British Library Crime Classics
Author:
Showing
1 - 19
of 19
Series Volume:
93.
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"With Martin Edwards as librarian and guide, delve into an irresistible stack of bibliomysteries, perfect for every booklover and armchair sleuth, featuring much-loved Golden Age detectives Nigel Strangeways, Philip Trent, Detective Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn, and others. But readers should be warned that the most riveting tales often conceal the deadliest of secrets ... "If much of the action is set in a bookshop or a library, it is a bibliomystery,...
Author:
Formats:
Description:
"On a dismally foggy night in Hampstead, London, a curious party has gathered in an artist's studio to weather the wartime blackout A civil servant and a government scientist are matching wits in a game of chess, while an artist paints the portrait of his characterful sitter, bedecked in Cardinal's robes at the other end of the room. In the kitchen, the artist's sister is hosting the charlady of the miser next door. When the brutal murder of said...
Author:
Formats:
Description:
"'The purpose, the illusion, the spirit of a waxworks. It is an atmosphere of death. It is soundless and motionless... Do you see?' Last night Mademoiselle Duchêne was seen heading into the Gallery of Horrors at the Musée Augustin waxworks, alive. Today she was found in the Seine, murdered. The museum's proprietor, long perturbed by the unnatural vitality of his figures, claims that he saw one of them following the victim into the dark--a lead that...
Author:
Formats:
Description:
"Four men were due to fly to Dublin. When disaster strikes and the plane goes down over the Irish sea, only three of them were on board. With the identities of the flyers scattered to the winds, the police turn to the Wade family, whose patchy account and memory of their past few days hold the key to this elusive and tense mystery. Who was the man who didn't fly? And what did he have to gain by not? Proof in one novel that Margot Bennett's tight and...
Author:
Description:
"Exceptional fourth anthology of golden age Christmas-themed mysteries"—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review A Postman murdered while delivering cards on Christmas morning. A Christmas pine growing over a forgotten homicide. A Yuletide heist gone horribly wrong. When there's as much murder as magic in the air and the facts seem to point to the impossible, it's up to the detective's trained eye to unwrap the clues and neatly tie together an explanation...
Author:
Description:
"From the animal mysteries of Arthur Conan Doyle and F. Tennyson Jesse through to more modern masterpieces of the subgenre from Christianna Brand and Penelope Wallace, this anthology celebrates one of the liveliest and most imaginative species of classic crime fiction. The collection includes an introduction on animals in detective fiction by Martin Edwards. Since the dawn of the crime fiction genre, animals of all kinds have played a memorable part...
Author:
Formats:
Description:
"Amidst the confusion of too many fake names, clues, ciphers, and convoluted alibis, Chief Inspector Macdonald and his allies in the CID must unravel a truly tangled case in this metafictional masterpiece, which returns to print for the first time since its publication in 1937. This edition includes an introduction by CWA Diamond Dagger Award-winning author Martin Edwards. "Should detectives go to parties? Was it consistent with the dignity of the...
Author:
Description:
When an old flame comes calling, Hugh Everton is powerless to resist. 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...
9. Crook o' lune: a Lancashire mystery
Author:
Formats:
Description:
"This addition to the Crime Classics series is an immersive musical mystery, featuring diagrams of the orchestra arrangement and four pages of musical notation with relevance to the plot. First published in 1941 but out-of-print since, this is by a lost writer of the genre, Sebastian Farr (a pseudonym for Eric Walter Blom), a prolific Swiss-born and British-naturalised music lexicographer, music critic and writer. The headline from The Maningpool...
Author:
Description:
From the Highlands to the borders, the bustling cities to the remote isles in cold seas, the unique landscapes and locales of Scotland have long inspired writers of the very best Golden Age mysteries. Beginning with the adventures of Sherlock Holmes from Edinburgh-born Arthur Conan Doyle, this new collection includes the ingenious scientific mysteries of Anthony Wynne, the dark and sardonic work of Margot Bennett and contributions from neglected yet...
Author:
Description:
"… and what a motive! Murder to save one's artistic soul… who'd believe that?" Behind the stage lights and word-perfect soliloquies, sinister secrets are lurking in the wings. The mysteries in this collection reveal the dark side to theatre and performing arts: a world of backstage dealings, where unscrupulous actors risk everything to land a starring role, costumed figures lead to mistaken identities, and on-stage deaths begin to look a little...
13. Jumping Jenny
Author:
Formats:
Description:
"Tightly paced and cleverly defying the conventions of the classic detective story, this 1933 novel remains a milestone of the inverted mystery subgenre. This edition includes an introduction by CWA Diamond Dagger and Edgar Award-winning author Martin Edwards. At a costume party with the dubious theme of "famous murderers and their victims," the know-it-all amateur criminologist Roger Sheringham is settled in for an evening of beer, small talk, and...
Author:
Description:
"First published in a limited run in 1934, this exceedingly rare bibliomystery will delight fans of bookish mysteries as well as devotees of the classic crime genre. While on holiday visiting his nephew, Athelstan Digby agrees to look after the old bookshop in town so that his hosts can attend their cousin's funeral. On the first day of his tenure, three suspicious characters enquire after a copy of The Life and Times of Mr Badman by John Bunyan....
Author:
Description:
"[John Dickson Carr] is the supreme conjuror; the king of the art of misdirection...once you begin a book of his, you simply cannot put it down."-Agatha Christie First published in 1942, this reissue is one of Carr's most tense and enjoyable game of cat and mouse pitting detective Gideon Fell against the "chief" suspect. When police arrive at Justice Ireton's holiday bungalow to find a man killed by gunshot and the high court justice brandishing...
Author:
Description:
James Bennett has been invited to stay at White Priory for Christmas among the retinue of the glamorous Hollywood actress Marcia Tait. Her producer, her lover, the playwright for her next hit and her agent are all here, soon to become so many suspects when Tait is found murdered on a cold December morning in the lakeside pavilion. Only the footprints of her discoverer disturb the snow which fell overnight - and which stopped just shortly after Marcia...
Author:
Formats:
Description:
"Vivian Lestrange--celebrated author of the popular mystery novel The Charterhouse Case and total recluse--has apparently dropped off the face of the Earth. After he was reported missing by his secretary Eleanor, whom Inspector Bond suspects to be the author herself, crime and murder are 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...
Author:
Description:
"Golden Age fans with a taste for deferred gratification are in for another unexpected treat."-Kirkus Reviews A fair play, double twist mystery where a beloved London bookseller with a passion for rare books is found shot to death in his locked bookshop. Mr. Richard Dodsley, owner of a fine secondhand bookshop on Charing Cross Road, has been found murdered in the cold hours of the morning. He'd been shot in his own office, where few clues remain...
Author:
Description:
"It is past the half-hour. My time is coming nearer with every tick of the clock." Horace Manning, scientist, recluse and "closed book" even to his friends is found dead in his study at 4am, following a dinner in honor of his daughter's engagement. An ivory-handled carving knife rests between his shoulder blades as the house guests gather round to witness the awful crime. The telephone line has been sabotaged - a calculated murder has been committed....