Mavis Doriel Hay – författare

For Miss Cordell, principal of Persephone College, there are two great evils to be feared: unladylike behaviour among her students, and bad publicity for the college. So her prim and cosy world is turned upside down when a secret society of undergraduates meets by the river on a gloomy January afternoon, only to find the drowned body of the college bursar floating in her canoe. The police assume that a student prank got out of hand, but the resourceful Persephone girls suspect foul play, and take the investigation into their own hands. Soon they uncover the tangled secrets that led to the bursar's death - and the clues that point to a fellow student. This classic mystery novel, with its evocative setting in an Oxford women's college, is now republished for the first time since the 1930s.

Aunt Mildred declared that no good could come of the Melbury family Christmas gatherings at their country residence Flaxmere. So when Sir Osmond Melbury, the family patriarch, is discovered - by a guest dressed as Santa Klaus - with a bullet in his head on Christmas Day, the festivities are plunged into chaos. Nearly every member of the party stands to reap some sort of benefit from Sir Osmond's death, but Santa Klaus, the one person who seems to have every opportunity to fire the shot, has no apparent motive. Various members of the family have their private suspicions about the identity of the murderer, and the Chief Constable of Haulmshire, who begins his investigations by saying that he knows the family too well and that is his difficulty, wishes before long that he understood them better. In the midst of mistrust, suspicion and hatred, it emerges that there was not one Santa Klaus, but two. The Santa Klaus Murder is a classic country-house mystery that is now being made available to readers for the first time since its original publication in 1936.

First published in 1936, this classic country-house mystery has enjoyed renewed success as part of the British Library Crime Classics series. Now, with an introduction by CWA Diamond Dagger Award–winning crime writer and President of the Detection Club, Martin Edwards, The Santa Klaus Murder is given a third life as a beautiful hardback special edition – making this cosy whodunnit the perfect Christmas gift for any lover of ingenious puzzles.At the Melbury family’s Christmas gathering at their country house, Flaxmere, the formidable family patriarch Sir Osmond Melbury is discovered dead by a guest dressed as Santa Klaus. Almost everyone present has something to gain from Sir Osmond’s death. As private accusations and long-standing resentments surface, the Chief Constable of Haulmshire begins his investigation, ruefully observing that he knows the family too well for his own good but perhaps not as well as he thought. Amid mistrust, hatred, and half hidden truths, one startling fact comes to light: there was not one Santa Klaus at Flaxmere, but two.