the classic introduction: The Penguin Pool Murder → Murder on Wheels → Murder on the Blackboard
If you want Miss Withers on the move: The Puzzle of the Pepper Tree → The Puzzle of the Silver Persian → The Puzzle of the Blue Banderilla
If you want later cases with bigger stakes: Miss Withers Regrets → The Green Ace / At One Fell Swoop → Cold Poison / Exit Laughing
If you want Palmer outside Miss Withers: Unhappy Hooligan → Rook Takes Knight
Author bio
Stuart Palmer was born Charles Stuart Hunter Palmer in Baraboo, Wisconsin, on June 21, 1905. Baraboo was circus country, and that odd, show-business energy would stay in the background of his fiction for the rest of his life.
He started writing early. He later said he finished a first short story when he was six, and he was published in a college literary magazine while still young. He also studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and then at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, which gave him a little formal schooling before life pulled him in every other direction.
And life really did pull.
Before writing became his main job, Palmer worked as a sailor, apple picker, Ringling Brothers clown, iceman, cabdriver, publicist, reporter, copywriter, editor, poet, and ghostwriter. That restless work history was not wasted time. It gave him a storehouse of voices, workplaces, and odd corners of American life that later turned up in his mysteries.
In the late 1920s he was publishing in magazines, sometimes under the name Theodore Orchards. His first mystery novel, Ace of Jades, appeared in 1931. The same year he published The Penguin Pool Murder, the book that changed everything. It introduced Hildegarde Withers, a schoolteacher with a black umbrella, a tart tongue, and no patience for foolishness. Palmer later said the character was modeled in part on a former high school teacher, Miss Fern Hakett.
Readers took to Miss Withers right away. So did moviegoers. The Penguin Pool Murder was filmed in 1932, and the success of that adaptation helped carry Palmer to Hollywood. More books followed, including Murder on the Blackboard, The Puzzle of the Pepper Tree, and The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan. Readers still like them for the same reasons people liked them then: the puzzles are clever, the settings are vivid, and the banter between Miss Withers and Inspector Oscar Piper is dry and funny without slowing the story down.
Hollywood became his second big career. Beginning in the mid-1930s, Palmer wrote screenplays for a long list of studio programmers and mystery pictures, including entries in the Bulldog Drummond, Lone Wolf, and Falcon series. He kept writing fiction too, and books like Cold Poison show how easily he could turn studio life into material for a murder mystery.
He served in the U.S. Army during World War II, eventually working as an instructor and later as a liaison between the Army and Hollywood production companies. After the war he returned to screenwriting and moved into television work as well. In 1954 and 1955 he served as president of the Mystery Writers of America.
He never really stopped collecting strange jobs, strange people, and strange situations, at least on the page.
Late in his career he tried a different series lead with Howie Rook, a former newspaperman turned private investigator. The two novels, Unhappy Hooligan and Rook Takes Knight, are a good reminder that Palmer was not just a one-character writer. He had a taste for offbeat settings, rumpled investigators, and cases that balanced humor with real danger.
Palmer died in Glendora, California, on February 4, 1968. An unfinished Hildegarde Withers novel was later completed by Fletcher Flora and published as Hildegarde Withers Makes the Scene in 1969. That feels fitting. Palmer spent his career building mysteries out of motion, noise, work, and human complication, and even after his death, the stories kept moving.
Edited by
Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.
Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.
Comments
Did we miss something? Have feedback?
Help us improve this page by sharing your thoughts