The police, of course, investigate - and so do Miles Bredon and his wife, in the interests of the Indescribable Insurance Company, with which the deceased man, Mr Mottram, had been heavily insured.The culprit is the three gas taps in Mr Mottram's room, and Miles hopes to prove that his death is suicide. Miles' old wartime colleague, Police Inspector Leyland, is convinced it's murder. And the conclusion is as ingenious as it is surprising.

    But real-world drama takes over when Lavington's neighbour, a reclusive artist, is found murdered in his own sitting room. Also found on the scene are a lady's glove, a diamond ring, and a mysterious young woman who begs Lavington for his protection. Her safety will depend on her ability to take a role in the forthcoming village play--but is Lavington sheltering a wronged woman or a clever murderess?

    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 death in what appears to be an impossible crime. But a mysterious man in a fez has been spotted in the fog asking for highly unlikely directions...The resourceful John Christmas takes on the case, unofficially, leading to an ingenious solution no one could have expected, least of all Inspector Hembrow of Scotland Yard.The Studio Crime is the first of Ianthe Jerrold's classic whodunit novels, originally published in 1929. Its impact led to her membership of the elite Detection Club, and its influence can be felt on later works by John Dickson Carr, Ngaio Marsh and Dorothy L. Sayers among others.This edition, the first in over eighty years, features a new introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

    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 the enigmatic sleuth Mr. Winkley arrives to lend a hand.

    But with only a few bones as evidence the local police are getting nowhere fast. Can Miss Trumbull pick up the clues that the police are missing? Or will her interfering get her into trouble in more ways that one?

    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 the misty corner of Baker Street, while the traffic of the city swings by, and fate lays at his feet the beginning of his career. Out of the fog brakes shriek, a big car jolts to a stop, and from beneath the wheels the crowd disentangles a bundle of old clothes, within which is a man quite dead; a man who had said to someone, “Very well, then; I’ll call a policeman”—and was killed. Work with him to the ingenious solution, when he takes from his pocket the clue holding the fate of a human life.Richardson’s First Case was originally published in 1933. This new edition, the first in over seventy years, features an introduction by crime novelist Martin Edwards, author of acclaimed genre history The Golden Age of Murder.

    Guy Haines and Charles Anthony Bruno are passengers on the same train. Haines is a successful architect in the midst of a divorce, Bruno a mysterious smooth-talker with a sadistic proposal: he’ll murder Haines’s wife if Haines will murder Bruno’s father. As Bruno carries out his twisted plan, Guy finds himself trapped in Highsmith’s perilous world, where, under the right circumstances, ordinary people are capable of extraordinary crimes. The inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1951 film, Strangers on a Train launched Highsmith’s prolific career, proving her a master at depicting the unsettling forces that tremble beneath the surface of everyday life.

    Beneath the so normal surface run sinister undercurrents of rivalry and jealousy. Then comes tragedy. An accident? Or is it murder? Respectable, law-abiding Miss Pym discovers some vital evidence - but should she reveal it?

    Crofts. This, his greatest case, opens with the discovery beside the open safe of a diamond merchant in Hatton Garden of the dead body of his head clerk, and valuable diamonds are missing. There are many people to suspect, and before Inspector French solves it, he has to unravel many mysteries and follow up many false clues.

    What starts with a crank call from an old school chum sets the lonely, aloof, financially comfortable Miss Helen Clarvoe on a path as predictable only as madness. Lured from her rooms in a second-rate residential Hollywood hotel, she finds herself stranded in the more perilous terrain of extortion, pornography, vengeance, and ultimately murder.

    "But she was strangled to death. And the murderer had to leave after he had killed. He's not here now. But in some fashion, explain it how you like, he or she or some damnable witch of the low tide managed to leave without a footprint in all that wet sand!"

    But nonetheless the owner of the farm, John Leslie, is convicted, and his guilt looks certain. Certain, that is, until the eccentric Allen “Hatter” Fayre, an old India hand, begins to look more deeply into the case and discovers more than one rival suspect in this classic and satisfying puzzler.The Draycott Murder Mystery, a whodunit hinging enigmatically on the evidence of a fountain pen, was first published in 1928. This new edition, the first for many decades, includes a new introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

    D. James. Fast on the heels of her latest best seller: a new, fiendishly entertaining gathering of previously uncollected stories, from the author of Death Comes to Pemberley and The Private Patient.It's not always a question of "whodunit?" Sometimes there's more mystery in the why or how. And although we usually know the unhealthy fates of both victim and perpetrator, what of those clever few who plan and carry out the perfect crime? The ones who aren't brought down even though they're found out? And what about those who do the finding out who witness a murder or who identify the murderer but keep the information to themselves? These are some of the mysteries that we follow through those six stories as we are drawn into the thinking, the memories, the emotional machinations, the rationalizations, the dreams and desires behind murderous cause and effect.

    At first, she can't quite understand the man on the other end of the line. Surely he can't honestly be accusing her of killing her husband, Ivor, who died in a car crash barely two months ago.As the nights draw in, Imogen finds her home filling up with unexpected Christmas guests, who may be looking for more than simple festive cheer. Has someone been rifling through Ivor's papers? Who left the half-drunk whiskey bottle beside his favourite chair? And why won't that man stop phoning, insisting he can prove Imogen's guilt.

    But she stumbles upon more than she bargained for! Anne is on the platform at Hyde Park Corner tube station when a man falls onto the live track, dying instantly. A doctor examines the man, pronounces him dead, and leaves, dropping a note on his way. Anne picks up the note, which reads "17.1 22 Kilmorden Castle". The next day the newspapers report that a beautiful ballet dancer has been found dead there-- brutally strangled. A fabulous fortune in diamonds has vanished. And now, aboard the luxury liner Kilmorden Castle, mysterious strangers pillage her cabin and try to strangle her. What are they looking for? Why should they want her dead? Lovely Anne is the last person on earth suited to solve this mystery... and the only one who can! Anne's journey to unravel the mystery takes her as far afield as Africa and the tension mounts with every step... and Anne finds herself struggling to unmask a faceless killer known only as 'The Colonel'....