Possibly the most unusual mystery ever written. A murder is committed, behind closed doors, in bizarre circumstances. Three amateur detectives take the case: Lord Simon Plimsoll, Monsieur Amer Picon, and Monsignor Smith (in whom discerning readers will note likeness to some familiar literary figures). Each arrives at his own brilliant solution, startling in its originality, ironclad in its logic. Meanwhile Sergean Beef sits contemptuously in the background. "But, " says Sergean Beef, "I kn...

The dead bodies of two elderly ladies are discovered; both had been strangled. Each is found lying full-length, clasping in her hand the stem of a Madonna lily.

Richard Hoysden's body is discovered in his country flat, a revolver beside him, and a bullet through the head, apparently a suicide. Missing from the room is a tape of Hoysden's last moments on which he confesses ti the murder of a young woman. Lady Drombone, a member of Parliament and the dead man's aunt, hires Carolus Deene to help suppress the evidence. He must reconstruct the confusing circumstances in order to solve this baffling crime.

"If Carolus Deene catches so much as a whiff of murder he will be on the scent with all the persistence and gusto of a dachshund in search of truffles." While Senior History Master of Queen's School, Newminster, Carolus Deene has a troubling hobby as a criminologist and sometime sleuth. Even more troublingly, he has jaundice. But with the papers shouting of the crimewave sweeping the seaside resorts of England, sending him to the coast to recover is too risky for the Headmaster – he will b...

A murder is yet to be committed—that much is certain—but who will be the victim? And who will be the murderer? It is Sgt. Beef's job to discover these facts, if he can, in time to prevent the deed from being done. But when he reaches the small traveling circus where the murder is to take place, he finds that practically everyone there is seething with hatred, each has a motive which might make him a killer; and any one of a dozen people could easily be the victim. The doughty Sgt. Beef has...

There are strange goings-on at St. Asprey's, an expensive boys' preparatory school: footsteps in passages at night . . . strange lights . . . rabbits with battered skulls. Carolus Deene has some spine-tingling experiences before he solves the mystery.

This is one of Sgt. Beef's most interesting and perplexing cases. It involves a murder, but one in which no body can be found. Young Rogers announces to Beef and others assembled in a local pub that he has committed a murder—then takes his own life. But where is the victim? How did it happen? "I always supposed," says Beef. "a murder case started with a corpse, and then you had to find out 'oo done it. This time we know 'oo's done it, but we can't find the corpse."

Once again Lionel Townsend, Beef's Dr. Watson, faithfully records the redoubtable Sergeant's escapades. Beef has left the Braxham police and gone into business for himself. Beef gets a client: Stewart Ferrars, who has been arrested for the Sydenham Murder. Beef is hired by Stewart's brother Peter to prove Stewart is innocent of the murder of Dr. Benson, who has been found stabbed in the throat in the library of Peter's gloomy Victorian mansion, The Cypresses. An ornamental dagger with Pete...

The coroner's jury found that the boy hanged in the school gymnasium had killed himself, but Sergeant Beef disagrees. He takes a job as a temporary school caretaker, abetted by the reluctant Townsend, Beef's biographer, whose brother is a master at the school. Beef's methods entail endless games of darts and beer all around in the local pub, much to Townsend's dismay of course. But when another remarkably similar murder occurs elsewhere, Beef bestirs himself to uncover the guilty.

In the cleverly plotted Case for Sergeant Beef, Mr. Wellington Chickle, a retired watchmaker, plans the perfect murder, but he chooses the wrong victim. The dead man's sister refuses to accept the idea that her brother committed suicide and calls in the unprepossessing Sgt. Beef who unravels the plot with the aid of the local police. Meanwhile, Townsend, Beef's indefatigable chronicler, comes to a completely different—and completely wrong—conclusion. A delightful read by one of the best my...

Another Carolus Deene novel, this mystery in particular is considered one of Bruce's cleverest and best plotted.

Lionel Townsend, Sergeant Beef's priggish biographer, has surprisingly found himself the prime suspect of a murder. When his aunt in Hastings is found poisoned, Townsend must turn to Beef for assistance. When an unpopular publisher is found hanged in the Cotswolds, it seems utterly unrelated. Beef, in his inimitable way, flatfoots his way to a stunning conclusion.