This anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together 16 tales by masters of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form, including a newly discovered Agatha Christie crime story that has not been seen since 1922.At a time when crime and thriller writing has once again overtaken the sales of general and literary fiction, Bodies from the Library unearths lost stories from the Golden Age, that period between the World Wars when detectiv...

This anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together 18 tales from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form, including uncollected stories by Ngaio Marsh and John Dickson Carr.The Golden Age of detective fiction had begun inauspiciously with the publication of E.C. Bentley’s schismatic Trent’s Last Case in 1913, but it hit its stride in 1920 when both Agatha Christie and Freeman Wills Crofts – latterly crowned que...

When John Waterson and his young wife chose Netherplash Cantorum, Dorset, for their retirement years, they could not have predicted that this idyllic spot had one severe but unforeseeable drawback: among its inhabitants was a practical joker whose fertile mind ran to the most bizarre and grotesque designs.The Village was no place for a quite retirement, or for a gentle recuperation from the nervous breakdown that had afflicted Waterson's wife. In Netherplash, the peace is continual...

Hugo Chesterman is on trial for murdering a policeman. Why did he do it? Or could he be innocent?Daisy Bland is young, beautiful and naive, and her testimony threatens to send her husband to the gallows.For Daisy, it all started when she literally bumped into Hugo and fell madly in love. She gave up everything for him: her job, her friends, her independence. Blinded by love, she asks no questions about his vague profession as a 'commission agent', his suspicious associates ...

In the West of Ireland in 1939 a young novelist rents a lonely cottage to write his new book in peace.Almost at once, and without great resistance, he is seduced by the wife of the local squire. Harriet's husband is an older man - hot-tempered, impoverished, gone to seed - who once fought famously against the Black and Tans. Soon this eternal triangle becomes a local scandal, and the atmosphere of threat and violence, intensified by the approaching war in Europe, leads to a horrifi...

First published in 1958, A Penknife in My Heart tells the story of how two men - total strangers - establish the perfect alibis by arranging to switch victims. Ned Stowe will kill Stuart Hammer's wealthy uncle for which service Hammer is to eliminate Stowe's neurotic wife, Helena. The men plot and the plan - with its horrifyingly simple premise - is solidified...'More convincing, more detailedly thought-through than Highsmith's [Strangers on a Train].' - The N...

This anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together 16 tales from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form.The Golden Age of detective fiction had begun inauspiciously with the publication of E.C. Bentley’s schismatic Trent’s Last Case in 1913, but it hit its stride in 1920 when both Agatha Christie and Freeman Wills Crofts – latterly crowned queen and king of the genre – had crime novels published for the first ...

"I am going to kill a man. I don't know his name, I don't know where he lives, I have no idea what he looks like. But I am going to find him and kill him ..." So commences this classic story of retribution. Felix Lane is bent upon revenge for the death of his young son in a hit-and-run accident, and uses all the knowledge he has gained as a well-known crime writer to track down the culprit. The plot features amateur sleuth Nigel Strangeways, a character modelled on W.H. Auden.A mode...

Academic conferences can be full of petty squabbles—and sometimes, not-so-petty ones. . . . "There are few detective-story writers so consistently good." — Sunday TimesProfessor Andrew Basnett has returned to his old university for a meeting of the Botanical Association, an event that should be entirely benign, aside from the usual inflated egos and bickering. But he can't help being just a little curious about Carl Judd, an artist who was murdered here ju...

Hailed by Agatha Christie as "the king of the art of misdirection," John Dickson Carr presents a thrilling murder mystery that has the redoubtable Dr. Gideon Fell tracing clues from London to Sussex to South AfricaMystery novelist Christopher Kent accepts a friend's outlandish bet and sets out to travel from Johannesburg to London with nothing but the cash in his wallet and the clothes on his back. He arrives with twenty-four hours to spare, his wallet and his stoma...

A madcap tale of murder on an ocean liner that offers "good mystery and lots of fun in the bargain" ( The New York Times).The majestic ocean liner Queen Victoria is halfway through another uneventful transatlantic crossing when bad weather drives most of the passengers to their cabins. Only six have the iron stomachs necessary to take a seat at the captain's table. Of those six, one will die—and the rest will make utter fools of themselves.

The master of the Golden Age British-style detective novel presents his redoubtable sleuth Dr. Gideon Fell in a baffling murder mystery set in the Swiss AlpsYoung Audrey Page has been warned against joining the aging film star Eve Eden and her temperamental friends at a Swiss chalet. Trustingly, she goes anyway and finds herself encircled by terror when a murderer strikes. With its eerie similarities to a crime that dates back to World War II, the murder attracts th...