Patricia Moyes: 14 books

Are you craving Christie? Yearning for a plot? Whimpering softly into your teacup about the days when one could count on a nice civilized, mannerly sort of murder, with a sleuth who was reasonably free of neuroses and substance addictions? Patricia Moyes to the rescue! In Dead Men Don’t Ski she...

As “Pudge” Coombe-Peters proved, Moyes had a gift for the kind of dreadful nicknames the British are so good at. This time around it's “Flutter” Byers, a small-time hood who gets himself killed in a seedy Soho pub (was there, ever, any other kind?) Byers consorted with criminals and owed money...

One of the oddities of Golden Age fiction was its fixation on the occult and the generally weird – ancient gypsy curses, haunted burial grounds &c. It therefore something of a relief to settle in with the refreshingly literal Ms. Moyes: When a title refers to a third dog, we are not talking about...

No question, one of the real delights of this series is all the early-1960s clotheshorses who go traipsing through the pages, and this time around, they’re front and center. Moyes in fact worked as an editor at British Vogue, and her familiarity with the London fashion scene is put to good use in...

Think the Country-House Murder is a relic of the 1930s? Think again, and say hello to the Manciples, exactly the kind of eccentric family you'd like to see lording it over your little English village. Sadly, the Manciples' day as lords of the manor may be winding down: A certain Mr. Mason – a local...

A bit of a delicious throwback, in many sense of the word. For starters, we have a weekend house party, that hallmark of Golden Age crime-fiction, and apparently still going strong in 1970, when this book was first published. The party is in honor of a certain Lady Balaclava, herself something of...

If I were Scotland Yard, I might be that put-out with Henry Tibbet: He seems never to stay in England for more than about ten minutes, and he's always taking vacations! This time around, he and the ever-pleasant Emmy are holidaying in the Alps when a popular ski instructor gets it in the neck. Everybody...

What would you do if a U.S. Senator was found murdered with a machete on the grounds of your exclusive golf club in the Caribbean? Maybe order another umbrella drink and work on your tan…or if you're John and Margaret Colville, the owners of a modest hotel on the island of St. Matthews, call your...

Mavis Ironmonger is nobody's idea of a good diplomatic wife. She drinks too much, she's awfully friendly with the staff at the Washington embassy, and her music-hall roots have a way of bursting out at the most inappropriate moments. Indeed, it's at an embassy reception that Mavis manages to insult...

Amazingly enough, Henry Tibbett is at work! Crime tends to catch him when he’s on vacation, but this time around Henry’s at a coppers’ conference, an international effort intended to stop drug-smuggling. The conference is in Switzerland (for a Scotland Yard detective, Henry does manage to get...

Millionaire Lord Charlton altered his will in favor of his nephew, Simon Warwick, who had been adopted by American parents when his own were killed in World War II. When Lord Charlton dies, two men claiming to be Simon Warwick turn up in London to claim the estate. Then one is found dead, and Chief...

Poor Inspector Tibbett! Once again, he is attempting to have a nice vacation. And once again, Crime has a different idea. This time, Tibbett and his cheerful wife, Emmy, are lazing on a friend's yacht, tacking from one little English sea-town to the next, and it should all be delicious indolence…except...

Rich, aristocratic, and at the heart of swinging London, “Pudge” Coombe-Peters has everything except a decent nickname. And in fact, he has two special attributes: He owns the narration – the drawling, deliciously snobbish, all-but-impossibly irritating narration – of Falling Star, and he...

To date, Emmy Tibbett has been something of a secondary character – a placid, pleasantly plump presence who serves mostly to make her detective-husband Henry all the more likeable. With Johnny, however, Emmy at last gets a turn in the spotlight, as she and Henry head off for the 20th reunion of...