Nicholas Blake: 8 books

A quiet English town is turned upside down by a grisly murder . . . Private detective and poet Nigel Strangeways has been invited to address the Maiden Astbury literary society in the sleepy and serene Dorset town. But all is not as peaceful as it seems. Local brewer Eustace Bunnett is on the...

In the West of Ireland in 1939 a young novelist rents a lonely cottage to write his new book in peace. Almost at once, and without great resistance, he is seduced by the wife of the local squire. Harriet's husband is an older man - hot-tempered, impoverished, gone to seed - who once fought...

This anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together 16 tales by masters of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form, including a newly discovered Agatha Christie crime story that has not been seen since 1922. At a time when crime and thriller writing has...

When John Waterson and his young wife chose Netherplash Cantorum, Dorset, for their retirement years, they could not have predicted that this idyllic spot had one severe but unforeseeable drawback: among its inhabitants was a practical joker whose fertile mind ran to the most bizarre and grotesque...

A couple in the British countryside finds themselves fighting fascists in this suspenseful novel by “a master of detective fiction” (The Daily Telegraph). In 1930s England, Nigel and Georgia Strangeways have settled into rural bliss, thinking their days of globe-trotting detective work...

Hugo Chesterman is on trial for murdering a policeman. Why did he do it? Or could he be innocent? Daisy Bland is young, beautiful and naive, and her testimony threatens to send her husband to the gallows. For Daisy, it all started when she literally bumped into Hugo and fell madly in...

First published in 1958, A Penknife in My Heart tells the story of how two men - total strangers - establish the perfect alibis by arranging to switch victims. Ned Stowe will kill Stuart Hammer's wealthy uncle for which service Hammer is to eliminate Stowe's neurotic wife, Helena. The men plot and...

In any 24 hours there might be sleeping, eating, kids, parents, friends, lovers, work, school, travel, deadlines, emails, phone calls, Facebook, Twitter, the news, the TV, Playstation, music, movies, sport, responsibilities, passions, desires, dreams. Why should you stop what you're doing and...