The storm had descended swiftly, sweeping in suddenly from the sea, driving across the downs to the hills at high speed, blotting out the faint rays of a crescent moon and hiding the country-side beneath a pall of blackness, which was forked at intervals by flashes of lightning. The darkness was so impenetrable, and the fury of the storm so fierce, that Harry Marsland pulled his hat well over his eyes and bent over his horse's neck to shield his face from the driving rain, trusting to the ...

Colwyn had never seen anything quite so eccentric in a public room as the behaviour of the young man breakfasting alone at the alcove table in the bay embrasure, and he became so absorbed in watching him that he permitted his own meal to grow cold, impatiently waving away the waiter who sought with obtrusive obsequiousness to recall his wandering attention by thrusting the menu card before him.To outward seeming the occupant of the alcove table was a good-looking young man, whose cl...

High Court Justice Sir Horace Fewbanks found shot dead in his Hampstead home, a butler with a criminal past, a scorned lover and a hint of scandal. These are the elements of the Hampstead Mystery that Detective Inspector Chippenfield of Scotland Yard must unravel with the assistance of the ambitious Detective Rolfe. But will he be able to sort out the tangled threads of this case and arrest the culprit before he is upstaged by the celebrated gentleman detective Crewe. Follow the details of...

"Hallo! Is that Hampstead Police Station?""Yes. Who are you?""Detective-Inspector Chippenfield of Scotland Yard. Tell Inspector SeldonI want him, and be quick about it.""Yes, sir. Hang on, sir. I'll put you through to him at once."Detective-Inspector Chippenfield, of Scotland Yard, waited with the receiver held to his ear. While he waited he scrutinised keenly a sheet of paper which lay on the desk in front of him. It was a flimsy, faintly-ruled sheet fro...

When Harry Marsland was caught in a sudden down pour he sought shelter at Cliff Farm. Met at the door by a young woman clearly expecting someone else he is only too glad to get inside to wait out the storm. When they hear a noise upstairs in the deserted house they investigate only to discover the body of the farm's owner, Frank Lumsden, dead of a gunshot wound. Who then, killed Lumsden, and why? Who was the woman expecting and did she have any roll in the murder? These are the questions t...

Seen in the sad glamour of an English twilight, the old moat-house, emerging from the thin mists which veiled the green flats in which it stood, conveyed the impression of a habitation falling into senility, tired with centuries of existence. Houses grow old like the race of men; the process is not less inevitable, though slower; in both, decay is hastened by events as well as by the passage of Time.The moat-house was not so old as English country-houses go, but it had aged quickly...

"The Moon Rock" is Australian mystery writer Arthur J. Rees' locked-room conundrum. In fact, the room -- the murder scene -- not only is locked from the inside, but also two hundred feet up the cold wall of Flint House. And the house looms on the edge of a cliff in Cornwall. Slip, and a falling body would strike the pale Moon Rock and its legend of doomed love. "A lonely, weird place," Scotland Yard's Det. Barrant sums it up, and that's even before he finds out what happened. The deceased ...

Seen in the sad glamour of an English twilight, the old moat-house, emerging from the thin mists which veiled the green flats in which it stood, conveyed the impression of a habitation falling into senility, tired with centuries of existence. Houses grow old like the race of men; the process is not less inevitable, though slower; in both, decay is hastened by events as well as by the passage of Time.The moat-house was not so old as English country-houses go, but it had aged quickly ...

"[A] thriller that reads like a high-speed theme park ride . . . with dark humor so sharp it'll make you bleed." —Brian Freeman, New York Times–bestselling authorFormer Orlando detective Michael Garrity doesn't have a good track record when it comes to women. With two ex-wives and a teenage daughter he rarely sees, the most significant relationship in his life right now is with the tumor in his head. Terminal cancer is no joke, but Mike is determined to ma...

From a British crime author "in a class by himself among detective story writers," twenty-three short mysteries featuring the brilliant Inspector Appleby ( The Times Literary Supplement).It appears Inspector Appleby is ready to tell all in this must-read collection of twenty-three short stories from acclaimed Scottish mystery author Michael Innes. One of the most discerning detectives of Golden Age fiction, Appleby sits down with pipe in hand to spin tales ...

" A literary pulp fiction that flays and skewers post-Millennial New York and along the way reinvents the American detective novel." —Evan Wright, New York Times–bestselling authorHarry Bloch is a ghost—ghostwriter, that is. He's the man behind your favorite pulpy barbarians-in-space novels and vampire romances. He's no bestselling success, but he's eked out a living as a freelancer, living in Queens in his late mother's apartment. Until n...

Was it a tragic drunk-driving accident, or something more twisted? "You can never go far wrong with a Dr. Priestley story." — The New York TimesSuperintendent King has concluded that the drunk driver with a dead body in his car was only guilty of manslaughter, not intentional murder. But Dr. Lancelot Priestley thinks there's more to the story—especially considering that the victim's estate, Pinehurst, has been plagued by burglaries of late.As he ap...