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 "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...

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...

They grabbed their fishing bags, and made a dive for their rods which were standing, ready for use, outside the front door.'Well, tight lines!' they called over their shoulders.'Bleeding hooks!' grinned the Major.Gladys ‘Ruby’ Mumsby was more interested in fishermen than fish. When her corpse is discovered near a Welsh sporting lodge that is hosting a group of fly fishing enthusiasts, it seems one of them has taken an interest in her too - of the murderous kind. For impaled in the palm of ...

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...

Thrusting his pipe in his pocket, he crossed to his writing desk. Extracting a heavy army-pattern revolver from a drawer, he began silently to search the whole ground floor of the house.Eileen Thurlow, an ardent devotee of spiritualism, persuades her uncle John to join her in a séance which produces the eerie sound of organ music. Later that same night John Thurlow disappears.A day later two bodies, one of them John Thurlow’s, are found in a field half a mile away....

“I think,” said Palk slowly, “there’s a homicidal maniac loose in the Hydro, but who it is, God knows.”Presteignton Hydro is a drably genteel spa resort, populated by the aged and crippled who relish every drop of scandal they observe or imagine concerning the younger guests. No one however expects to see gossip turn to murder as their juniors die one by one - no one, that is, except the killer. The crusty cast of characters make solving the case all the harder for Inspector Palk - until t...

Mr Sutton Armadale, the financier, was shot dead on the private polo ground of his palatial home. Before expiring in his gamekeeper's arms, he muttered the one word "murder".Among the suspects are Armadale's second wife; a drunken, loud-mouthed stranger in the neighbourhood; and an irresistibly attractive ballerina. The amiable and eccentric Algernon Vereker finds the case as befuddling as a crack on the head from a polo mallet. Two witnesses were certain they heard two sho...

“What’s the matter?” Vereker asked breathlessly, and at the same moment realised that the mass lying at Ricardo’s feet was the body of a woman. “Has she fainted?”“It’s Mrs. Mesado, Algernon,” replied Ricardo, “and if I’m not mistaken, she’s dead.”Algernon Vereker’s best friend Manuel Ricardo is looking forward to a cruise on the luxury liner Mars, and persuades an overwrought Vereker to join him. Once on board, Ricky’s mind is on romance while the amiable ...

There was no mistaking the sound: it was that of a stealthy footfall, and it appeared to come from the staircase leading to the next floor.Lord Bygrave left the Ministry on Friday evening, with plans for a fortnight's holiday in the country. But the following morning he had seemingly vanished into thin air. Now Scotland Yard are struggling to find evidence of foul play in the absence of tangible clues. A national newspaper is offering a reward for information about the Mini...

The D.D.I. recognized him and smiled. “That was a great case you brought us. You’ll be interested to hear that it is a case of mur-r-der!”For eight years Basil Thomson headed the famous C.I.D., New Scotland Yard. He knew the Yard inside out. Now in this tale of mystery and detection we are taken behind the scenes. We are shown the greatest detection machine in the world in motion, and see how the Yard tracked down its man.Stand, then, with young P.C. Richardson on ...