While hot on the heels of serial coupon-racketeer Gordon Ginner, Chief Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard receives word of an intriguing incident up in Lancashire – the summer cottage of local farmer Giles Hoggett has been broken into, with an assortment of seemingly random items missing which include a complete reel of salmon line, a large sack, and two iron dogs from his fireplace. What first appears as a simple break-in quickly spirals into a mystery of contested land grabs for fishing between farmers, made all the more enticing to MacDonald when a body is then found in the river.

Former inspector Sir John Appleby is worried about his friend Charles Vandervell. An elderly philosopher who lives alone on the Cornish coast, his nephew has expressed concern about his melancholic state. But when Appleby drops by to visit Vandervell, he is surprised to find him entertaining his female neighbour. And then a week later, Vandervell disappears leaving what seems like a suicide note....

Inspired by a newspaper competition, a group of people discuss enigmatic remarks they have overheard but do not know the meaning of. The phrase ‘Grey’s ghost was black’ sparks much intrigue and speculation, as series detective John Appleby recounts the mysterious tale of an author, his ghost writer and his ghost writer’s ghost.

When a famous theatre actor is found dead in his changing room, it is initially labelled a suicide. But Inspector Alleyn believes there is more to it, and soon the cast of the production find themselves under suspicion.

Vivian Lestrange - celebrated author of the popular mystery novel The Charterhouse Case and total recluse - has apparently dropped off the face of the Earth. Reported missing by his secretary Eleanor, whom Inspector Bond suspects to be the author herself looking for publicity, it appears that crime is afoot when Lestrange's housekeeper is also found to have disappeared. Bond and Warner of Scotland Yard set to work to investigate a murder with no body and a potentially fictional victim.

Chief Inspector Macdonald has been invited to a treasure hunt party at the house of the Graham Coombe, the celebrated publisher of Murder by Mesmerism. The clues of the hunt have been devised by Coombe's thriller-writer friends, disguised on the night under literary pseudonyms. The fun comes to an abrupt end, however, when 'Samuel Pepys' is found murdered in the telephone room in bizarre circumstances.

Horace Manning, scientist, recluse and 'closed book' even to his friends, is found dead in his study at 4a.m., following a dinner in honour of his daughter's engagement. An ivory-handled carving knife rests between his shoulder blades as the houseguests gather round to witness the awful crime. The telephone line has been sabotaged - a calculated murder has been committed. Rewinding twelve hours, the events of the afternoon and evening unfold, revealing a multitude of clues and motives from a closed cast of suspects.

Mr. Richard Dodsley, owner of a fine second-hand bookshop on Charing Cross Road, has been found murdered in the cold hours of the morning. Shot in his own office, few clues remain besides three cigarette ends, two spent matches and a few books on the shelves which have been rearranged. In an investigation spanning the second-hand bookshops of London and the Houses of Parliament - since an MP's new crime novel Death at the Desk appears to have some bearing on the case - John Ferguson's series sleuth MacNab is at hand to assist Scotland Yard in an atmospheric fair-play bibliomystery.

From the dramatic Highlands to bustling cities, the unique landscapes and locales of Scotland have enthralled and shaped generations of mystery writers. This new collection presents 17 classic stories, spanning a period from the 1880s to the 1970s, by a host of Scottish authors alongside writers from south of the border inspired by the history and majesty of the storied country.

Taking a break from his holiday visiting his nephew, Jim, Athelstan Digby agrees to look after the old bookshop of Keldstone so that his hosts, the Lavenders, can attend their cousin's funeral. On the first day of his tenure, three suspicious characters enquire after a copy of The Life and Times of Mr Badman by John Bunyan.

Iceland, 1956. Fourteen-year-old Lára decides to spend the summer working for a couple on the small island of Videy, just off the coast of Reykjavík. In early August, the girl disappears without a trace. Time passes, and the mystery becomes Iceland‘s most infamous unsolved case. What happened to the young girl? Is she still alive? Did she leave the island, or did something happen to her there? Thirty years later, as the city of Reykjavík celebrates its 200th anniversary, journalist Valur Robertsson begins his own investigation into Lára's case.

Stephen Munro, a demobbed army officer, reconciles himself to taking a job as a footman to make ends meet. Employed at Wintringham Hall, the delightful but decaying Sussex country residence of the elderly Lady Susan Carey, his first task entails welcoming her eccentric guests to a weekend house-party, at which her bombastic nephew—who recognises Stephen from his former life—decides that an after-dinner séance would be more entertaining than bridge. Then Cicely disappears!

Richard Temperley arrives at Euston station early on a fogbound London morning. He takes refuge in a nearby hotel, along with a disagreeable fellow passenger who had snored his way through the train journey. But within minutes the other man has snored for the last time - he has been shot dead while sleeping in an armchair. When the police arrive, Detective Inspector James discovers a token at the crime scene: 'a small piece of enamelled metal. Its colour was crimson, and it was in the shape of the letter Z'.

Four men had arranged to fly to Dublin. When their aeroplane descended as a fireball into the Irish Sea, only three of them were on board. With the identities of the passengers lost beneath the waves, a tense and perplexing investigation begins to determine the living from the dead, with scarce evidence to follow beyond a few snippets of overheard conversation and one family’s patchy account of the three days prior to the flight.

The village of Badger's Drift is the essence of tranquillity. But when resident and well-loved spinster Miss Simpson takes a stroll in the nearby woods, she stumbles across something she was never meant to see, and there's only one way to keep her quiet. Miss Simpson's death is not suspicious, say the villagers. But Miss Lucy Bellringer refuses to rest: her friend has been murdered. She is sure of it.

After Arthur Penfold’s wife reveals she is leaving him to care for her ailing aunt, he sets upon a path of murder and deceit to avoid the social embarrassment of a second marital breakdown. But the purchase of a poetry book triggers a sequence of events that begins to unravel both Arthur and a seemingly open-and-shut murder case.

When a famous theatre actor is found dead in his changing room, it is initially labelled a suicide. But Inspector Alleyn believes there is more to it, and soon the cast of the production find themselves under suspicion.

Inspired by a newspaper competition, a group of people discuss enigmatic remarks they have overheard but do not know the meaning of. The phrase ‘Grey’s ghost was black’ sparks much intrigue and speculation, as series detective John Appleby recounts the mysterious tale of an author, his ghost writer and his ghost writer’s ghost.

Jim Henderson is one of six guests summoned by the mysterious Edwin Carson, a collector of precious stones, to a weekend party at his country house, Thrackley. The house is gloomy and forbidding, but the party is warm and hospitable except for the presence of Jacobson, the sinister butler. The other guests are wealthy people draped in jewels; Jim cannot imagine why he belongs in such company. After a weekend of adventure with attempted robbery and a vanishing guest, secrets come to light, and Jim unravels a mystery from his past.

A short story from the British Library Crime Classic collection Final Acts. Detective novelist Dorothy L. Sayers presents a look at morality and motive as playwright John Scales grows angrier and more resentful towards the actor who reinvented his script, and must decide how far he will allow his hatred to take him.