` Scores of men & women died daily in London, but on this day of days one of them had died in the very midst of a crowd & the cause of his death was a dagger piercing his heart. Death had become something very real.` When Bobbie Cheldon falls in love with a pretty young dancer at the Frozen Fang night club in Soho, he has every hope of an idyllic marriage. But Nancy has more worldly ideas about her future: she is attracted not so much to Bobbie as to the fortune he expects to inherit. Bobbie`s miserly uncle Massy stands between him & happiness: he will not relinquish the ten thousand a year on which Nancy`s hopes rest. When Bobbie falls under the sway of the roguish Nosey Ruslin, the stage is set for murder in the heart of Piccadilly
- & for Nancy`s dreams to be realised. When Chief Inspector Wake of Scotland Yard enters the scene, he uncovers a tangled web of love affairs, a cynical Soho underworld, & a motive for murder.
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When Craig Murray arrived in Uzbekistan to take up his post in 2002, he was a young ambassador with a brilliant career & a taste for whisky & women. But after hearing accounts of dissident prisoners being boiled to death & innocent people being raped & murdered by agents of the state, he started to question both his role & that of his country in so-called `democratising` states. Following his discovery that the British government was accepting information obtained under torture, Murray could no longer maintain a diplomatic silence. When he voiced his outrage, Washington & 10 Downing Street decided he had to go. But Uzbekistan had changed the high-living diplomat & there was no way he was going to go quietly. In this candid & at times shocking memoir, Murray lays bare the dark & dirty underside of the War on Terror. ...

Book 50 in the Detective Club Crime Classics series is Carolyn Wells` Murder in the Bookshop, a classic locked room murder mystery which will have a special resonance for lovers & collectors of Golden Age detective fiction.

Includes:: a bonus murder story: ` The Shakespeare Title-Page Mystery`. When Philip Balfour is found murdered in a New York bookstore, the number one suspect is his librarian, a man who has coveted Balfour`s widow. But when the police discover that a book worth $100, 000 is missing, detective Fleming Stone realises that some people covet rare volumes even more highly than other men`s wives, & embarks on one of his most dangerous investigations. A successful poet & children`s author, Carolyn Wells discovered mystery fiction in her forties & went on to become one of America`s most popular Golden Age writers. Penning 82 detective novels between 1909 & her death in 1942, she was mourned in 1968 by the great John Dickson Carr as one of mystery fiction`s `lost ladies now well lost`, & remains undeservedly neglected 50 years later. Murder in the Bookshop is a story laced with criminality, locked rooms & bookish intricacies that any bibliophile will find irresistible. This Detective Club hardback is introduced by award-winning writer & authority on Golden Age detective fiction, Curtis Evans, &

Includes:: ` The Shakespeare Title-Page Mystery`, a murderous tale of literary shenanigans that was one of the last pieces of detective fiction which Carolyn Wells ever published.



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The murder of a young Tibetan nun by the hands of Chinese border guards at the rooftop of the world offers a unique parable for the tale of modern Tibet. In August 2006, two young Tibetan women left their hillside village in Biru county to make their way to Dharamsala India. Frustrated by their inability to practice the tenets of Buddhism or Tibetan culture under oppressive Chinese rule, best friends Dolma & Kelsang were determined to secure their right to freedom-and sought comfort in the fact that they might seek counsel with their exiled spiritual leader, his Holiness the Dalai Lhama. Through a secretive underground network of Tibetan guides, the two friends, along with four dozen other refugees, embarked on a perilous journey that would lead them to Nepal along a dangerous former trade route: the Nangpa La Path, through Cho Oyu Mountain. On September 30, 2006, after weeks of harrowing travel, as they were nearing the border of Nepal, the band of refugees was fired at by the Chinese Army Guards. Kelsang, sick, frost-bitten, & delirious in the high altitude was struck by a bullet from behind. Her death was not unusual in its circumstance: Chinese police are instructed to take any measures necessary to protect the border of Tibet. What was unusual on this freezing September morning was that a gaggle of Western climbers, stationed on Cho Oyu's advance base camp, had silently witnessed the event. One of them was Louis Benitez-a fearless Colorado mountain guide who led Himalayan trips for wealthy western thrill seekers. Another was Sergui Matei, a Romanian hiker, who captured Kelsang's murder on video. Both men had a choice-to preserve their climbing careers & turn a blind eye-or to alert the world to the grand scale of human injustice played out daily in Tibet. In Murder in the High Himalayas, intrepid journalist Jonathan Green investigates the clash of cultures at the rooftop of the world. As he gains entrance to a fascinating network of Tibetan guides & safe-houses operating in the name of freedom, investigates the tradition of extreme mountaineering in Chinese-occupied Tibet, & establishes contact with surviving refugees (including Dolma), he affects a rare, & lasting parable for the plight of modern Tibet. ...

On a bright July morning in 1870 the British explorer George Hayward was brutally murdered high in the Hindu Kush. Who was he, what had brought him to this wild spot, & why was he killed? Told in full for the first time, this is the gripping tale of Hayward`s journey from a Yorkshire childhood to a place at the forefront of the ` Great Game` between the British Raj & the Russian Empire, & of how, driven by `an insane desire, ` he crossed the Western Himalayas, tangled with despotic chieftains & ended up on the wrong side of both the Raj & the mighty Maharaja of Kashmir. It is also the tale of the conspiracies & controversies that surrounded his death, while the author`s own travels in Hayward`s footsteps bring the story up to date, & reveal how the echoes of the Great Game still reverberate across Central Asia in the twenty-first century. ...

Murder, stolen plans, a mysterious death & a menage a trois
- four intriguing novellas featuring Hercule Poirot... How did a
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When Professor Julius Arnell breathes his last in the hushed atmosphere of the British Museum Reading Room, it looks like death from natural causes. Who, after all, would have cause to murder a retired academic whose life was devoted to Elizabethan literature? Inspector Shelley`s suspicions are aroused when he finds a packet of poisoned sugared almonds in the dead man`s pocket; & a motive becomes clearer when he discovers Arnell`s connection to a Texan oil millionaire. Soon another man plunges hundreds of feet into a reservoir on a Yorkshire moor. What can be the connection between two deaths so different, & so widely separated? The mild-mannered museum visitor Henry Fairhurst adds his detective talents to Inspector Shelley`s own, & together they set about solving one of the most baffling cases Shelley has ever encountered. ...

Agatha Christie`s ingenious murder mystery thriller, reissued with a striking new cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans & book lovers. Luke Fitzwilliam could not believe Miss Pinkerton`s wild allegation that a multiple murderer was at work in the quiet English village of Wychwood
- or her speculation that the local doctor was next in line. But within hours, Miss Pinkerton had been killed in a hit-&-run car accident. Mere coincidence? Luke was inclined to think so
- until he read in The Times of the unexpected demise of Dr Humbleby...

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When Daisy Wells & Hazel Wong set up their very own secret detective agency at Deepdean School for Girls, they struggle to find any truly exciting mysteries to investigate. (Unless you count the case of Lavinia`s missing tie. Which they don`t.) Then Hazel discovers the Science Mistress, Miss Bell, lying dead in the Gym. She assumes it was a terrible accident
- but when she & Daisy return five minutes later, the body has disappeared. Now Hazel & Daisy not only have a murder to solve: they have to prove one happened in the first place. Determined to get to the bottom of the crime before the killer strikes again (and before the police can get there first, naturally), Hazel & Daisy must hunt for evidence, spy on their suspects & use all the cunning & intuition they can muster. But will they succeed? & can their friendship stand the test? ” Ripping good fun”. (The Times). ”A skilful blend of golden era crime novel & boarding school romp... The novel works both as an affectionate satire & an effective murder mystery, & Stevens can go places Enid Blyton never dreamt of... Top class”. (Financial Times).” Plotting is what sets this book apart; this is about who was where at the time of the murder, & it`s about finding the chink in the alibi”. (Telegraph).
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Duchlan Castle is a gloomy, forbidding place in the Scottish Highlands. Late one night the body of Mary Gregor, sister of the laird of Duchlan, is found in the castle. She has been stabbed to death in her bedroom
- but the room is locked from within & the windows are barred. The only tiny clue to the culprit is a silver fish`s scale, left on the floor next to Mary`s body. Inspector Dundas is dispatched to Duchlan to investigate the case. The Gregor family & their servants are quick
- perhaps too quick
- to explain that Mary was a kind & charitable woman. Dundas uncovers a more complex truth, & the cruel character of the dead woman continues to pervade the house after her death. Soon further deaths, equally impossible, occur, & the atmosphere grows ever darker. Superstitious locals believe that fish creatures from the nearby waters are responsible; but luckily for Inspector Dundas, the gifted amateur sleuth Eustace Hailey is on the scene, & unravels a more logical solution to this most fiendish of plots. Anthony Wynne wrote some of the best locked-room mysteries from the golden age of British crime fiction. This cunningly plotted novel
- one of Wynne`s finest
- has never been reprinted since 1931, & is long overdue for rediscovery.




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