George Bellairs

> On her way to church early one morning, Mrs Jump sees a dead body in the gutter in July Street. Frightened, she hurries on, but her conscience convinces her to return, only to find the body gone. >Doubting herself, she nevertheless tells her boss, Inspector Littlejohn of Scotland Yard, who decides to investigate further. He soon discovers that July Street is full of unusual people. Everyone has a motive. >Everyone is a suspect. >From London to Paris and back, Littlejohn unravels the tangled web of connections between this curious cast of characters to expose the murderer. >First published in 1962, Death Before Breakfast is a Chief Inspector Littlejohn mystery full of intrigue, mysterious motives, and ingenious speculation.

Chief Inspector Littlejohn #54 A Yard Coroner who had retired to a manor house in the country, said to be haunted, gets mixed up with two characters until an untimely death made them flee. - from Goodreads Mr. Sebastian Dommett, retired county coroner, had led an unhappy life during his career. Originally a member of a legal firm, his partner had decamped with clients’ funds. Then his only daughter had eloped with a policeman, which made Mr. Dommett detest the police and harry them in his court. He ended up by living in fear of someone or something, but never lost his aplomb. Finally, Mr. Dommett, hearing that Chief Superintendent Littlejohn, of Scotland Yard, was approaching retirement, had the temerity to consider offering Littlejohn the job of steward and security officer of a tumbledown manor house his wife inherited. Before Dommett could make a firm offer, however, he was found battered to death and it fell to Littlejohn to collaborate with the local police on the case. The ruined manor house was said to be haunted and of evil repute. Many strange things happened there and among its strange inhabitants before Littlejohn wrapped up the affair. - from georgebellairs.com

>While scallop-dredging off the Isle of Man, the Manx Shearwater drags up a body tied at the ankles and weighed down, obviously not a simple case of drowning. The medical report reveals a grisly and brutal attack on the victim, but who is he? And what had he done to deserve such a fate? >As investigations begin, Cedric Levis, a local philanderer with an unsavoury reputation seems to be missing when letters forwarded to his hotel room in San Reno have been returned, along with a bill for the room he never claimed. Could the murdered man be Cedric Levis? If so, who stayed in that room? >Under the pretence of a vacation, Chief Inspector Littlejohn is invited by his old friend, Archdeacon Kinrade, to unofficially assist with the murder investigation. Kinrade is certain the man accused of the murder is innocent, so Inspector Littlejohn must work to uncover the truth behind the murder and find who took Mr Levis’s hotel room that night. But with the mysterious and malevolent stories surrounding the Cursing Stones, will Littlejohn be able to separate fact from fiction?

> The Mayor of the popular resort of Westcombe, Sir Gideon Ware, is no stranger to making enemies. What was once a quaint little harbour is now miles of level, concrete promenade, and acres of pleasure-beach, embracing every kind of device for human entertainment and sensation. Sir Gideon Ware has put Westcombe on the map through bribes, intimidation and threats. When Ware drops dead in the middle of his annual lunch, no one is surprised to hear that murder is suspected. But with so many enemies surrounding Ware, Inspector Littlejohn has his work cut out sifting through Ware’s past to find the likely killer. Especially with the Chief Constable so keen on covering up vital facts in the investigation. >It becomes clear that Ware was poisoned. But everyone else ate and drank the same things, and no one appeared to have been near enough to Ware to have done the deed. >Before Littlejohn can get to the bottom of it, a second murder is committed… Can he crack the case before more lives are put in jeopardy? Or will the long list of suspects help the killer to get away with it…?

Chief Inspector Littlejohn #53 Whilst taking the dog out for the last walk of the day, Littlejohn of Scotland Yard comes across a body in the rain. Recognising it as Charles Blunt, a thief he crossed paths with and admired many years before, Littlejohn resolves to solve the case. But where did the body come from? What was it doing in front of a deserted house? And why, after all these years, had Charles Blunt finally come to a sticky end? Looking into the life of Blunt the Gentleman Burglar brings Littlejohn into the complex love triangles and debauchery of the filthy rich, and all of the scandal that goes with it. First published in 1973, Devious Murder is a classic detective mystery, full of intrigue, tantalising clues and colourful characters.

Inspector Littlejohn #55 A detective mystery set in France. A British travel group is stranded in France when the tour conductor is shot, and their bus driver is accused of murder. Luckily, Inspector Littlejohn, holidaying nearby, is on hand, both to interpret the annoyed tourists and to solve a baffling double crime in tandem with his French colleague. Vacationing in the south of France, Chief Superintendent Littlejohn is asked by French officials to help find the murderer of Peter Butterfield--a shady, loud-mouthed English tourguide who's been found shot on a dangerous mountain road near the town of Sospel. Prime suspect: tour bus driver Sid Bennion, who has disappeared (leaving behind a busload of resentful tourists) and reappears just as another body is found--that of Lil, a girl whose favors both Butterfield and Bennion were enjoying. But Littlejohn's investigation, with help from an old Sûreté pal, focuses mostly on the Cozy Tours tycoon: London Financier Wilfrid Fenner, a sinister type complete with mute bodyguard and venerable Rolls-Royce. [Kirkus Reviews]

The trip to Tilsey was meant to be a holiday for Detective Inspector Littlejohn. But the DI soon finds himself caught up in a network of family intrigue involving hate, deception and murder. In 'Crime in Leper's Hollow', DI Littlejohn must unravel the mysteries of the Crake family. Starting with the death of Nicholas Crake, the affairs connected to the family seat, Beyle House, make for a gripping tale, one which George Bellairs tells with humour and suspense. “One of the subtlest and wittiest practitioners of the ...British detective story.” - New York Times. “Head and shoulders above the average of our day.” - Madison Capital Times.

> George Keelagher, head of a stock-broking firm in the city, thrusts himself on his nephew Waldo and the latter’s wife Averil, who are holidaying in the south of France in their new caravan. Not long after their arrival on the Riviera, Waldo finds Uncle George dead in the wasteland of the Estérel, near Cannes. In panic Waldo and Averil pack the body in the back of their car and take it to the police in Cannes. Whilst they are reporting, car and body are stolen from in front of the police station. When the body is at last found, hidden in the wasteland, it is clearly a case of murder. >Waldo turns for help to Superintendent Littlejohn who is on holiday nearby, and with the latter on the case, enquiries soon shift to Great Missenden, where Uncle George lived, and to the city, where all is not well with the stock-broking business. Together, Littlejohn and Cromwell, now promoted to Inspector, find themselves caught up in one of their most complicated and unorthodox cases, in which the characters of the suspects count for as much as their actions. >>Death in the Wasteland was originally published in 1964.

The curraghs in the Isle of Man are, as a rule, eerie and silent after dark, but that silence is shattered for the villagers of Mylecharaine one black night in April by a loud explosion followed by the violent ringing of the church bell. The Vicar, Sullivan Lee, is discovered praying beside the murdered body of Sir Martin Skollick, the squire of Myrescogh. By the side of the body lies a sporting gun with both barrels fired. Archdeacon Kinrade summons his old friend Superintendent Littlejohn of Scotland Yard back to the Isle of Man. There, with the help of Inspector Knell of the Manx C.I.D., Littlejohn sheds light on the murdered man’s past misdeeds, his enemies, and his lady friends in particular, before Littlejohn has the answer to the mystery that started the church bell tolling across the curraghs that fateful night.

Number 7 in the Chief Inspector Littlejohn series. To solve a murder case, Thomas Littlejohn contends with ghosts, Nazis, and crooked real estate speculators. Known across London as one of the premier slumlords of the East End, Solomon Burt has never fallen in love with a property the way he has with Harwood, a faded manor house halfway between London and the sea. When the owner refuses to sell, Burt uses every trick he knows to buy the house out from under the man and convert it into apartments. Now Burt owns the property lock, stock, and barrel - but he will have to share it with the ghosts. When Burt is found murdered, the tenants fear a ghost might be responsible. Detective-Inspector Littlejohn is called down from London to solve the case and restore reason. But what he find lurking in the back corners of Harwood is far more dangerous than a poltergeist.

>In the wake of Mr. William Blow’s death, his surviving relatives find themselves tangled up in family secrets and financial mystery. So when Miss Penelope Blow suddenly dies by falling out her bedroom window, suspicions are raised. With Scotland Yard under pressure to determine the widow’s fall was really accidental, Inspector Littlejohn is called in to get to the bottom of the case. But the deeper Littlejohn delves into the case, the more secrets he finds. From malice to madness, there is one possible cause. Can Littlejohn uncover the truth before another tragedy befalls the Blows?

> Joss Varran's body was found in a ditch opposite his home in the silent marshes of the Isle of Man, on the night of his release from Wormwood Scrubs. Events had made him a hunted man by his former partners in crime and his murder presented a picturesque case for Inspector Knell of the Manx police and his friend Chief Superintendent Littlejohn of Scotland Yard.

>'At 8 o'clock in the evening on the 8th November, there was a terrific explosion in Green Lane, Evingden...' >The offices of the Excelsior Joinery Company have been blown to smithereens; three of the company directors are found dead amongst the rubble, and the peace of a quiet town in Surrey lies in ruins. When the supposed cause of an ignited gas leak is dismissed and the presence of dynamite revealed, Superintendent Littlejohn of Scotland Yard is summoned to the scene. >But beneath the sleepy veneer of Evingden lies a hotbed of deep rooted grievances. The new subject of the town's talk, Littlejohn's investigation is soon confounded by an impressive cast of suspicious persons, each concealing their own axe to grind.