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.

When undergraduates from Oxford's all-girl Persephone College meet on a cold and dreary January afternoon by the River Cherwell, they are surprised by a canoe floating, apparently empty down the river.But as it passes close by beneath them they quickly realise that it is not empty and that there is someone lying in it. They pull it ashore only to discover that it is the body of their erstwhile bursar, Miss Myra Denning.It seems at first as though she had drowned for she was soaking wet but it is soon realised that she would have been unable to get back into the canoe had that been the case...

An unpleasant spinster meets her end on the stairs of the Belsize Park Tube station.All of the residents of the Frampton Private Hotel in Hampstead knew that Euphemia Pongleton was in the habit of walking one stop closer to the center of London to save a penny's fare on the Underground. But they hardly expected to hear that she was found on the stairs at Belsize Park, strangled to death with her terrier's leash on her way to a dental appointment. Her death sends shock waves through the boardinghouse. Betty Watson and Cissie Fain are all agog. Mrs. Daymer regards the murder as fodder for her latest psychological thriller. The landlady, Mrs. Bliss, frets about how she'll get dinner done with the maid, Nellie, crying her eyes out because the police have detained her boyfriend, Bob Thurlow. Gerry Plasher is in a tizzy because the question of whether his fiancee, Beryl Sanders, will or won't inherit her aunt's fortune depends on what vindictive Euphemia wrote in the latest version of her will. Meanwhile, Basil Pongleton, the other claimant to the family fortune, tells the police a cock and bull story about traveling to Hampstead from his own boardinghouse in Tavistock Square when he was actually in Belsize Park at the time of his aunt's death. He's so rattled by his own blunder that he seeks advice from Joseph Slocum, another Frampton tenant whom young Basil regards as a man of the world. All the while, Mr. Blend sits at his table in the living room, cutting his newspaper placidly into strips.How this band of halfwits will solve a murder will surprise, and perhaps amuse, readers of this Golden Age classic.

When it comes to Christmas stories, one typically thinks of those that embody the spirit of the season, such as Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. The Yuletide-themed murder mystery is not usually the first thing that comes to mind. A classic country-house murder mystery, The Santa Klaus Murder begins with Aunt Mildred declaring that no good could come of the Melbury family Christmas gathering 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, but in the midst of mistrust, suspicion, and hatred, it emerges that there was not one Santa Klaus but two.

Tante Mildred hat es schon immer geahnt: Die Verwandtschaft an Weihnachten zu versammeln ist keine gute Idee. Als der Familienpatriarch mit einer Kugel im Kopf gefunden wird, entbrennt an der festlichen Tafel ein Streit um sein Erbe. Dieser neuentdeckte Klassiker von Mavis Doriel Hay ist ein Muss für alle Krimifans und perfekt geeignet, von den eigenen Familiendramen an Weihnachten abzulenken.Das traditionelle Familienfest im Hause Melbury beginnt wenig beschaulich, als Sir Osmond von einem als Weihnachtsmann verkleideten Gast ermordet aufgefunden wird. Die Trauer der anwesenden Verwandtschaft hält sich jedoch in Grenzen, da Sir Osmond ein beträchtliches Erbe hinterlässt. Jedes der eingeladenen Familienmitglieder zieht seinen Nutzen aus dem Tod des Patriarchen – nur der Weihnachtsmann, der genug Gelegenheiten hatte, den alten Herrn ins Jenseits zu befördern, besitzt kein Motiv. Inmitten von Missgunst, Verdächtigungen und Abscheu stellt sich schließlich heraus: Es kann nicht nur einen verkleideten Weihnachtsmann gegeben haben.