Crime Club series

The Pit-Prop Syndicate is a story from the beginning of the golden age of crime fiction. Seymour Merriman, a British wine merchant on business in France, happens upon a syndicate manufacturing pit-props—beams used to prop up mine tunnels—but his eye is caught by one odd detail: their lorry’s numberplate mysteriously changes. With the help of his friend Hilliard from the Excise department they dig deeper and uncover a dangerous conspiracy. Freeman Wills Crofts was a civil engineer, turned author of crime fiction. Though somewhat forgotten today, his style was widely appreciated at the time, and still finds fans of those who like a puzzle where all the loose ends are tied up. During his career he wrote over thirty crime novels; The Pit-Prop Syndicate, published in 1922, was his third.

In a poisonous cloud of spray, the curtain falls on a drama queen. Little did beloved British actress Mary Bellamy know that she would be done in at her own birthday party-choked by toxic mist from the bottle of "Slaypest," a deadly insecticide. Basking in the glow of her most adoring fans-who all happened to be her most duplicitous enemies-Mary would make her final performance. When Superintendent Roderick Alleyn arrives, he smells a rat amongst the contemptuous collection of theatre types detained at the party, for this case has the unmistakable scent of murder...

In the mountains of Czechoslovakia, a possible murder has Dominic Felse suspicious of everyone—including his friend, the dead man’s beautiful stepdaughter. Theodosia Barber had been planning to spend her summer vacation in Europe in any case, so what could be simpler than persuading her travel companions to make a minor detour to the scene of the crime? Bewitched by Theodosia’s beautiful brown eyes and blissfully unaware of her real motives, Dominic Felse cannot refuse her plea for a change of plan. And he’s certainly not prepared for their innocent touring holiday to become a murder investigation, with Theodosia in grave danger of becoming another unlikely victim. . . . The Piper on the Mountain is the 5th book in the Felse Investigations, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order

To understand the strange events at The Pale Horse inn, Mark Easterbrook knew he had to begin at the beginning. But where exactly was the beginning? Was it the savage blow to the back of Father Gorman's head? Or the priest's visit, just minutes before, to a woman on her death bed? Or was there a deeper significance to the violent squabble which Mark Easterbrook had himself witnessed earlier?The novel is the only one to feature Ariadne Oliver where she solves a crime in the absence of Hercule Poirot. It was published in 1961 by William Collins Sons & Co. in London, and in 1962 by Dodd, Mead & Co. in New York. It was adapted by Anglia TV in the UK in 1996. The title of this book comes from the Revelation of St John the Divine, chapter 6, verse 8. "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him..." This is another novel where Christie is able to indulge her interest in the supernatural.

Beautiful Rose Blacker was a pathetic figure when she came to tell Celia Stone that she was pregnant by Humphrey, Celia's husband. Rose produced love letters from Humphrey which seemed to be conclusive proof of his guilt. Fearful for the future of her family, Celia sent for Will Hunt, her old flame and friend. Will tried to help, but the murder which soon followed only added to the network of troubles around Humphrey. Will's seemingly ineffective enquiries uncover evidence that starts to converge on the patrons and strange goings-on of the seedy Chelsea club, "The Odd Flamingo." First published in 1954, this was one of two gritty and atmospheric crime novels written by the accomplished children's author Nina Bawden.

When a party of schoolboys assembles for a moth-watching party, the occasion turns out to be fatal not only to the moths. What is the explanation of the ruthless and deliberate killing of a normal, cheerful schoolboy whom everyone liked? Inspector Ferriby realises that in this unusual puzzle he will need the help of Scotland Yard, and he is additionally pleased when Desmond Merrion turns up to assist in the investigation. Before long the police find themselves with a further mystery on their hands, when the body of a woman is found floating in the river. All the clues in the possession of the police only seem to deepen the mystery. The investigation is about to be abandoned when a third death, more dramatic and startling even than the others, opens the way to a surprising solution.

Singers and musicians are gathered for a course in folk music that will occupy a weekend in the fantastic country mansion called Follymead. Most come only to sing or to listen, but one or two have non-musical scores to settle. When brilliantly talented Liri Palmer sings "Black, black, black is the color of my true-love's heart!" she clearly has a message for someone in the audience. Passions run high, and there is murder brewing at Follymead.

Classic British mystery/thriller with savage attacks at foggy Padington Station. Also notable for glimpses of post-WW II London . With Inspector MacDonald at the helm and a young beauty who reads Josephine Tey. 'They were five strangers on a fogbound train--a psychiatrist's pretty secretary, an agitated young man, a tweedy lady with a deep voice, a stockbrockerish businessman, and an eel-like "spiv." One was brutally attacked in the choking black fog in Paddington Station. Attempted murder became bona-fide manslaughter, and examination of the intimate lives of the passengers involved Chief Inspector MacDonald in a macabre game of hide-and-seek in which one man tried to find his identity and another was ready to kill to preserve the shroud of darkness that obscured his.'

It seems a cruel twist of fate that the heirs to a stately home and a long and distinguished family tradition are Gerald (who is weak), his wife Meriel (who is a common, vulgar shrew) and their adolescent son Alan (who is a deeply disturbed, budding psychopath). So when all three die in separate and very convenient accidents, it really was a blessing. Or was it murder?

It began when a sudden summer flood swept down on Brensford and marooned visitors and inhabitants alike in the attics and top floors of their houses. Before the waters had gone down a killer had struck. It was the odd behavior of many of the suspects which first began to puzzle the man from the Yard, Inspector Arnold, and his friend Desmond Merrion. Each theory they tested seemed to point to a criminal activity - but none of them seemed to point to a murderer. Arnold's steady determination and Merrion's fertile imagination make the two a formidable team. But in Death Takes a Detour they need to use all their ingenuity and resources to untangle an absorbing and complex case of the sort for which Cecil Street, under his pen-name Miles Burton, is famous.

As Miss Marple sat basking in the Caribbean sunshine, she felt mildly discontented with life. True, the warmth eased her rheumatism, but here in paradise nothing ever happened. Eventually, her interest was aroused by an old soldier's yarn about strange coincidence. Infuriatingly, just as he was about to show her an astonishing photograph, the Major's attention wandered. He never did finish the story...

Antony Maitland #6 The defendant said his name was Michael Godson and that he was a photographer. The prosecution declared that his real name was Guy Harland and charged him with high treason. Whoever he was, it was the difficult task of a brilliant lawyer named Antony Maitland to prove him innocent. Maitland’s daring investigation takes him through a sinister maze of shadowy witnesses, ugly clues and bitter memories—all pointing to his client’s guilt. The he reaches a deadly crossroad… - from GoodReads

Fiftieth in the mystery series with Inspector Arnold and amateur detective Desmond Merrion. > Sir Phineas Barnsdale was that extraordinary being, an inventor who had made money: and it was his money that killed him. If he had not had a penny to bless himself with, he would never have met with that fatal injury from a blow on the head with an iron bar. The broad motives for the crime seemed evident from the first; it was the question of who had the opportunity and, more important, the time, that was to vex the minds of Inspector Amold of Scotland Yard and his talented friend Desmond Merrion. Time is of the essence and never has the phrase proved more a truism than in this ingenious detective story, where a sense of timing, and a meticulous regard for time itself, play such important parts.

> When Christopher Barrington was twelve, he came to live at Belting, stately home of his great-aunt, Lady Wainwright. It was a frightening house to a nervous boy, who was there only because his parents were dead. Lady Wainwright had disapproved of Christopher's mother marrying his father (a film director), but she took the boy in, partly because her two adored sons, Hugh and David, had been lost in the war. She had two surviving sons, to be sure, Christopher's Uncle Miles and Uncle Stephen, but they weren't the sons she had loved. >Christopher grew up as a poor relation and as an audience. Then, when he was almost a man grown, and his great-aunt was dying, word came that David had apparently not died in the war - he had survived, but he had never let anyone at Belting know. >Was it really David who was returning to solace his dying mother in her last hours? Or was it an impostor come to claim the inheritance, to rob Miles and Stephen - and even Christopher - the old lady's fortune? >And why, when the man turned up who was or was not David (it was so hard to be sure), was Thorne, the elderly family retainer, shot to death? >Christopher, deeply enmeshed in the family puzzle, tries to find out the truth, and runs into some strange situations and stranger people.

From classsiccrimefiction.com: "If Lester Ballard had had any say in the matter, he wouldn't have been seen dead in the cheap gabardine suit, the green cotton shirt, the pointed brown suede shoes. But as he was in fact dead, he had no control over such sartorial lapses. Ruth Seabright, governess to Lester's son Nicky, found his murdered body and was as baffled by its incongruous attire as by the fact of murder itself. But that is only the first of many puzzles. Where, for instance, is Nicky? Who has been searching Ruth's bedroom? How can a corpse be in two places at once? Set beneath the dazzling azure skies and brilliant sun of a small seaside resort in Southern Italy, this exciting crime story is as baffling as it is entertaining."

The fishing port of Carmouth was a health resort on the South West Coast, but for two of the inhabitants, at least, it was to prove the opposite of healthy. At the seaside resort town of Carmouth, Desmond Merrion is on holiday with his recuperating wife. Merrion soon finds himself investigating several suspicious accidents that befall the heirs of the wealthy Lady Violet Ventham, beginning with the death of a local doctor who might have been tricked into driving his car into the harbor and drowning. Following the second death - a nurse falling from a clifftop path - Merrion is joined by Inspector Arnold of Scotland Yard.

> After the corpse of George Hawken had been found on the rocks near his Cornish home, the coroner’s jury brought in an open verdict. Hawken had been a respected but financially unsuccessful artist whose death benefitted no one except one of his nephews, who inherited a modest cottage. Yet that nephew had mysteriously disappeared. There was no doubt about the death of Hawken’s brother, Sir Matthew, which followed not long afterwards; five grains of potassium cyanide had killed him instantly. Inspector Arnold and his friend Desmond Merrion were faced with a paradox: those who had had an opportunity to commit both crimes had no motive; no one with a motive had had the opportunity. >Death Paints a Picture was first published in England in 1960, and was the last mystery novel published by Cecil John Charles Street under his Miles Burton pen-name.

> A distinctive smell of smoke presages a series of murders in the village of Lamsford, and it proves a puzzling case for Inspector Arnold and Desmond Merrion.

Superintendent Macdonald, C.I.D., studied his fellow-passengers on the Vienna plane simply because he couldn’t help it, because he hadn’t conditioned himself to being on holiday. The distinguished industrialist he recognised: the stout man he put down (quite mistakenly) as a traveller in whisky. The fair girl was going to a job (he was right there) and the aggressive young man in the camel coat might be something bookish. Macdonald turned away from his fellow-passengers deliberately; they weren’t his business, he was on holiday - or so he thought. Against the background of beautiful Vienna, with its enchanting palaces and gardens, its disenchanted back-streets and derelicts of war, E. C. R. Lorac constructs another great detective story with all its complexities, an exciting and puzzling crime story.

> To Sarah Hollis and her flat-mates a ramshackle villa in the French Pyrenees seemed to offer the perfect holiday; 'romantic, restful, remote' was how the advertisement described the Villa Abercrombie. >Sarah went ahead of the others in her own little car. On the way she had met by chance a man called Arthur Crook, though she could scarcely believe his assertion, made with hearty and cosy vulgarity, that he was by profession a lawyer. A time would come when Sarah would have need of Crook's services . . .

It seems sometimes as though certain people are born under a dark star. Misfortune and tragedy dog them at every step-ships in which they travel come to grief, trains are derailed, hotels go up in flames. Even those near and dear to them are not spared-bereavement, scandal and even death follow them wherever they go. Some people attribute this to certain stars and planets, and declare that so long as a given condition exists it is useless to struggle; the dice are loaded, fate throws with a two-headed penny. Among these victims of circumstance Ruth Garside seemed to have her place. As a girl she was accused of a dreadful crime; as a wife she was suspected of responsibility for her husband's death; as a widow she was held guilty of an employer's murder. I can't prove her innocence, cried Thomas Fogg. I can't prove my own innocence, said Ruth. She's my client, so she can't be guilty, and by heck, I'll prove it if it means the skies falling, declared Arthur Crook. Well—did he? And was he justified? Anthony Gilbert leaves the reader to judge the outcome of this exciting and original new crime story.