Aunt Mildred declared that no good could come of the Melbury family Christmas gatherings at their country residence Flaxmere. So when Sir Osmond Melbury, the family patriarch, is discovered by a guest dressed as Santa Klaus with a bullet in his head on Christmas Day, the festivities are plunged into chaos.

Welworth Garden City in the 1940s is a forward-thinking town where free spirits find a home--vegetarians, socialists, and an array of exotic religious groups. Chief among these are the Children of Osiris, led by the eccentric High Prophet, Eustace K. Mildmann. The cult is a seething hotbed of petty resentment, jealousy and dark secrets--which eventually lead to murder. The stage is set for one of Inspector Meredith's most bizarre and exacting cases"--Publisher...

"Never, even in his most optimistic moments, had he visualised a scene of this nature--himself in one arm-chair, a police officer in another, and between them ... a mystery." So thinks the Reverend Dodd--vicar of the quiet Cornish village of Boscawen and a reader of detective novels--when an actual mystery unexpectedly lands on his doorstep in The Cornish Coast Murder. Julius Tregarthan, a secretive and ill-tempered magistrate, is found at his house...

Mystery crime fiction written in the Golden Age of Murder

"Not only is this a first-rate puzzler, but Crofts' outrage over the financial firm's betrayal of the public trust should resonate with today's readers." —Booklist STARRED review

The Chichester is making a routine journey across the English Channel on a pleasant afternoon in June, when the steamer's crew notice something strange. A yacht, bobbing

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In the seeming tranquility of Regency Square in Cheltenham live the diverse inhabitants of its ten houses. One summer's evening, the square's rivalries and allegiances are disrupted by a sudden and unusual death - an arrow to the head, shot through an open window at no. 6.Unfortunately for the murderer, an invitation to visit had just been sent by the crime writer Aldous Barnet, staying with his sister at no. 8, to his friend Superintendent Meredith....

""A war's on and a murder has been committed and we sit here talking nonsense about almond whirls and mince pies!" First published in 1944, Murder After Christmas is a lively riot of murder, mince pies and misdirection, cleverly twisting the tropes of Golden Age detective fiction to create a pacey, light-hearted package admirably suited for the holiday season. Featuring an introduction by CWA Diamond Dagger Award-winning author and series editor Martin...

"Vivian Lestrange--celebrated author of the popular mystery novel The Charterhouse Case and total recluse--has apparently dropped off the face of the Earth. After he was reported missing by his secretary Eleanor, whom Inspector Bond suspects to be the author herself, crime and murder are afoot when Lestrange's housekeeper is also found to have disappeared. Bond and Warner of Scotland Yard set to work to investigate a murder with no body and a potentially...

"'Miss Gladden', the first female detective, is a determined and resourceful figure, with ingenious skills of logic and deduction. Pursuing mysterious cases, she works undercover and only introduces herself as a detective when the need arises. Her personal circumstances and even her real name are never revealed. This obfuscation makes sense, considering that when The female detective was first published in 1864 there were no official female detectives...

A mysterious disappearance is at the center of Bats in the Belfry. Shortly after waving away a telephone request from a persistent caller named Debrette, Bruce Attleton leaves his home in Regent's Park for Paris. He never arrives, but his suitcase turns up in a sculptor's studio slated for renovation. After Attleton's friend Neil Rockingham takes his concerns to DCI Macdonald, Macdonald soon discovers a corpse secreted in the studio. Unfortunately,...

"The Second World War is drawing to a close. Nicholas Vaughan, released from the army after an accident, takes refuge in Devon - renting a thatched cottage in the beautiful countryside at Mallory Fitzjohn. Vaughan sets to work farming the land, rearing geese and renovating the cottage. Hard work and rural peace seem to make this a happy bachelor life. On a nearby farm lives the bored, flirtatious June St Cyres, an exile from London while her husband...