Nicholas Blake – författare

Detective Nigel Strangeways, and his explorer wife Georgia have taken a cottage in the countryside. They are slowly beginning to adjust to a more relaxed way of life when Georgia finds a mysterious locket in their garden and unwittingly sets the couple on a collision course with a power-hungry movement aimed at overthrowing the government.It will take all of Nigel's brilliance and Georgia's bravery if they are to infiltrate the order and unmask the conspirators.

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERYPrivate detective Nigel Strangeways receives a call for help from Wonderland, a new holiday camp that has recently opened only to be plagued by a series of cruel practical jokes conducted by someone calling themselves 'The Mad Hatter'. The camp's owners are convinced a rival firm, desperate to put them out of business, are behind the events. Or could it be a disgruntled employee, or even one of the four hundred guests currently staying at the camp? As the pranks become increasingly dangerous and tensions rise, Nigel must do all he can to uncover the Mad Hatter's true identity - before it's too late.A Nigel Strangeways murder mystery - the perfect introduction to the most charming and erudite detective in Golden Age crime fiction.

FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BEAST MUST DIE - NOW A BRITBOX SERIESRespected crime writer Frank Cairns plots the perfect murder - a murder that he himself will commit. Cairns intends to murder the hit-and-run driver who killed his young son, but when his intended victim is found dead and Cairns becomes the prime suspect, the author insists that he has been framed. An old friend of Cairns calls in private detective Nigel Strangeways, who must unravel a fiendishly plotted mystery if he is to discover what really happened to George Rattery.The Beast Must Die is one of Nicholas Blake's most acclaimed novels and was picked by the Observer as one of the 1,000 novels everyone must read.A Nigel Strangeways murder mystery - the perfect introduction to the most charming and erudite detective in Golden Age crime fiction.

This anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together 16 tales by masters of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form, including a newly discovered Agatha Christie crime story that has not been seen since 1922.At a time when crime and thriller writing has once again overtaken the sales of general and literary fiction, Bodies from the Library unearths lost stories from the Golden Age, that period between the World Wars when detective fiction captured the public’s imagination and saw the emergence of some of the world’s cleverest and most popular storytellers.This anthology brings together 16 forgotten tales that have either been published only once before – perhaps in a newspaper or rare magazine – or have never before appeared in print. From a previously unpublished 1917 script featuring Ernest Bramah’s blind detective Max Carrados, to early 1950s crime stories written for London’s Evening Standard by Cyril Hare, Freeman Wills Crofts and A.A. Milne, it spans five decades of writing by masters of the Golden Age.Most anticipated of all are the contributions by women writers: the first detective story by Georgette Heyer, unseen since 1923; an unpublished story by Christianna Brand, creator of Nanny McPhee; and a dark tale by Agatha Christie published only in an Australian journal in 1922 during her ‘Grand Tour’ of the British Empire.With other stories by Detection Club stalwarts Anthony Berkeley, H.C. Bailey, J.J. Connington, John Rhode and Nicholas Blake, plus Vincent Cornier, Leo Bruce, Roy Vickers and Arthur Upfield, this essential collection harks back to a time before forensic science – when murder was a complex business.

This anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together 18 tales from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form, including uncollected stories by Ngaio Marsh and John Dickson Carr. The Golden Age of detective fiction had begun inauspiciously with the publication of E.C. Bentley’s schismatic Trent’s Last Case in 1913, but it hit its stride in 1920 when both Agatha Christie and Freeman Wills Crofts – latterly crowned queen and king of the genre – had crime novels published for the first time. They ushered in two decades of exemplary mystery writing, the era of the whodunit, the impossible crime and the locked-room mystery, with stories that have thrilled and baffled generations of readers.This new volume in the Bodies from the Library series features the work of 18 prolific authors who, like Christie and Crofts, saw their popularity soar during the Golden Age. Aside from novels, they all wrote short fiction – stories, serials and plays – and although most of them have been collected in books over the last 100 years, here are the ones that got away…In this book you will encounter classic series detectives including Colonel Gore, Roger Sheringham, Hildegarde Withers and Henri Bencolin; Hercule Poirot solves ‘The Incident of the Dog’s Ball’; Roderick Alleyn returns to New Zealand in a recently discovered television drama by Ngaio Marsh; and Dorothy L. Sayers’ chilling ‘The House of the Poplars’ is published for the first time.With a full-length novella by John Dickson Carr and an unpublished radio script by Cyril Hare, this diverse collection concludes with some early ‘flash fiction’ commissioned by Collins’ Crime Club in 1938. Each mini story had to feature an orange, resulting in six very different tales from Peter Cheyney, Ethel Lina White, David Hume, Nicholas Blake, John Rhode and – in his only foray into writing detective fiction – the publisher himself, William Collins.

FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BEAST MUST DIE - NOW A BRITBOX SERIESThe annual Sports Day at respected public school Sudeley Hall ends in tragedy when the headmaster's obnoxious nephew is found strangled in a haystack. The boy was despised by staff and students alike, but English master Michael Evans, who was seen sharing a kiss with the headmaster's beautiful young wife earlier that day, soon becomes a prime suspect for the murder. Luckily, his friend Nigel Strangeways, nephew to the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, is on hand to help investigate the case. A Nigel Strangeways murder mystery - the perfect introduction to the most charming and erudite detective in Golden Age crime fiction.

FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BEAST MUST DIE - NOW A BRITBOX SERIESFergus O'Brien, a legendary World War One flying ace with several skeletons hidden in his closet, receives a series of mocking letters predicting that he will be murdered on Boxing Day.Undaunted, O'Brien throws a Christmas party, inviting everyone who could be suspected of making the threats, along with private detective Nigel Strangeways. But despite Nigel's presence, the former pilot is found dead, just as predicted, and Nigel is left to aid the local police in their investigation while trying to ignore his growing attraction to one of the other guests - and suspects - explorer Georgina Cavendish.A Nigel Strangeways murder mystery - the perfect introduction to the most charming and erudite detective in Golden Age crime fiction.

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERYPoet turned detective Nigel Strangeways is summoned to Easterham Manor in the depths of winter to investigate a series of strange events, which culminate in the apparent suicide of a wealthy young woman whose behaviour has scandalised the village. As Nigel begins his investigations into the dead girl's past it soon becomes clear that someone in the manor is trying to hide something, and they will stop at nothing to keep their secrets safe.A Nigel Strangeways murder mystery - the perfect introduction to the most charming and erudite detective in Golden Age crime fiction.

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERYSomeone is sending poison pen letters in the small village of Prior's Umborne, and they have already driven one of the inhabitants to suicide. Private detective Nigel Strangeways is commissioned to find the source of the letters by arrogant financier Sir Archibald Blick, whose two sons live in the village, only for Sir Archibald to meet an untimely end at the bottom of the dreadful hollow...A Nigel Strangeways murder mystery - the perfect introduction to the most charming and erudite detective in Golden Age crime fiction.

When John Waterson and his young wife chose Netherplash Cantorum, Dorset, for their retirement years, they could not have predicted that this idyllic spot had one severe but unforeseeable drawback: among its inhabitants was a practical joker whose fertile mind ran to the most bizarre and grotesque designs. The Village was no place for a quite retirement, or for a gentle recuperation from the nervous breakdown that had afflicted Waterson's wife. In Netherplash, the peace is continually disrupted with extraordinary events tripping over each other which, in the end, lead to a hideous and painful murder. With a cast of characters who are both bizarre and believable, this is an original tour-de-force of crime fiction placing Blake firmly in the genre.

A macabre surprise awaits beneath the snow...All is warm and bright for the Christmas Eve gathering at the manor. Yet as the clock nears midnight, the evening takes a disturbing turn when the family cat begins to dash its head against the walls.Could the cat be possessed, and the manor haunted? Or was foul play involved? Weeks later, when the thawing snow reveals an even more sinister sight, it becomes clear that someone is up to no good – but who?Luckily Nigel Strangeways, one of fiction's most delightful private investigators, is on hand to charm the eccentrics, outwit the police and unravel this murderous mystery.‘A master of detective fiction’ Daily Telegraph

The Human Rights Act 1998 has had a profound impact on the UK legal system. Blackstone's Human Rights Series provides expert, practical advice for lawyers to meet this challenge, focusing on the implications of the Act in particular areas of practice.Human rights law has always been of particular importance to immigrants and asylum seekers where, outside European Community law, there is little left of a statutory right to enter the country for a particular purpose. The landmark decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in Abdulaziz v United Kingdom and Chahal v United Kingdom, and the recognition that it was not just that claimants should have to wait years to obtain just satisfaction in Strasbourg when UK courts were powerless to act, were an important part of the political background to the passing of the Human Rights Act.This book reviews the Strasbourg case law relating to the rights of aliens and their families, and examines the first 15 months' experience of the working of the Human Rights Act in the domestic immigration context. The book is an invaluable adjunct to the basic textbooks on immigration law.A number of core problems for immigration practitioners are considered: how far are human rights under the Act extra-territorial, in the sense that they prevent expulsion of certain immigrants and asylum seekers? When is a deportation order a proportionate interference with the right to respect for family life? What does respect mean in this context? What is the jurisdiction of the courts to review executive policy relating to immigration, and what deference should be afforded to such policy? What is the impact of the anti-terrorism legislation enacted in response to the 11 September attacks?The book begins with an overview of human rights in the context of the Immigration and Asylum Acts, and goes on to discuss: the prohibition on torture and inhuman and degrading treatment; issues relating to detention of asylum seekers; the right to family life; the right to a fair hearing and an effective remedy; and the relevance of Article 14 prohibiting discrimination in conjunction with other rights.