Description "He is dead. It is quite impossible that he should have killed himself. He has been murdered. About half an hour ago. By a long knife passed under the left shoulder-blade into the heart."On a fog-bound London night, a soirée is taking place in the studio of artist Laurence Newtree. The guests include an eminent psychiatrist, a wealthy philanthropist and an observant young friend of Newtree's, John Christmas. Before the evening is over, Newtree's neighbour is found stabbed to de...

Murder begins with the death of a kitten…Artist Jeanie Halliday is thrilled to move into a country cottage of her own, next door to the home of her dear childhood friend Agnes. But the countryside idyll isn't quite what she might have expected: Agnes is suddenly and unaccountably unfriendly for one thing; and then the neighbours are a little peculiar - old Mr Fone, obsessed with burial mounds; the scandalous Hugh Barchard; and an estranged mother taken to brandishing pistol...

Amid the danger of World War Two's London, Kate Mayhew is returning from another hopeless round of the theatrical agents. She is about to take a job in munitions when a poster about a missing child prompts her to help the war effort in a very different way. Obsessed with finding out what has happened to young Sidney Brentwood, Kate journeys to rural Wales where the boy was last seen.Aided by land-girl Aminta and the dashing young archaeologist Colin Kemp, Kate stumbles upon clandest...

Description"the murderer was also riding a bicycle... why, if we can trace it, we shall have the murderer!"On a cycling holiday in the idyllic Wales-Herefordshire border countryside, Nora and her friends make a gruesome discovery - the body of their missing comrade at the bottom of a quarry. But an apparently accidental fall turns out to have been murder - for the man was shot in the head.Fortunately John Christmas, last seen in The Studio Crime (1929), is on hand with his redoubtable fore...

The Second Shot by Anthony Berkeley is a clever and engaging detective novel featuring the witty and astute amateur sleuth Roger Sheringham. Known for his sharp intellect and calm reasoning, Sheringham returns to unravel a complex case that challenges even his keen mind. The story begins with a puzzling murder: a man is shot, but the circumstances surrounding the crime are mysterious and suspicious. When a second shooting occurs, the tension escalates, and the local police find themselves ...

The Piccadilly Murder by Anthony Berkeley is a classic detective novel that combines suspense, clever twists, and Berkeley’s characteristic wit. Featuring the keen and unconventional amateur sleuth Ambrose Chitterwick, the story opens with a seemingly ordinary afternoon in a tearoom in Piccadilly, London, which quickly takes a sinister turn. Chitterwick, a quiet yet astute member of the Crimes Circle club, witnesses an unusual encounter that soon leads to the sudden death of one of the pat...

Anthony Berkeley's 1939 mystery unfolds in one of fiction's most audacious settings: the floor of the British House of Commons. As the Secretary of State for India rises to introduce a contentious bill on colonial policy, he suddenly collapses and dies mid-speech. Initial assumptions point to a stroke, but a subsequent examination reveals a far more sinister cause — poisoning, carried out in full view of Parliament through an almost fantastical method involving a poisoned thorn hidden near...

Originally published in 1926, The Verdict of You All marked the debut of Henry Wade, one of the most respected authors of the Golden Age of detective fiction. A masterful blend of legal drama, psychological insight, and traditional detective investigation, the novel immediately established Wade as a writer of seriousness and skill. The story opens with the murder of Sir Robert Fyfe, a prominent barrister found dead in his study under suspicious circumstances. As the police delve into the l...

Work was mounting up, Detective Inspector Charlton did not feel too well and he could have done without Mr Otto Bajornsen. Yet had not this untidy, smiling man come on his fact-finding trip to Downshire, the affair of the Busy Bees might have had a very different conclusion. Even as he sat talking in Charlton's office in Lulverton, the wheels were being set in motion and Mr Theophilus Mildwater, curator of the Monk Jewel Museum, was anxiously reporting the loss of Exhibit 115, a valuable -...

Detective Inspector Harry Charlton finds himself invited to a reunion at Mereworth School at which a particularly unpleasant, but very famous and accomplished old boy, Colonel Bernard Garstang -VC, DSO and MC... aka 'Rhino' will be present. The Colonel is attending this event in order to persuade his daughter Diana and his ex-wife Muriel that Diana should accompany him to live in Port Douglas, Nigeria. He is both inebriated and armed... But also there is Gordon Hollander, who is much enamo...

In "The Duke of York's Steps," Sir Henry Lancelot Aubrey-Fletcher weaves a captivating narrative that intricately blends historical insight with rich character development. Set against the backdrop of early 20th-century England, the book explores the societal implications of the Duke of York's steps at Eton College. Through eloquent prose and engaging dialogue, Aubrey-Fletcher captures not only the physicality of these iconic steps but also their symbolic significance in the lives of the s...

That settles it, thought Smith savagely. He shall be murdered, even if I have to do it myself!The Hardstaffe family are not the nicest people in the world. In fact, he - schoolteacher, lothario and bully, she - chronic malcontent - and their horsey unmarried adult daughter seem to be prime candidates for murder. A writer planning these deaths, on paper at least, and a young girl, chased by old Hardstaffe, are the only outsiders in a deliciously neat, but nasty, case.Blue Murder was the las...