The Man in the Queue


Josephine Tey - 1929
    London’s favorite musical comedy of the past two years was finishing its run at the end of the week. Suddenly, the line began to move, forming a wedge before the open doors as hopeful theatergoers nudged their way forward. But one man, his head sunk down upon his chest, slowly sank to his knees and then, still more slowly, keeled over on his face. Thinking he had fainted, a spectator moved to help, but recoiled in horror from what lay before him: the man in the queue had a small silver dagger neatly plunged into his back. With the wit and guile that have made Inspector Grant a favorite of mystery fans, the inspector sets about discovering just how a murder occurred among so many witnesses, none of whom saw a thing.

The Case of the Gilded Fly


Edmund Crispin - 1944
    Center-stage is the beautiful, malicious Yseut, a mediocre actress with a stellar talent for destroying men. Rounding out the cast are more than a few of her past and present conquests, and the women who love them. And watching from the wings is Professor Gervase Fen-scholar, wit, and fop extraordinaire-who would rather solve crimes than expound on English literature. When Yseut is murdered, Fen finally gets his wish. Gilded Fly, originally published in 1944, was both Fen's first outing and the debut of the pseudonymous Crispin (in reality, composer Bruce Montgomery).

The Abbey Court Murder


Annie Haynes - 1923
    Her secret assignation at 9:30pm was a meeting to which she took a loaded revolver. The Abbey Court apartment building would play host to violent death that very night, under cover of darkness. The killer’s identity remained a mystery, though Lady Carew had a most compelling motive – and her revolver was left in the dead man’s flat…Enter the tenacious Inspector Furnival in the first of his golden age mysteries, first published in 1923. Though there are many clues, there are just as many red herrings and the case takes numerous Christie-esque twists before the murderer can be revealed. This new edition, the first printed in over 80 years, features an introduction from crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

Hushabye


Celina Grace - 2013
    A murdered girl. A case where everyone has something to hide...Hushabye (A Kate Redman mystery) is the new novel from crime writer Celina Grace, author of Lost Girls and The House on Fever Street.On the first day of her new job in the West Country, Detective Sergeant Kate Redman finds herself investigating the kidnapping of Charlie Fullman, the newborn son of a wealthy entrepreneur and his trophy wife. It seems a straightforward case... but as Kate and her fellow officer Mark Olbeck delve deeper, they uncover murky secrets and multiple motives for the crime.Kate finds the case bringing up painful memories of her own past secrets. As she confronts the truth about herself, her increasing emotional instability threatens both her hard-won career success and the possibility that they will ever find Charlie Fullman alive...

Airs Above the Ground


Mary Stewart - 1965
    What was strange was the silence that followed. She never thought to look for her missing husband in Vienna -- until she saw him in a newsreel shot there at the scene of a deadly fire. Then she caught a glimpse of him in a newsreel shot of a crowd near a mysterious circus fire and knew it was more than strange. It was downright sinister.Vanessa is propelled to Vienna by the shocking discovery. In her charge is young Timothy Lacy, who also has urgent problems to solve. But her hunt for answers only leads to more sinister questions in a mysterious world of white stallions of Vienna. But what promises to be no more than a delicate personal mission turns out to involve the security forces of three countries, two dead men, a circus and its colourful personnel. And what waits for Vanessa in the shadows is more terrifying than anything she has ever encountered.

Blood for Blood


Victoria Selman - 2019
    Now one is profiling her.Rush hour, London. A packed commuter train is torn apart in a collision. Picking through the carnage, ex-special forces profiler Ziba MacKenzie helps a dying woman who passes on a cryptic message: He did it. You have to tell someone.When a corpse is found bearing the gruesome signature of a serial killer dormant for twenty-five years, Ziba is pulled into the hunt for the perpetrator. As the body count rises it becomes clear he’s on a new spree. But what’s brought the London Lacerator back after such a long hiatus? And does his sudden return have anything to do with the woman on the train?Ziba scrambles to profile the killer in the hope of predicting his next move. But time is running out. And the closer she gets to uncovering his identity, the closer he gets to destroying hers.

The Crow Trap


Ann Cleeves - 1999
    Three women who, in some way or another, know the meaning of betrayal...For team leader Rachael Lambert the project is the perfect opportunity to rebuild her confidence after a double-betrayal by her lover and boss, Peter Kemp. Botanist Anne Preece, on the other hand, sees it as a chance to indulge in a little deception of her own. And then there is Grace Fulwell, a strange, uncommunicative young woman with plenty of her own secrets to hide...When Rachael arrives at the cottage, however, she is horrified to discover the body of her friend Bella Furness. Bella, it appears, has committed suicide - a verdict Rachael finds impossible to accept.Only when the next death occurs does a fourth woman enter the picture - the unconventional Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope, who must piece together the truth from these women's tangled lives...

Number Seventeen


Louis Tracy - 1915
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Footsteps in the Dark


Georgette Heyer - 1932
    Left empty for years, and even their deceased uncle chose to live in a different house, far away from this particular property. But the ramshackle old house, with its rambling charm is the perfect setting for a much-needed holiday for siblings Peter, Celia and Margaret, who have inherited it from their uncle. It wasn't the lack of modern conveniences that made a summer spent at the ancient priory mansion such an unsettling experience. It was the supposed ghost... or whatever was groaning in the cellars and roaming the countryside around Framley Village after dark.But when a murder victim is discovered in the drafty Priory halls, the once unconcerned trio begins to fear that the ghostly rumors are true and they are not alone after all! But traditionally ghosts don't commit murder. And in this case, the things which go bump in the night are deadly. With a killer on the loose, will they find themselves the next victims or will they uncover the true in time? Does the key to the crime lie in the realm of the supernaturalr? Or is the explanation much more down to earth with a more corporeal culpritl of flesh and blood?

Black Out


John Lawton - 1995
    Detective-Sergeant Troy starts with the clue of a neatly dismembered corpse leading him into a world of stateless refugees, military intelligence, and corruption all the way to the top of Allied High Command.

The One You Love


Paul Pilkington - 2011
    Her fiancé vanishes, leaving the battered and bloodied body of his brother in their London apartment. Someone is stalking her, watching her every move. And her family are hiding a horrifying secret; a secret that threatens all those she loves. In a desperate race against time, Emma must uncover the truth if she ever wants to see her fiancé alive again. The One You Love is a fast-paced suspense mystery, full of twists and turns, following in the tradition of writers such as Nicci French and Sophie Hannah.

The Woman in the Wardrobe


Peter Antony - 1951
    "A corpse in a blood-soaked room; a locked door and a locked window; a masked man; a beautiful girl trussed inside a wardrobe; and now a pretender to the throne! This is superb!"The little Sussex town of Amnestie had not known a death so bloody since the fifteenth century. And certainly none more baffling--to all except Mr Verity. From the moment he appears this bearded giant--ruthless inquirer, devastating wit and enthusiastic collector of the best sculpture--has matters firmly (if fantastically) under control. Things are certainly complicated, but this is hardly enough to deter Mr Verity. As he himself observes: "when the number of suspects is continually increasing, and the number of corpses remains constant, you get a sort of inflation. The value of your individual suspect becomes hopelessly depreciated. That, for the real detective, is a state of paradise."

The World Beneath


Rebecca Cantrell - 2013
    This subterranean labyrinth inhales three million bustling commuters every day. And every day, it breathes them all out again... except for one. Software millionaire Joe Tesla is set to ring the bell on Wall Street the morning his company goes public. On what should be the brightest day in his life, he is instead struck with severe agoraphobia. The sudden dread of the outside is so debilitating, he can't leave his hotel at Grand Central Terminal, except to go underground. Bad luck for Joe, because in the tunnels lurk corpses and murderers, an underground Victorian mansion and a mysterious bricked-up 1940s presidential train car. Joe and his service dog, Edison, find themselves pursued by villains and police alike, their only salvation now is to unearth the mystery that started it all, a deadly, contagious madness on the brink of escaping The World Beneath.

Malice Aforethought


Francis Iles - 1931
    The tennis party exists for other reasons - and charmingly mannered infidelity is now the most popular pastime in the small but exclusive Devonshire hamlet of Wyvern's Cross. Which is why, in his own garden, the host, Dr Edmund Bickleigh, is desperately fighting to conceal the two things on his mind: a mounting passion for Gwynfryd Rattery - and the certain conviction that he is going to kill his wife ...

8 Faces at 3


Craig Rice - 1939
    So it was probably a good thing that somebody had decided to stab her three times and leave her to freeze into horrible rigidity in front of the wide-open window.The chief suspect was Holly Inglehart, the murdered woman's niece. Jake couldn't blame the police for not believing Holly's crazy story about the dream, the alarms going off, every clock in the house set at three, and a murderer who made beds. When Jake set out to investigate, his first discovery was Helene, socialite friend of the Ingleharts - much too beautiful for Jake's piece of mind, and much too smart for the police.Jake knew that Holly needed legal help, and he called in hard-boiled, hard-drinking, Chicago lawyer John Joseph Malone. And it came to pass that Jake met Helene and Helene met Malone, and thus was formed the daffiest trio of detectives to romp their somewhat inebriated way through '40s mystery fiction.