Clifford Witting

Let X be the Murderer was first published in 1947. It is a bleak November morning when Sergeant Martin, Inspector Charlton’s stalwart sidekick, receives an agitated phone call from Sir Victor Wallingham claiming that a ghost attempted to strangle him in the night. When Inspector Charlton follows this up, he is blocked at every turn, but even so, when the following night does actually end with the discovery of a body, he is not expecting it.

This is a fascinating collection of hundreds of English proverbial expressions. These include sayings which go back to the very roots of language, quotations from great writers which have become proverbial, and popular phrases which are widely used and known. The compilers not only pithily define and illustrate the proverbs but also trace them back to their origins wherever possible. There are copious cross-references which show how many expressions relate to a common core of folk wisdom. A very full and useful index is also included, and there is a section of biographical details of people mentioned in the book. English-speaking people throughout the world are familiar from infancy with such phrases as 'a stitch in time saves nine' and 'first come first served', but they will find new light shed on these and on less familiar proverbs by the compilers. Those to whom English is a second or foreign language will be greatly helped by the definitions, since proverbial expressions are notoriously bewildering.

It is 1940 and Mrs Mudge, the cleaning lady, is busy tidying the Little Theatre in Lulverton, which is run by the local amateur dramatics' society. But she is in for a surprise when she finds a corpse in the ticket office, stabbed with a dagger - a prop from the society's latest play, Measure for Measure. The novel is in two sections. In the first, the narrator, Vaughn Tudor, describes the formation of the small amateur theatre group, in a sleepy village on the South Coast in the period leading up to the Second World War. But then in the second half, after the revelation of the identity of the victim and the calling in of Witting's series detective Inspector Charlton to investigate, the reader finds out that there were rather a lot of people who had cause to visit that little theatre on the night of the murder... But can the police disentangle the complicated relationships to discover the real killer? First published in 1941, it was the fifth of Witting's novels.

>How, where and why did a man disappear from a group of carol singers on that cold December night in Paulsfield? It hardly seemed likely that he had absconded with the collecting box. But the more that Inspector Charlton found out about the missing person, the less certain he became that he would find him alive … >Catt Out of the Bag appeared first in 1939, one of sixteen novels that the author wrote between 1937 and 1964. Catt has a delightful traditional Christmas setting, is full of humour and will be a must for all fans of classic detective fiction.

>It is slowly and insidiously that evil comes to the cathedral city of Storminster. Old scandals are awakened: there are hints of corruption and worse; the vicar is warned lest he meddle. But meddle he does, for the Reverend Selwyn Seddicombe, unassuming though he may be, is not one to be deterred by threats while a poison pen wreaks havoc amongst his parishioners; still less so when the poison increases in virulence and an unfortunate victim takes her own life. And this is only the beginning - murder follows suicide, the police are called in, and a citizen, well liked and respected, finds himself on trial for his life. What is the truth behind these tragic happenings? Who among the citizens of this once quiet old town could be the author of these outrages? It is Selwyn Seddicombe who, in his own original way, finds the answer to these questions and in doing so keeps the reader fascinated to the end.

Presents the traditional nursery rhyme 'There was a crooked man'. On board pages. Suggested level: junior.