How to search:

First select a category to search. Then enter a word or an exact phrase in the title field to search for a specific title, or in the keyword field to find a word or phrase from anywhere in a title, an author or the book summary. (Keywords are stemmed, so "dog" might find dog, dogs, hotdog). To search for an author, it is best to use the AND operator, for example: agatha AND Christie. (AND must be in upper case)

The results are listed by title. Click on a title to see the book's summary (if available)

Using the clear button will reset the category back to Crime and clear your previous search.

To return to the Gaslight Books home page please click on the For Sale sign above.

There are more search examples below

Search tips:

Capitalisation is not important except with the search operators AND and OR.
AND or OR search operators can be used in any field. AND will find a book entry that contains all the keywords entered in the search. OR is a much broader search and will find any books with one or the other word(s), not necessarily all in one entry. It is essential that AND and OR are capitalised, otherwise the search will treat these words as ordinary words.

Title searches:

Ignore initial articles (The, An, A) in titles.

To search for a known title, type the exact title:
j is for judgement
results in the book by Sue Grafton. (The search is stemmed, so j is for judge will also find this book)

If you don't know the exact title use a keyword:
judgement could find
"J is for judgement", and, "Day of judgement"

If you enter judgement in the keyword search field rather than the title search field you could find:
"J is for judgement"
"Day of judgement"
and, "Safe House, The", a book by Nicci French which has the word judgement in the summary

Author searches:

To find an exact author, generally use an AND
sue AND grafton will result in books by Grafton, Sue
kathleen AND goonan will result in books by Goonan, Kathleen Ann

Authors are listed by surname first, followed by a comma, then given names or initials, so grafton, sue will also work. Be careful when searching on just a keyword, for example lee finds "kathleen" as well as first names and surnames containing "lee". However adding the comma will narrow the search, for example lee, will find "Lee, Tanith", and "Clee, Mona"

Keyword searches:

As well as searching for words in the titles and authors, this will also search for words in a book's summary. This search is useful if you know a series character but not the author, or to find books on specific subjects
kinsey will find books by Sue Grafton
dog AND train will find books on dog trainers, dog training and trained dogs
mars will find books set on the Red Planet, titles containing the word mars, authors with mars in their name (Michael Marshall Smith) and even marsupials

Generally, we will note in the summary if the book is by an Australian author, so you can find these by searching for australian author as a phrase.

Searching the summaries takes a little longer than an author or title search.

Not all books have summaries, but we are working on it!