An eclectic mix of crime stories written over half a century. From a tale of poison-pen letters tearing apart a village community to a macabre mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle, the stories collected here reveal the dark truths hidden in an assortment of rural paradises.

Lines in the Ice asks why Europeans have for so long been drawn to the Arctic, following the course of major journeys to the region, assessing the impact of this on the North's indigenous communities and revealing how important this exploration has been in making the modern world. As well as drawing out this rich and vivid history, the book focuses on the beauty the Arctic has created by inspiring those who...

The Notting Hill Mystery has been widely described as the first detective novel. The story is told by the insurance investigator Ralph Henderson, who is building a case against the sinister Baron R___, suspected of murdering his wife in order to claim her life insurance. Henderson descends into a maze of intrigue, including a diabolical mesmerist, kidnapping by gypsies, slow-poisoners, a rich uncle's will a...

'Luke flung the light of his torch full onto the face of the immobile figure. Then he had the shock of his life. The man had no face! Where his face should have been was a sort of inhuman, uniform blank!' When a body is found at an isolated garage, Inspector Meredith is drawn into a complex investigation where every clue leads to another puzzle: was this a suicide, or something more sinister? Why was the d...

The Female Detective was published in 1864 and it introduces the first professional female detective in British fiction, Mrs Gladden. Typical of detective fiction of its time, Forrester's book features various cases narrated by Gladden, whose deductive methods and energetic approach anticipate those of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Mrs Gladden uses similar methods to her male counterparts - she en...

Arthur Simpson - 'British to the core', but without a passport to prove it - lives in Athens, scraping by as a driver, journalist and petty thief. When Simpson spots Harper at the airport he recognises him as a tourist new to the city and in need of a private driver. But an ill-judged attempt to relieve Harper of his traveller's cheques reveals him to be a highly sophisticated criminal, and entangles Simpso...

A car hurtles down the driveway of a luxury villa in Switzerland. The driver is a young woman, Lucia Bernardi. Inside the house, police find the body of her lover on the bedroom floor. The dead man - Ahmed Fathir Arbil - was an Iraqi refugee, who has been tortured and killed. Lucia vanishes into hiding in the South of France.Piet Maas, a journalist for the World Reporter, sets out on Lucia's trail, hoping f...

It reveals life's (often avoidable) daily perils such as the woman who poisoned her dinner guests, then died, having forgotten she'd used the same saucepan just days before to boil arsenic for the purpose of eradicating vermin (1830), and a drunk carter in charge of a ton of gunpowder on his horse-drawn cart, found careering through wet, slippery streets, while also carrying a number of "Lucifer" matches (1...

'Already it looked as if the police were up against a carefully planned and cleverly executed murder, and, what was more, a murder without a corpse!' Two brothers, John and William Rother, live together at Chalklands Farm in the beautiful Sussex Downs. Their peaceful rural life is shattered when John Rother disappears and his abandoned car is found. Has he been kidnapped? Or is his disappearance more sinis...

'For a scream in the early hours of the morning in Soho, even from a female throat, to stop dead in his tracks a hard-boiled constable, it had to be something entirely out of the ordinary.' Soho during the blackouts of the Second World War. When a piercing scream rends the air and a bloodied knife is found, Detective Inspector MacCarthy is soon on the scene. He must move through the dark, seedy Soho underw...

'Crofts constructs his alibi with immense elaboration...The story is highly successful, and Mr Crofts is to be congratulated upon his experiment' - Dorothy L. SayersWe begin with a body. Andrew Crowther, a wealthy retired manufacturer, is found dead in his seat on the 12.30 flight from Croydon to Paris. Rather less orthodox is the ensuing flashback in which we live with the killer at every stage, from the f...

On a dark November evening, Sir Wilfred Saxonby is travelling alone in the 5 o'clock train from Cannon Street, in a locked compartment. The train slows and stops inside a tunnel; and by the time it emerges again minutes later, Sir Wilfred has been shot dead, his heart pierced by a single bullet.Suicide seems to be the answer, even though no motive can be found. Inspector Arnold of Scotland Yard thinks again...

The English country house is an iconic setting for some of the greatest British crime fiction. Short stories are an important part of this tradition, and writers from Agatha Christie to Margery Allingham became famous for the intricate cases which their detectives unravelled in rambling country houses. These stories continue to enjoy wide appeal, driven partly by nostalgia for a vanished way of life, and pa...

When a counterfeit currency racket comes to light on the French Riviera, Detective Inspector Meredith is sent speeding southwards - out of the London murk to the warmth and glitter of the Mediterranean. Along with Inspector Blampignon - an amiable policeman from Nice - Meredith must trace the whereabouts of Chalky Cobbett, crook and forger.Soon their interest centres on the Villa Paloma, the residence of Ne...

Some men take to gun-running because they have a longing for danger and adventure. Girija Krishnan, an Indian clerk, is not one of them. Deep in the Malayan jungle, Girija stumbles on a cache of arms hidden during the communist insurgency. Selling the arms will help Girija achieve his lifelong dream of founding a transport company. Two American tourists in the Far East find more adventure than they bargaine...

Holidays offer us the luxury of getting away from it all. So, in a different way, do detective stories. This collection of vintage mysteries combines both those pleasures. From a golf course at the English seaside to a pension in Paris, and from a Swiss mountain resort to the cliffs of Normandy, this new selection shows the enjoyable and unexpected ways in which crime writers have used summer holidays as a ...

Death of an Airman is an enjoyable and unorthodox whodunit from a writer whose short life was as remarkable as that of any of his fictional creations. When an aeroplane crashes, and its pilot is killed, Edwin Marriott, the Bishop of Cootamundra in Australia, is on hand. In England on leave, the Bishop has decided to learn how to fly, but he is not convinced that the pilot's death was accidental. In due cou...

'Never, even in his most optimistic moments, had he visualised a scene of this nature - himself in one arm-chair, a police officer in another, and between them - a mystery.' The Reverend Dodd, vicar of the quiet Cornish village of Boscawen, spends his evenings reading detective stories by the fireside - but heaven forbid that the shadow of any real crime should ever fall across his seaside parish. But ...

A History of the 20th Century in 100 Maps is a truly fascinating book, even for all of us in Stanfords who are well used to seeing interesting maps and posters! The 100 maps, many accompanied by additional photos and reproductions of posters or letters, show how the 20th century was a golden age of map-making and maps permeated almost every aspect of daily life.

No observer, ignorant of the situation, would have guessed that death lurked nearby, and that only a little distance from the glitter of silver and glass and the hum of voices two victims lay silent on a studio floor.'On a fine autumn weekend Lord Aveling hosts a hunting party at his country house, Bragley Court. Among the guests are an actress, a journalist, an artist and a mystery novelist. The unlucky t...