Felony Mayhem Press: 138 books

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...

Young Rena Austen, newly wed, is afraid she's made a terrible mistake. Her husband, once a dashingly romantic figure of a wounded war hero, has turned into a moody lay-about, and they are sharing a gloomy house on the Upper East Side of New York with his unpleasant, always-there family. When her husband...

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...

The good ship Cape Farewell is steaming out to sea, with a passenger-list and crew fairly littered with the shifty, the twitchy, the peculiar, and the up-to-no-good. Arguably the up-to-no-goodest is a strangler with a romantic streak: He likes to leave his ladies with a flower and a charming little...

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...

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...

In mid-1943, and up to his elbows in war work, Henry Gamadge is longing for a quiet weekend. But when a half-forgotten classmate requests assistance, Gamadge is unable to refuse the tug of an old school tie. The problem, says Sylvanus, concerns his Aunt Florence?a giddy socialite terrified of Nazi...

In the movies, it’s known as a “meet cute.” But for Inspector Alleyn and Miss Agatha Troy, it’s more like irritation: On the ship back to England, she finds him tedious and dull; he thinks she’s a bohemian cliché. They may be destined for romance, but there’s a murder in the way: No sooner...

Colour Scheme is set during World War II at a mud-baths resort in rural New Zealand run by Colonel Claire, a tremendously nice fellow and a disastrously bad businessman. His business is on the brink of being taken over by a local blowhard who may be a Nazi spy. Inspector Alleyn has been sent to the...

The killingly aristocratic Lamprey family exemplifies charm, wit, and a chronic lack of funds. Their only source of hope is the wealthy but unpleasant Lord Wutherwood, and the Lampreys may perhaps be forgiven for doing a little jig when his Lordship is killed and the resulting inheritance saves their...

Mary Bellamy is the sweetheart of the London stage, fluffy as only an elderly lady of 50(!) can be. Her fans and friends – and who didn’t adore, positively adore darling Mary? – are heartbroken when somehow Mary manages to spritz herself not with her favorite perfume but with the deadly insecticide...

Ahhh, prussic acid, that hallmark of classic Golden Age mysteries. Did lovely Cara Quoyne get a whiff of the bitter almonds as she raised the goblet to her lips? We’ll never know: With a single sip she transported herself to the Hereafter. At least, that’s the romantic view. But Inspector...

Photo Finish’s dead diva, the soprano Isabella Sommita, was widely loathed, so much so that the problem is less a lack of plausible suspects than an embarrassment of options. Though the grand country-house – and with it, the country-house murder – was history by 1980, when Photo Finish was originally...