They were five strangers on a fogbound train—a psychiatrist's pretty secretary,an agitated young mana tweedy lady with a deep voicea stockbrockerish businessmanand an eel-like "spiv."One was brutally attacked in the choking black fog in Paddington Station. Attempted murder became bona fide manslaughter, and examination of the intimate lives of the passengers involved Chief Inspector MacDonald in a macabre game of hide-and-seek in which one man tr...

When Dr Raymond Ferens moves to a practice at Milham in the Moor in North Devon, he and his wife are enchanted with the beautiful hilltop village lying so close to moor and sky. At first, they see only its charm, but soon they begin to uncover its secrets—envy, hatred, and malice.Everyone says that Sister Monica, warden of a children's home, is a saint—but is she? A few months after the Ferens' arrival her body is found drowned in the mill-race. Chief Inspector Macdonald faces one ...

The Garths had farmed their fertile acres for generations, and fine land it was with the towering hills of the Lake Country on the far horizon. Here hot-tempered Robert Garth, still hale and hearty at eighty-two, ruled Garthmere Hall with a rod of iron. Until, that is, old Garth was found dead–‘dead as mutton’–in the trampled mud of the ancient outhouse.Glowering clouds gather over the dramatic dales and fells as seasoned investigator Chief Inspector Macdonald arrives in the north ...

A crime detective story featuring Chief Inspector Robert Macdonald, a “London Scot” and an avowed bachelor with a love for walking in the English countryside and his assistant, Detective Inspector Reeves.

Templedean Place in the Cotswold Hills of England was among the last of the truly aristocratic estates, where old family traditions still flourished. When Gerald Vanstead arrived from Australia with his family, to attend his father in his last illness, other, more deadly things flourished.Gerald's wife was the bickering kind; he drank too much, was given to feuding with the chauffeur, and seemed excessively tightlipped and disagreeable—and so no one was particularly sorry when one d...

Bruce Attleton dazzled London’s literary scene with his first two novels but his early promise did not bear fruit. His wife Sybilla is a glittering actress, unforgiving of Bruce’s failure, and the couple lead separate lives in their house at Regent’s Park. When Bruce is called away on a sudden trip to Paris, he vanishes completely until his suitcase and passport are found in a sinister artist’s studio, the Belfry, in a crumbling house in Notting Hill. Inspector Macdonald must uncover Bruce...

1945, with England still at war. Scotland Yard's Chief Inspector Robert Macdonald is tasked with solving an impossible crime—finding the killer of a man on the bridge. The only clue: a set of bicycle tracks that come to an abrupt end.

The last novel to feature Superintendent Robert MacDonald finds the officer planning his retirement. After buying a hill farm to the south of Lunesdale, he rents it to a young couple to oversee his property while he's still working.A prison break and the discover of an unexpected corpse in the abandoned farm house complicate things for Macdonald.

Superintendent Macdonald, C.I.D., studied his fellow-passengers on the Vienna plane simply because he couldn't help it, because he hadn't conditioned himself to being on holiday. The distinguished industrialist he recognised: the stout man he put down (quite mistakenly) as a traveller in whisky. The fair girl was going to a job (he was right there) and the aggressive young man in the camel coat might be something bookish. Macdonald turned away from his fellow-passengers deliberately: they ...

Muriel Farrington is a domineering woman who, unfortunately for them, has her entire family living with her in her stately home. She tries, often successfully, to run the lives of her children, her stepchildren, her in-laws, and her husband, and she seems to be despised by all except her husband and one son.When she is found dead one morning in her bed, the family doctor, who is old, ill, and hasn’t been very able for years, is unable to attend and bestow a certificate, which he wo...

Templedean Place in the Cotswold Hills of England was among the last of the truly aristocratic estates, where old family traditions still flourished. When Gerald Vanstead arrived from Australia with his family, to attend his father in his last illness, other, more deadly things flourished.Gerald's wife was the bickering kind; he drank too much, was given to feuding with the chauffeur, and seemed excessively tightlipped and disagreeable—and so no one was particularly sorry when one d...

The story begins with the sudden death of an elderly clergyman named Anderby, who drops dead while hosing the garden ... death that is followed by another in circumstances which give rise to suspicion and to the local police calling upon Inspector MacDonald.