In a country mansion converted to adult educational courses, Mr Utamaro is lecturing on Zen Buddhism to a small and not entirely appreciative audience. But Zen questions and their seemingly quirkish answers predominate, until they are superseded by two of greater urgency: 'Who stole the wakizashi?' and 'Who killed Flaveen Mills?'H. R. F. Keating provides the solution in the same brilliantly humorous vein which won him so many admirers with his first novel, Death and the Visitin...

A delegation of visiting firemen arrives at Southampton, greeted by a stagecoach which carries a reception committee in early 19th century costume. This Old English greeting has been arranged between their president, Foster P. Schelemberger, and George Hamyadis, the flamboyant travel agent who is handling all the details of their visit to Britain.During an overnight stop in Winchester, Hamyadis reveals his plan for a little surprise to entertain the delegates during the journey to ...

BBC Radio adaptations of two historical crime novels by H. R. F. Keating, plus bonus extract from BookshelfBritish detective writer H. R. F. Keating was best known as the creator of Inspector Ghote of the Mumbai CID. He won two Crime Writers’ Association Gold Daggers, and in 1996 was awarded the Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement. Included here are dramatisations of two of his most popular murder mysteries, set in 1930s India and Victorian London, plu...

In the princely state of Bhopore, India, 1930, a handful of Western visitors comes to the opulent Summer Palace to meet the outrageous Maharajah and his entourage. There they meet the Maharajah’s heir, the sensual Porgy, and his English chorus-girl mistress. They meet the enigmatic chief minister, and the aloof British Resident, with his dignified little nine-year-old son. And before long, they also meet sudden death.Various people in the palace become suspects, and an imperturbabl...

It is Inspector Ghote's bad luck to be landed with the case of the perfect murder at the start of his career with the Bombay Police. As if it were not enough to have to contend with the cunning and important tycoon Lala Varde, Ghote finds himself investigating a mysterious theft of a single rupee from the desk of yet another very important person, the Minister of Police Affairs and the Arts. "If people would only behave in a simple, reasonable, logical way," sighs the Inspector, as he stru...

First published in 1978, this is a London where the worst has happened. There have been riots, huge uncontrolled fires, outbreaks of savage looting, artillery battles, mass flights. The great city lies three parts deserted, open to marauding gangs and beast-wild individuals, its highways and landmarks tumbled like ruined temples.To Mark, comparatively safe up in less troubled Highgate, there comes a message that his estranged wife is dying over in Wimbledon, right across on the far...

From Poirot to Miss Marple, from The Mousetrap to Witness for the Prosecution, thisa fascinating look at the life and work of Agatha Christie, the world's most successful and popular crime writer.Agatha Christie was not only the most successful author of detective stories the world has ever known, she was also a mystery in herself, giving only the rarest interviews—declining absolutely to become any sort of public figure—and a mystery, too, in the...

A case from his past is about to ruin Assistant Chief Constable Ned French’s career. Heather Jonas, forced into a false confession to murder after a harrowing late-night interview session with French, has now served fifteen years of her twenty-year sentence. In all that time she’s never appealed against her lot; but now, someone else has confessed, and a citizen’s rights campaigner is determined to get to the truth.Then, French gets a tip-off which could lead to the biggest coup of...

Gentleman detective Anthony Gethryn is in a race against time to save an innocent man from the hangman’s noose.Colonel Anthony Gethryn is recalled from a holiday in Spain to solve a murder in the November fogs of London. He finds that his wife is sheltering Mrs Bronson, whose husband is in prison awaiting execution for the murder of a gamekeeper six months before. A petition for reprieve has been rejected and Bronson will shortly hang for someone else’s crime. Convinced by Mrs Bron...

In the dark world where predatory young beauty queens compete fiercely for money, a murder is committed. Police Constable Peter Lassington is soon enmeshed in a complicated mystery made more than usually exotic by the flesh that is continuously on show at the Star Bowl ballroom. Lassington's superior, Superintendent Ironside, is polite, sophisticated, devious but also distracted by his imminent retirement.This detective novel is carefully plotted and firmly set in a world of bizarr...

A monograph of Golden Age detective fiction from H.R.F. Keating, doyen of classic detective writers.Murder Must Appetize is an affectionate return to the halcyon days of the detective story when Hercule Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey were young and a touch of arsenic was still the ultimate deterrent. Apart from old friends like Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie, we meet the less well remembered pioneers of detective fiction, including E.C.R. Lorac (alias for Edith Caroli...

DCI Phil Benholme has the reputation for being soft because he tries to see both sides of every story.When Professor Unwala, Nobel Prize winner of 1945, is found dead, Benholme must find the right questions to ask. Was it a tragic accident? Was he a victim of a violent burglary? Or of a racist assault by Britforce troopers? Or did he know something about the collection of Celtic coins thought to be buried nearby?When all leads point to a member of his own family, what will ...