Linford Mystery Library

Karen marries Alan Denver and returns with him to the cliff-side house next to the lighthouse he tends. However, she knows nothing of the death - or even the existence - of his first wife. Then she begins to sense strange ghostly presences about the house, and her husband starts behaving oddly. She senses, too, that Alan's mother, who lives nearby, is trying to break up her marriage - but why? The truth lies hidden behind a locked door, and in a scrap of rose point lace ...

Sinister events in the village of Ferncross have given the inhabitants good reason to respect the legend surrounding derelict Threshold House: whenever a light appears in the window of the Long Room, they know from experience that a corpse will be found the next day. For two years the mystery has remained unsolved - until there comes a time when the killer strikes once too often. Because helping the police in their investigation of the latest murder is the unorthodox but astute Simon Gale ...

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Sam Durell heard it first at K Section of the Central Intelligence Agency: Calvin Padgett had disappeared. He had vanished from his guarded quarters, slipped past the MPs, got beyond the barbed wire, eluded the radar screen, escaped the 'copter patrol, and disappeared. From Washington D. C., the orders poured out: "Assign Sam Durell. Tell him to find Padgett, stop him, gag him. If necessary, killl him. Durell has four days to accomplish assignment." Ninety-six hours for Sam Durell to track down the one man who knew everything about our missile and satellite program. It was the tough agent's toughest assignment. From Back Cover Blurb

Physicist Lance Barley couldn't explain the presence of a half naked woman in his laboratory. The consequences would be serious for him. He knew the laboratory had been securely locked. It was impossible for anyone to have entered -- and the place was empty before he started up the generators in the Transmutation Laboratory. However, following completion of his experiment, the lights had come on -- and there she was! An exquisitely beautiful girl -- but she was also a deadly murderess!

Rosemary Lennox is horrified to find her best friend and neighbour, Mary Francis, strangled in her flat and it's not long before her husband, John Francis, is also murdered there too. The police question Rosemary, her friend and fellow lodger Bob McDonnell and their landlady Ellen Moreland, but they are unable to establish a motive. However, when Rosemary and Bob attempt to investigate, she discovers that all the evidence points to her friend ...

MURDERS GALORE is a collection of six stories that range through time and place from a World War Two military post, to a Midwestern industrial city, to a boys' vacation camp, to a transcontinental streamliner. The macabre methods and motives involved are as varied as the venues, but the result in each case is - MURDER!

Simon Merrivale owns a mask and headdress, and the legend is that whoever comes into contact with them will find their body taken over by the long-dead Shaman at full moon. Merrivale is dragged from his home, and he and the relics are taken to an isolated mansion. There, Ernest Caltro and his followers prepare to conduct a Black Mass with Merrivale as its human sacrifice. Can Simon's friends Richard Blake and Stephen Nayland mount a rescue mission?

Attempting to break free from the oppression of women in the nineteenth century, sixteen-year-old Devonny steps through time hoping to find the power to change her fate.

Solicitor Larry Graham drives urgently to the Yorkshire Moors home of a client, Benjamin Starl, who is gravely ill. Starl's secretary, Margaret Lane, shows Larry to his bedroom but his client has been murdered - a knife embedded in his body! Then, Superintendent Budd from Scotland Yard arrives and discovers the dead body of a strangled man lying on the steps outside ... And in THE BLACK WIDOW, Budd's hunt for stolen jewellery turns into a murder investigation on foggy Dartmoor.

The galaxy is at war between the oxygen-breathing Terran Federation of worlds and the Ginzoes, chlorine-breathing aliens. An Earth ship is captured in battle by the Ginzoes, and its crew learns that the aliens have a newly developed catalyst. This can liberate chlorine from the sea - which, for the Ginzoes, would convert Terran worlds into suitable environments. The catalyst will be used unless the Terran Federation declares peace within fifty days. Fifty days to save Mankind ... or fifty days to doom!

Maria Black, M.A., Principal of Roseway College for Young Ladies, is faced with murder in the cinema when a stranger seated in Number 11 on Row A is found to be dead. Assuming her role of detective, she becomes Black Maria - the crime solutionist. Working with Inspector Morgan, the local police chief, they go behind the scenes of a cinema, into the homes of those workers who'd maintained the entertainment industry- and into the recesses of a killer's mind.

Edith Somerville, great-granddaughter of a wealthy banker in L.A., received two-dozen red roses with a note attached: she would receive one rose less every day and on receipt of the last rose she would die ... Private Detective Johnny Merak sets out to find the would-be killer and when certain members of the family are murdered, Johnny finds proof of yet another, earlier, murder. But it's not until Edith receives the final rose that the killer is unmasked ...

> Professor Renhard dies accidentally whilst experimenting with a machine that destroys dust. Meanwhile, when Dr. Anderson operates on a young woman, an accidental slip of the surgeon's knife leads to more than her death. The girl's brother, Gaston Renhard's manservant, festers with revenge and incriminates Anderson, who is eventually judged as certified insane. When he is then incarcerated in an asylum, Gaston's revenge is complete. However only Dr. Anderson could avert the catastrophic consequences of Renhard's mad experiments....

Instead of the welcome they'd expected, the returning crew of the first interstellar spaceship was kept in space, imprisoned in their craft - in quarantine, as carriers of a deadly alien disease. When the prisoners escaped, the worried authorities hired Earth's top detective, Martin Slade, to track them down, little suspecting that Slade had his own personal agenda. Slade's search for the missing crew spans millions of miles of space, following a trail of hideous deaths.

In Sharky Dexter's casino in Los Angeles, a man beats the crooked roulette wheel. He places a large bet on number thirteen, which comes up. He lets it ride for a second time and wins again, then stakes the lot on thirteen again -- ald calmly walks out with a million dollars of winnings! When Sharky hires Johnny Merak to find the man who's taken his money, there's a spate of murders -- with Johnny himself a candidate for death ...

> Seven men and a woman were in the first-class coach of a train from London to Brighton. They had travelled together each evening for months. That night one of them, Alexis Mortensen, editor of a scurrilous newspaper, died from strychnine poisoning. Strychnine acts inside fifteen minutes, but Mortensen had had nothing which could have contained the poison for an hour before his death. An unbelievably grotesque story from the past was to be uncovered before the case was solved.

"World War II. Young Nick Burrows is embittered with himself, and society. Hoping to meet his brother Harry, he volunteers for the paratroops, but the brothers miss each other and Nick throws himself into the fighting in Tunisia with the First Army. When Nick finally meets Harry, he realizes that he has 'found himself' at last."--Jacket.

Dr. Brutus Lloyd was no more than four feet ten inches tall, an amazingly gnome-like man. The most surprising thing about him was his deep bass voice. A brilliant scientist and criminologist, his unorthodox methods caused consternation to Inspector Branson of the New York City Police when: an accident caused a mining engineer to see into 'another world'; four scientists were murdered for their collective brainpower, and when dinosaurs were seen on the outskirts of a village ...

"Dr. Caspian and his wife Bronwen, both possessed of genuine psychic powers, have gained a reputation as investigators of so-called psychic phenomena, exposing a number of fraudulent mediums. They are consulted by prominent politician Joseph Hinde, whose daughter Laura has become strangely withdrawn. He suspects she may be attending sẻances in an attempt to contact her dead mother. Asked to rescue her from the clutches of evil charlatans, the Caspians' investigations uncover a trail of people dying in strange and horrible circumstances..." --Publisher description.

"Moore dreams he's in the Lake District, climbing a mountain - carrying a woman's body - the woman he attacked as she slept in their hotel. He throws her body into the chasm at the summit and returns to the hotel. He wakes up. He examines his shoes: just as he left them before retiring, no trace of mud from the hillside ... then it HAS all been a dream! But Moore, victim of an experiment in murder, finds his dream is real!"--Page 4 of cover.

Criminologist Felix Heron and his wife Thelma are called on to investigate the death of Sir Percival Trench on the hunting field. The inquest decided that it was an accident, but Sir Percival's fiance thinks otherwise, especially after his fortune goes missing.

Chris Channing's former fiance Jeff tells her that his life is in danger: his wife is slowly poisoning him. But is this true? Responding to his claim, Chris goes to him at Morgan House where she's up against the strange brother-in-law David, the cunning wife Mary, and Jeff, the man she'd once loved, but who's now vastly changed. Chris, lost, confused and swept into a powerful undertow of danger, begins to realize that someone is trying to kill her ...

Los Angeles businessman Charles Jensen hires private investigator Johnny Merak to prove that his second wife, Janine, is having an affair. Johnny soons finds himself over his head and accused of murder.

LA Private Investigator Johnny Merak accepts the diminutive Charles Henning as a client, little realizing the danger he will face. But soon, when a series of brutal gangland murders begins, Lieutenant O'Leary, leading the police investigation, is not pleased to find Johnny Merak at each of the murder scenes. And it seems that Henning had been there too! Both the police and Johnny want to question Henning -- but the little man has disappeared. And the murders continue ...

>The conspiracy in this story has deep roots, and the young hero is launched into it hot upon his discharge from the Army while he is trying to adjust himself to a world which is strange to him, and in which, so far, he has little more than a precarious footing. There is never a dull moment from the commencement until the curtain rings down after a truly strange sequence of events.

Research biologist Jeffrey Dexter's experiments produce a creature capable of endless reproduction, yet lacking human reserve. Then he's murdered -- swept aside by the ruthless Multi-Man. Dexter's wife's claim, that the new Jeffrey Dexter is only a cellular duplicate of her husband, finds her incarcerated in an institution for the mentally unbalanced. Dexter No. 2 develops his plans: famous people are duplicated to nominate Dexter's Presidency in a new scientific era. Can Scotland Yard Detective Sergeant Hanbuy hold him back?

For his latest invention, physicist Mason Brooks needs financial backing. To this end he invites his wealthy sister Vera and her fiancé Dr. Douglas Ashfield to witness a demonstration. There is an explosion and the experiment goes horribly wrong. Vera is not only blinded but has lost her eyes entirely. Then, to restore her sight, Vera undergoes a dangerous surgical experiment which results in plunging all three of them into an astonishing web of mystery and intrigue.

This is a collection of Sherlockian pastiches written by Richard A. Lupoff over the years. > Sherlock Holmes is probably the most popular figure in world literature. For more than a century his adventures have been chronicled in books, on the stage and radio, in motion pictures and television. These Sherlock Holmes adventures show Conan Doyle's detective not only in his earliest days, but also in connection with the works of other authors - Edgar Allan Poe, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft - as Holmes proves himself to be truly THE UNIVERSAL HOLMES.

"A jewel heist goes wrong when the escaping robbers abduct Gloria Vane, the beautiful film actress. Then as gang leader Ace Monohan falls for Gloria, it leads to dissension amongst his men, and the destruction and abandonment of his hideout. Ace, forced to go on the run, takes the stolen jewels with him. Now Gloria finds herself at the mercy of rival gangster 'Fingers' Baxter, who plans to use her to lure Ace out of hiding..."--Publisher description.

Soon after moving into Mexton Grange, an old Georgian country house in the Cotswolds, Alice hears disquieting stories and rumours about her new abode: the previous owners had been driven out by a strange, oppressive atmosphere in the house. It was not as if the house was ACTUALLY haunted - rather, it was as if the house was WAITING TO BE HAUNTED ...! These five stories of terror and the macabre by John Glasby will tingle the spine on any dark and stormy night.

Baffling robberies and mysterious murders are the stock-in-trade of Miss Victoria Lincoln, private detective ... After Professor Marchant dies, his house, Bartley Towers, is visited nightly by a sinister enemy, which frequents the gallery containing the Professor's collection of antiques and curios. When the detective investigates the case, she calls on the assistance of Caroline Gerrard ... Thereafter, Miss Lincoln and Miss Gerrard investigate a series of bizarre cases, which are seemingly insoluble ... until Victoria Lincoln gets to work ...

When theatrical agent Amos Rattenbury is found stabbed to death in his London office, the weight of suspicion falls on Dorene Grey, a young actress. Sir Digby Hilton is assigned to find the missing Dorene. However, she has two champions: Sir Digby's brother Terry, and the mysterious figure known as 'The Phantom of the Films'. And she will need their help to escape the fate planned for her by a cunning murderer.

When Antoinette swindled Margaree out of the old estate on Cape Breton Island, Margaree swore on her mother's grave that she'd win it back. But blocking her ambition are three deadly obstacles: the formidable Antoinette, her treacherous son, and Jean, whom she loves deeply but who hates the old house with all his heart. To win Jean, Margaree would have to give up the estate. The key to it all lies somewhere within the mysterious reaches of the Glass House ... if Margaree remains alive long enough to find it!

When meteorologist Alvin Brook invents a means of controlling the weather, he imagines it will lead to his becoming a world benefactor, with riches for him and his family. Instead, Brook and his wife are murdered, and his invention is stolen and misused by industrialist Marcus Denham. Denham creates the mighty empire of Climate Incorporated, controlling the world's weather and holding nations to ransom ... but he does not anticipate that outraged Nature -- and Brook's son -- will take their revenge.

> After his father's death, Gerald Lavering returns to England to sort out the family's estates Hartford Manor and Nancrannon in Cornwall. The houses bring only heartache to Jerry. His dear mother had died in Cornwall when he was a child and his father had immersed himself in civic affairs, ignoring his son and his homes. When Jerry decides to pay a final visit to Nancrannon, accompanied by his friend George Lashing and George's sister, Tessa, he learns the shocking truth about his mother's death.

>A closely-knit and anonymous gang of women were netting thousands of pounds. So ingenious was their modus operandi that not even Doctor Manson could find anything illegal in their operations - until among their victims were three crooked men, with equal ingenuity in acquiring money. Unfortunately for both sides, murder crept in four times...

Insurance investigator Hobart Lindsey and Homicide Detective Marvia Plum have been winning applause and building a loyal readership since their debut in The Comic-Book Killer (1988). Sometimes rivals, sometimes partners, sometimes lovers, Lindsey and Plum are a study in contrasts. He's white, gentle, and unassuming. She's black, tough, and street-smart. Their adventures have filled seven novels with an eighth on its way. Now they return in One Murder at a Time: the Casebook of Lindsey

Earl Dumarest accepts a commission to guard Lady Derai, of the House of Caldor, on the feudal world of Hive. But there, his hopes of meeting a living witness to planet Earth are dashed. The man, along with his fellow villagers, has mysteriously disappeared. Meanwhile, Central Intelligence aspires to universal control and the Cyclans are their emotionless servants. When they bring Dumarest into the deadly Contest on Folgone, he℗Łs forced to fight alongside Derai to escape the death zone.

Sent to trial for the murder, by poison, of her husband John, Margaret Hallam is convicted and sentenced to death. Her appeal is dismissed and the Home Secretary refuses a reprieve. Simon Gale, an old friend of Margaret, returns from painting in Italy and learns about her case. Whilst refusing to believe she's guilty, the only way he can save her is to discover the real murderer's identity. But there are no concrete clues and time is against him ...

In 1905, John O'Leary had newly arrived in San Francisco. Looking for work, he had answered the advert, little understanding what was required for the post - he'd try anything once. In America he found a world of excitement and danger ... and working for Abraham ben Zaccheus, San Francisco's most famous psychic detective, there was never a dull moment ... 'INVESTIGATOR SEEKS SECRETARY, AMANUENSIS, AND GENERAL ASSISTANT. APPLICANT MUST EXHIBIT COURAGE, STRENGTH, WILLINGNESS TO TAKE RISKS AND EXPLORE THE UNKNOWN ... ' In 1905, John O'Leary had newly arrived in San Francisco. Looking for work, he had answered the advert, little understanding what was required for the post - he'd try anything once. In America he found a world of excitement and danger ... and working for Abraham ben Zaccheus, San Francisco's most famous psychic detective, there was never a dull moment ...

Psychological crime thriller.

An alien and a human are forced to share the same body, and the results are dangerously outrageous.

"Somewhere in England is a steel box - its contents more valuable than diamonds - that Superintendent Robert Budd must find. Budd's investigation takes him to Higher Wicklow, where a tramp had sheltered in its reputedly haunted mill. Some days later, his body was discovered, his throat cut. Although the coroner's verdict was suicide, the villagers believe there's a more sinister explanation. Can the Superintendent discover the truth? Budd's heavy caseload also includes murder, ghostly goings on, a vanishing and blackmail."--Page 4 of cover.

Something terrifying has started happening in Eggerton. People are turning up drained of blood and very, very dead. Have vampire bats started attacking humans? If so, then who's delivering the hammer-blow that finally kills the victims? For Detective Inspector Jack Sears it's a mystery that not even virologist Doctor Christopher Deacon can fathom. But then the police get lucky. Against all the odds one of the victims survives. But strangely enough, that's when things go from bad to worse ...

The canvas, seemingly daubs of red and green paint, showed, on closer inspection, a woman, her crimson lips twisted in a devilish leer ... The man who had purchased the painting was found in his lodgings - stabbed to death - his painting stolen. While investigating the case, Superintendent Budd stumbles onto another murder in progress in a derelict house, and hears the dying man utter just two words: 'Red ... light ... ' Nearby, lies a picture ... of the Leering Lady.

Toby Stewart has been invited by her sister Anne to visit her at Fool's End, the manor where she works as a personal secretary to a famous author, and after his recent death has stayed on to catalogue his papers and manuscripts. But on arriving, Toby is dismayed to learn that Anne has mysteriously disappeared - without taking any of her possessions and without informing her employers. And most everyone there, it seems, has something to hide. Did Anne leave of her own volition - or has she perhaps been murdered ...?

> In this selection of Inspector McLean's varied cases, each story presents a baffling problem to the police and the reader. McLean, however, solves the mysteries by brilliantly unexpected methods of investigation and deduction. Such cases as the charred and unrecognisable body found in a lonely cottage on the Dorset cliffs, and the equally mysterious affair of the burnt-out racing car with a bullet in the radiator, are packed with tension and ingenuity.

"Wilson, a waif of the war of unity, spends his boyhood in forced labour. When he is sent to the penal world of Stellar, he survives, winning promotion in the Stellar Legion, a brutal military system. Laurance, Director of the Federation of Man, wants to dissolve the Legion. He pits his wits against its commander, Hogarth. He's terrified lest the human wolves, trained and hardened in blood and terror, should ravage the defenceless galaxy ..."--Publisher description.

"Dick Palmer and Will Snell are great friends, both former highwaymen who were subsequently exonerated. However, they become fugitives from the law again when members of a mysterious gang of murderers and kidnappers use their names to frame them. Then when the gang kidnap Palmer's wife the two friends are plunged into a deadly struggle to rescue her. But they are up against an evil and secret organization - and the sadistic Simon Pendexter, who swings a 'spiked boy' ..."--Publisher description.

The murder of a mysterious recluse in Barnet supplies Mr. Budd with one of the most difficult cases of his career. What is the connection between Jonathan Haines, the murdered man, and the typist who is found murdered later that same day? Mr. Budd, with the assistance of crime reporter Bob Hopkins and the melancholy Sergeant Leek, succeeds in piecing together all the fragments of the puzzle - but not until the stout superintendent has suffered the most terrifying experience of his life ...

"Mike Merriman's big band and his vocalist, Ingrid Lee, are extremely successful. However, returning from touring America, they are questioned by reporters concerning their relationship. Worse still, when Mike's wife disappears, Ingrid is subjected to a campaign of vengeance. The threats and attacks grow in savagery. At home or on stage, Ingrid suffers potentially murderous persecution. Meanwhile, Mike can only strive to put an end to the terror building up so remorselessly - the fear by instalments"-- Back Cover.

Sixteen-year-old Sarah sells her soul to reclaim her family's estate and is given 100 years to atone for their sins, but as the bargain nears its end, modern-day Tom, yearning to attend the private school that Darkwater Hall has become, gets caught up in the bargain.

When Harry Perrivale wanted to find the legendary lost city of Akada, his expedition to the African jungle included his native bearers, his wife Rita and trader Caleb Moon. But Harry faced mortal danger as Moon had his own dark plans for the treasures of Akada. Then they confronted a mysterious giant white man, who spoke only in a native tribal tongue. His identity and the reason for his jungle upbringing would only be discovered after tragedy struck ...

Bound for Liverpool to board his Japanese ship, OKI MARU, a Korean seaman is murdered and his identity assumed by his killer. Then, after the ship sails, it disappears - presumed lost in a storm ... The owner of a remote country house in Wales is pressured into selling it - then brutally murdered. Meanwhile, when secret documents relating to a draft treaty with Japan go missing from the Foreign Office, agent Dene of the Secret Service has orders to recover them ...

An habitual criminal attempts to snatch Penelope Hayes' handbag, yet is apprehended and charged. Two months later, she's abducted and chloroformed - and again rescued by the police. This time her assailant escapes with her handbag. It seems that the wave of daring criminal gang robberies across London is somehow connected to Penelope's handbag - despite her denials that it contained anything of value. Then she disappears again - and the police have a murder investigation on their hands...

Maggie is in Prague on a Market Research project. But when a Russian tank rolls up outside her hotel, dashing all her plans, she decides to face the country's menacing and violent situation and drive towards the border. On the way, she acquires a passenger - a fugitive. Jan is a Czech archaeologist, carrying a valuable secret, ignorant of its significance or value. But when he eventually faces his enemies in Czechoslovakia, events prove more dramatic than he'd ever anticipated.

An innocent man is arrested for a murder committed by a woman ... A guilty man confesses to another murder - but the police arrest an innocent woman! A man finds the woman of his dreams - and finds he's in a nightmare ... The tenants of a new block of flats are so delighted with their new home that they don't really want to go out - little realizing that they CAN'T leave. Strange incidents from macabre stories of MURDER, MYSTERY ... AND MAGIC.

A rediscovered classic of cosmic horror by John Russell Fearn. The obscure village of Coxwold had suddenly become the centre of attention of every daily newspaper. People from all over had descended upon it, investigating, questioning, and sending reports to London. Something had happened in a nearby wheat field which had reduced two normal, healthy men to insanity and death. The police, suspecting foul play, lacked any evidence. So what could it be that had driven the victims to madness?

A man calling himself the Jockey begins a campaign against those who he believes have besmirched the good name of horse racing, escaping conviction through lack of evidence. In a message to the press, he vows that those who have amassed crooked fortunes will have the money taken from them, whilst those who have caused loss of life will find their own lives forfeit ... When the murders begin, Superintendent Budd of Scotland Yard is charged to find and stop the mysterious avenger. But is the Jockey the actual murderer?

Betty Shapley was a local beauty, for whose charms three young men fell heavily. But her coquetry would lead to death for one of her admirers, Herbert Pollitt; a fugitive's life for another, Vincent Gray; and becoming a murder-case witness for the third, Tom Clayton. Inspector Morgan and Sergeant Claythorne investigate the death, and suspect Vincent Grey. So Betty, former pupil of Roseway College for Young Ladies, asks Maria Black--the headmistress detective--to prove Grey's innocence.

Worryingly for Scotland Yard, four officers disappear whilst on duty. One vanishes chasing a forger. Then two officers disappear searching for a wanted jewel thief in Hythe. Finally, a fourth officer vanishes in Hythe, after being sent to the nearby village of Stonehurst. Criminologist Trevor Lowe investigates a lead: someone has telephoned to arrange a meeting at the crossroads between the two villages. Lowe keeps the rendezvous but finds the man has been silenced - shot dead in a ditch ...

Brander, the security chief of the Syrtis Base on Mars, isolates the entire emplacement when two men die from an unknown, alien disease. No one can enter or leave the base. Dr. John Naysmith, newly arrived on Mars, leads the medical team desperately trying to discover a serum to combat the virus. If they can't contain the spread of the disease Brander must annihilate the base and everyone in it with nuclear bombs! Then another three men become infected ...

"'I'M DONE FOR ... FIND X.1 ... DENE ... YOU MUST ... TOOTH-PASTE ... ' England is at war with Germany and Dene of the Secret Service tries to decipher his fatally wounded colleague's garbled message - potentially vital information for England's survival. Who is X.1? What does the word TOOTH-PASTE signify? Dene must find out and stop X.1, or the Third Reich will strike a crippling blow to England and change the course of the war. And he has just eight days in which to do it ..."--Page 4 of cover.

Two doctors find themselves facing a murder charge when the subject of their "deep freeze" experiment can't be revived.

School head and amateur sleuth Maria Black applies her unique skills to solving the hanging death of student Frances Hasleigh.

When Ralph Black, chain store magnate, was found shot by his own gun in his locked library, the New York police pronounced it as suicide. However, family members believe it was murder. His sister in England, Maria Black, M.A., Headmistress of a girls' school, wants to discover the truth. She travels to America, and with her penchant for solving crimes, sets to work to trace the mysterious plot against her brother to the final unmasking of the amazing truth.

Released from Newgate jail, Dick Palmer, the son of a notorious highwayman, rides off to seek a new life outside London. However, he arrives at the village of High Beach to rest at the Black Horse Inn and is framed for murder. Jeanette, the innkeeper's daughter, aids his escape, but like his father, he is forced to become a highwayman. Fighting to clear his name, he and Jeanette then become enmeshed in a sinister mystery involving an earlier murder.

Bobby Carson is proud of his lying expertise. His scientist father uses him as a guinea pig for a machine which destroys his ability to be dishonest, but has unhappy social consequences. Soon criminals begin exploiting the possibilities of a world without lies in a society built upon sham and pretence. And Scotland Yard, hampered by its own guilty secrets, cannot stem the tide of blackmail ... until Dr. Carson, the creator of the Lie Destroyer, again steps into the scene ...

"George Carter and his family lived peacefully in the small town of Uphill. But one fateful weekend something caused them to experience real fear and act completely out of character. The first trigger was when they learned that a homicidal maniac was at large in Uphill, carrying a damaged suitcase containing his victim's body parts. The second trigger was on finding that their new lodger's suitcase was also damaged - and the grisly truth of what was inside ..."--Page 4 of cover.

Richard Ulrome worked for billionaire recluse Simon Miaolo. At first, Anne Blackwell was pleased for her fiance's career. But then it seemed that Richard was a prisoner at Monteine Castle, Miaolo's headquarters. Anne realized that a master of evil in a satanic ritual of sacrifice and renewal was manipulating Richard and herself. And like others before her, Anne turned to Ruane the Witchfinder. A man who would listen. A man waging a private war against the Devil.

Folklorist and illustrator Keira Sullivan pursues the mysterious Irish legend of an ancient Celtic stone angel and soon becomes the target of a killer that even search-and-rescue expert Simon Cahill cannot stop.

Once again, the indefatigable Inspector McLean proves his ability as a sleuth who is both human and ingenious in a series of intriguing cases. Among the many baffling crimes are the murder of the pretty artist's model who collapsed while posing in a Chelsea studio, the trapping of the violent gangster, the Nightingale, who sang his sinister songs of death only at night, and a dozen others of equal tension and excitement.

Claire Escott had ignored her father's warning against involvement with her fiance, Mark Rowland. However, she little realized the extent of the scientist's corroding ambition. And it was not long after their marriage that Rowland's ruthless pursuit of a scientific empire encompassed a horrifying murder. But that was only the start of things.

Four stories of murder, deceit and ambition, set against a backdrop of future space colonisation. ONLY ONE WINNER presents four criminals, desperate to strike it rich by holding up a luxury tourist space cruiser. However, internal distrust and animosity threaten to leave them worse off than when they started ... This, and three other stories exploring human nature in the face of life-threatening situations, question how wise it is to put your faith in strangers, and whether greed ever pays off ...