Felony Mayhem Press: 138 books

The village of South Mardian likes the old ways. The very old ways. This may be 1957, but South M. still features a blacksmith, a village idiot, and an elaborate fertility ritual performed at the winter solstice. There’s squabbling, of course, and things come to a head (nyuck, nyuck, nyuck) when...

Ricky Alleyn, who first appeared in Spinsters in Jeopardy, is now 21 and has taken himself to a secluded island to write a novel. Or think about writing a novel. Or look for distractions so he can avoid writing a novel. The distractions abound, mostly in the form of colorful local characters, so all...

It’s murder in the little English village, but the two local spinsters, Miss Campanula, the victim, and Miss Prentice, her friend who may have been the intended victim, are not exactly the beloved little old ladies of song and story. They were (and are) waspish, gossiping snobs, passionate only...

Lord Pastern and Baggot is given to passionate, peculiar enthusiasms, the latest of which is drumming in a jazz band. His wife is not amused, and even less so when her daughter falls for Carlos Rivera, the band’s sleazy accordion player. Nobody likes Rivera very much, so there’s a wealth of suspects...

The unspeakably wealthy (and generally unspeakable) Jonathan Royal has decided to throw a party and, just for fun, has studded the guest-list with people who loathe one another. When a blizzard imprisons them all in Royal’s country house, murder ensues. In true Christie-esque tradition, there are...

It’s true, darts is nobody’s idea of a low-risk amusement, yet it is rarely lethal. Tell that to the famous barrister who was enjoying a pint at the Plume of Feathers pub, and is now residing at the morgue. Inspector Roderick Alleyn has a growing hunch that the peculiar “accident” can be traced to an old legal case.

Newly arrived from New Zealand and in need of funds, Martyn Tarne takes a job as a dresser to the Vulcan theater’s leading lady. This provides her with a ringside seat to the backstage circus and the eventual murder that occurs on opening night. Inspector Alleyn is soon called to solve the murder...

The Lodge of the Golden Windhorse has provided the citizens of Compton Dando with splendid fodder for gossip, prompting speculation of arcane rituals and bizarre sexual practices. But with the murder of the commune’s leaders, the rumor-mill goes into overdrive. In trying to solve those murders,...

Flossie Rubrick, a highly opinionated and influential Member of the New Zealand Parliament, was last seen heading off to one of the storage sheds on her sheep farm. Three weeks later, she turned up dead and packed in a bale of her own wool. What happened on the night of her disappearance? In the country on counterespionage duty, Inspector Roderick Alleyn is happy to lend a hand.

The Midsomer Worthy’s Writers’ Circle has never had much luck in attracting guest speakers. Consequently, there is much surprise—and, in the case of the Circle’s secretary, Gerald Hadleigh, a furious, inexplicable objection—when best-selling novelist Max Jennings accepts their invitation....

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...

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...

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...

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...