British Mystery Library Classics

Widely acknowledged as the first detective novel, this story is narrated by insurance investigator Ralph Henderson, who is building a case against the sinister Baron “R**”, suspected of murdering his wife in order to obtain significant life insurance payments. Henderson descends into a maze of intrigue including a diabolical mesmerist, kidnapping by gypsies, slow poisoners, a rich uncle’s will and three murders.

"The horror on the train, great though it may turn out to be, will not compare with the horror that exists here, in this house." On Christmas Eve, heavy snowfall brings a train to a halt near the village of Hemmersby. Several passengers take shelter in a deserted country house, where the fire has been lit and the table laid for tea - but no one is at home. Trapped together for Christmas, the passengers are seeking to unravel the secrets of the empty house when a murderer strikes in their midst.

The streets of London have been home to many great detectives since the days of Sherlock Holmes and Watson, with some of the best authors in the genre taking to the short story form to pit their sleuths against crimes ranging from murders on the Tube to heists from the capital's finest jewellers. Featuring a roster of Scotland Yard's meticulous best, a cohort of daring doctors and a cadre of characterful private investigators, this new selection by Martin Edwards includes 18 vintage mystery stories which showcase the city's most compelling classic cases.

In a tranquil Kentish village, Dr Sandys and his wife are preparing for Christmas with their guest, Liane 'Lee' Crauford. Festivities start badly when their party is spoiled by an enigmatic widow new to the village, and the atmosphere hits rock bottom when the pompous local nobleman and ceramic-collector Sir Henry Metcalfe unexpectedly dies. Sensing potential villains among Metcalfe's circle, Lee teams up with Detective-Inspector Hugh Gordon to discover the killer playing merry hell with her holiday in this lost vintage mystery, republished for the first time since 1952.

One of the greatest locked-room murder mysteries of all time, hailing from 1938, returns to baffle a new bevy of armchair detectives. James Answell, visiting his father-in-law Avery Hume in his locked study, has the misfortune to wake up from a drugged-Whisky swoon to find his host dead, skewered with an arrow. He is, of course, prime suspect.

Girls Together magazine agony-aunt 'Mrs Friendly-wise', aka Katinka Jones, finds herself at a loose end in Swansea, and decides to pay a surprise visit to one of the magazine's regular correspondents, 'Amista'. But reaching the address – a strange house perched atop a mountain which matches all the descriptions in the letters – nobody has even heard of 'Amista'. As Katinka begins to fall for the dashing master of the house, Carleon, more strange mysteries emerge and the plucky Detective Inspector Chucky joins the search for the truth in this self-consciously lurid mystery-melodrama.

'There will be ten teacups at number 4, Berwick Terrace, W.8, on Wednesday, July 31st, at 5 p.m. Precisely. The presence of the Metropolitan Police is respectfully requested.' The note was delivered to New Scotland Yard, its words evoking a cold murder case and its unsolved mystery of the ten teacups found beside the body. Scrambling to prevent a second killing, the police set up a watertight cordon at Berwick Terrace. But gunfire rings out from the top floor at 5 p.m.

Mrs Paschal, the heroine of Revelations of a Lady Detective, is regularly consulted by the police and serves as an undercover agent as well as investigating her own cases. But even though she is 'verging on 40', she throws herself into cases with verve and gusto and has no hesitation in infiltrating a deadly secret society or casting off her crinolines in order to plummet into a sewer on the trail of a criminal.

Dimpson McCabe - Dimpsie - has invited his closest friends of the theatre world to join him for Christmas at his castle on a private island some hours' drive from Edinburgh. The festivities have barely begun when Dimpsie is found draped atop the Christmas tree, electrocuted by the lights. It's labelled Accidental Death, but in the swirling snow suspicion is dancing among the flakes. The dogged Inspector Smith begins to circle, seeking to find the leading man or prima donna responsible.

In 1913 John Farringdale, with his cousin Eric Foster, visits the famous archaeologist Tolgen Reisby. At Scarweather - Reisby's lonely house on the windswept northern coast of England - Eric is quickly attracted to Reisby's much younger wife, and matters soon take a dangerous turn. Fifteen years later the final scene of the drama is enacted.

Impossible crime stories have delighted people since the invention of detective fiction as puzzle-lovers sought more cerebral entertainment. Following on from Miraculous Mysteries, CWA Diamond Dagger Award-winning crime writer Martin Edwards brings together a whole new casebook of mystifying locked room mysteries and impossible crimes. Featuring more great stories by John Dickson Carr, Julian Symons and Margery Allingham alongside newly rediscovered writers, this selection of stories will bring you more insight into one of the most celebrated and dazzling sub-genres of detective fiction.

When Dr Raymond Ferens moves to a practice at Milham in the Moor in north Devon, he and his wife are enchanted with the beautiful hilltop village lying so close to moor and sky. At first they see only its charm, but soon they begin to uncover its secrets - envy, hatred and malice. Everyone says that Sister Monica, warden of a children's home, is a saint - but is she? A few months after the Ferens' arrival her body is found drowned in the mill-race. Chief Inspector Macdonald faces one of his most difficult cases in a village determined not to betray its dark secrets to a stranger.

Through the double clamour of Big Ben and the shrill sound of the bell rang a revolver shot. A financier is found shot in the House of Commons. Suspecting foul play, Robert West, a parliamentary private secretary, takes on the role of amateur sleuth. Used to turning a blind eye to covert dealings, West must now uncover the shocking secret behind the man's demise, amid distractions from the press and the dead man's enigmatic daughter.

Hugh Everton was intent on nothing more than quietly drinking in the second-rate hotel he found himself in on England's south coast—and then in walked his old flame Lucy and her new husband and ex-Judge, Gregory Bath. Entreated by Lucy to join her party for an evening back at the Bath residence, Hugh is powerless to resist, but when the night ends with the judge's inexplicable murder he is pitched back into a world of chaos and crime—a world he had tried to escape for good.

Vivian Lestrange - celebrated author of the popular mystery novel The Charterhouse Case and total recluse - has apparently dropped off the face of the Earth. Reported missing by his secretary Eleanor, whom Inspector Bond suspects to be the author herself looking for publicity, it appears that crime is 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 fictional victim.

In Bloomsbury, London, Inspector Brook of Scotland Yard looks down at a dismal scene. The victim of a ruthless murder lies burnt beyond recognition, his possessions and papers destroyed by fire. But there is one strange, yet promising, lead - a lead which suggests the involvement of a skier. Meanwhile, piercing sunshine beams down on the sparkling snow of the Austrian Alps, where a merry group of holidaymakers are heading towards Lech am Arlberg.

The British Secret Service, working to uncover a large-scale blackmail ring and catch its mysterious mastermind 'The Spider', find themselves at the country residence Feltham Abbey where a fancy-dress ball is in full swing. In the tumult of revelry, Sir Ralph Feltham is found dead. Not the atmosphere bewildered guest Tony was expecting, he sets out make sense of the night's activities and the motives of the other guests.

Uncle Willie has come to stay with the Redpaths for the holidays. It is just their luck for him to be found dead the morning after Christmas day, dressed in his Santa Claus costume, seemingly poisoned by his favourite chocolates. Or was there something sinister in the mince pies? If so, was it the ones stashed in his room or those sent to him mysteriously by post? More importantly, since his will was recently redrafted, who stands to gain by this unseasonable crime?

Some women give birth to murderers, some go to bed with them, and some marry them. Lina Aysgarth had lived with her husband for nearly eight years before she realized that she was married to a murderer.

When Bobbie Cheldon falls in love with a pretty young dancer at the Frozen Fang night club, he has every hope of an idyllic marriage. But Nancy has more worldly ideas about her future: She is attracted not so much to Bobbie as to the fortune he expects to inherit. Bobbie's miserly uncle Massy stands between him and happiness: Massy will not relinquish the $10,000 a year on which Nancy's hopes rest.