Annie Haynes: 12 books

The note left beside Dr. John Bastow’s corpse simply read: “It was the man with the dark beard.” Dr. Bastow hadn’t approved of his daughter Hilary’s fiancé. So when Hilary’s father is found shot dead inside his own office, the door-key turned from the inside, the fiancé Basil...

“Who knows if he didn’t make away with her here? Those things found in the Home Coppice show that she was made away with plain enough, I say.” Jim Gregory, under-gardener at Hargreave Manor, finds something unexpected when climbing Lover’s Oak but won’t say what. Instead he’s all...

“A crime of a peculiarly mysterious nature was perpetrated some time last night in a block of flats called Abbey Court.” Lady Judith Carew acted furtively on the night of the Denboroughs’ party. Her secret assignation at 9:30pm was a meeting to which she took a loaded revolver. The Abbey...

“Owing to the sudden death of Miss Charmian Karslake this theatre is closed until further notice. Money for tickets already booked will be refunded.” Who killed Charmian Karslake, the famous American actress, on the night of the ball at Hepton Abbey? Who was the mysterious Peter Hailsham...

“He had his tea as usual; when I knocked at the door with the tray (he always had afternoon tea), I found him—like this.” Dr Roger Lavington is dreading his debut performance with the village amateur dramatic society. But real-world drama takes over when Lavington’s neighbour, a reclusive...

“Early this morning a gruesome discovery was made by a gardener employed at Holford Hall in Loamshire...” Robert Saunderson’s murdered body is found in the summer house at Lord Medchester’s country mansion. Some crystal beads, broken off a necklace and found on the scene, form the primary...

Protruding from the dead woman’s breast was the gold and jewelled dagger she had shown them half an hour before. And, looking horribly incongruous among the laces of her fichu, a deep stain was spreading.Elderly cantankerous widow Lady Anne Daventry summons a private detective, Bruce Cardyn, to...

The body lay face downwards in a foot of water at the bottom of the ditch. Up to the present it has not been identified. But a card was found in the pocket with the name of – The grisly discovery was overshadowed in the public imagination by Derby Day, the most prestigious event in the English...

Glancing at her more closely, he noticed dark stains on her white gown. Horror-struck, he bent over her for a moment, and realised that it was unmistakably a corpse. Little Polly Spencer liked to visit her hiding place up on the London rooftops, to escape a scolding or worse from her stepmother....

“As for books,” Sir Oswald said, “I don’t care for them. Unless I get hold of a good detective story. The tracing out of crime always has a curious fascination for me.” Frank Carlyn quarrelled with his gamekeeper Jack Winter, and then appeared agitated. Soon after, Winter was found...

“I cannot understand why Mr. Bechcombe apparently offered no resistance. His hand-bell, his speaking-tube, the telephone—all were close at hand. It looks as though he had recognized his assassin and had no fear of him.” The corner house of Crow’s Inn Square was the most dignified set...

“There’s no dirty trick he wouldn’t play—it’s my belief that he wouldn’t even stop at murder!” Her husband unmasked as a scoundrel, Lady Cynthia Letchingham seeks refuge at her cousin Hannah’s north-country home Greylands. But on Cynthia’s arrival, she finds Hannah an invalid,...