Felony & Mayhem – förlag

Read along with the new TV drama, coming this Fall on FOX TV and Hulu!Winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel

We do love a man in a uniform, but the "Constables" in question are not policemen but paintings-the landscapes, specifically, of the 19th-century painter John Constable. Agatha Troy (the artist wife, you'll remember, of Inspector Alleyn) has a special fondness for Constable's work, so she jumps at the chance to take a river-cruise through "Constable Country" in the east of England. Her enthusiasm dims a little when it becomes clear that the ticket became available at the last minute only because a previous passenger was murdered in his cabin-and murdered, it seems, by a notorious international criminal known as the "Jampot." (How we long for the days when notorious international criminals had really cute names.)

In 1968 Ngaio Marsh took her own Roman holiday (in part to research Italian police procedures) and the change seems to have done her good: Both her British and U.S. agents believed When in Rome to be the finest novel in her "Inspector Alleyn" series. As is so often (and so satisfyingly) the case, the tale concerns a murder within a closed group-in this case, a group of tourists visiting what Marsh calls the "Basilica di San Tommaso," who find themselves fumbling into a complex web of blackmail and drug-smuggling. Adding some irresistible color are depictions of both La Dolce Vita (of which Marsh took a jaundiced view) and the student radicals of the day, whom she seems to have found somewhat more persuasive. All in all, a brilliant example of classic Golden Age plotting melded with a decidedly Space Age cast.

As in her previous book, Grave Mistake, Ngaio Marsh offers up a lady of a certain age, high-strung and hyperventilating, two ticks short of neurosis. Photo Finish's dead diva, the soprano Isabella Sommita, was widely loathed, so much so that the problem is less a lack of plausible suspects than an embarrassment of options. Though the grand country-house - and with it, the country-house murder - was history by 1980, when Photo Finish was originally published, Dame Ngaio got around the problem by setting the story on a lavish island estate, cut off from the mainland by a sudden storm. Happily, Inspector Alleyn is among the guests, and can take charge in the coppers' absence. The penultimate book in the series, Photo Finish is also one of only four books set in Marsh's native New Zealand. It's nice to think that she came home at the end.

Like The Gracie Allen Murder Case before it, Winter was first written as a screenplay, in this case a vehicle for the figure skater Sonja Henie. However, while Allen’s scatterbrained persona made a charming foil for Philo’s stuffed-shirt pretensions, Ms. Henie provided no such inspiration. Van Dine did not live long enough to see her outed as a Nazi supporter, but her ice-princess act offered less for Philo to play against. It should be noted that Winter was published posthumously to close out the series, and though it went to press without Van Dine’s usual repeated revisions, it is true vintage Philo—utterly distinctive in style and its own very genuine kind of pleasure.

It’s tough to be a preacher’s kid, and for Leo Stanhope it may be harder than for most. He was born Charlotte, and in the Reverend Pritchard’s home—as in all of Victoria’s England—there is little room for persons unwilling to know their place and stick to it. And things are about to get harder: There’s a gentleman who knows the secret that could get Leo locked up for life, and this so-called gentleman is not above a spot of blackmail. There is a bright spot, though, in the form of two little kids who are teaching Leo’s heart to open again, after a wretched year. In warming to them, he realizes how much more he has to learn. Leo knows how to be a man. Now he must learn to be a father.

In this, his third adventure, Professor Andrew Basnett takes a brief break from his usual stomping grounds in the Little English Village, opting to spend Christmas in a Small Australian City instead. He’s visiting Tony, an old colleague with a newish wife, and he’s barely had a post-flight snack before he’s made aware of a cloud hanging over the marriage. Jan, Tony’s bride, is widely believed to have bashed her first husband over the head, and though she was acquitted of the murder, Tony himself is starting to have uncomfortable second thoughts. Things don’t get any more comfortable when, at a family dinner, one of the guests is done in, killed with a chunk of the same crystal that put paid to Jan’s first husband. And Jan herself? She’s disappeared. Only the Professor, it would seem, can banish the clouds of distrust and reveal the truth, clear as crystal.

Andrew Basnett may be retired from academia, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped his former colleagues from dumping problems in his lap. This time around it’s the peppery Constance Camm, whose neighbors keep disappearing. Miss Camm and her sister, Mollie, might be tempted to shrug things off, were it not for a frightening letter. “I know where you buried the body,” says the letter, but…to which disappeared neighbor does the letter refer? And why was it sent to Mollie, who hasn’t been burying anything? Spurred by a desire to help a friend (and—admit it!—by his own curiosity), Professor Basnett starts poking around. But his efforts uncover more than one village skeleton, and they may call up more than anyone has bargained for.

Pretty and popular, sixteen-year-old Mariah Ebinger is the typical American teen. Well, except for the weird dreams. And the helicopter phobia. And the—OK, this is pretty strange—the ability to speak Spanish. She’s, like, never even heard Spanish! But except for that stuff, totally typical. The terrible thing is that Rolando Carrera may be typical as well. His wife and daughter murdered by the death squads in Argentina’s “dirty war,” Carrera has crossed some terrible internal line. His grief, his rage…they have blended into a toxic cocktail of obsession with one single burning aim: Kill Mariah Ebinger.

Sarah Deane is an English teacher by profession, but with these first two adventures she discovers that sleuthing—of the strictly amateur variety—may be where her truest passions lie.The first book takes Sarah, still a grad student at this point, out of her natural New England habitat and into the wilds of Texas, where her maybe-boyfriend is keen on a spot of birdwatching. But birds are not all that she spies through her binoculars, and so the adventures begin. In Down East, Sarah is glad to be back on home ground, but somebody, it appears, is not happy in any way at all, and Sarah is forced (and secretly thrilled) to put her newfound detecting skills to use again.

A comedy of manners and the odd dead bodyLondon is full of clubs. The Garrick, for example, caters to those with theatrical inclinations, the Athenaeum to eggheads. But the Asterisk may have the strictest membership regulations: Acquitted murderers only.Happily, Benjamin Cann fits the brief. Sure, he strangled Rachel Bolger with a length of pongee silk, but the jury thought different, so while Benji's old landlord may not want him back, the Asterisk gang—suave Clifford Flush (pushed ladies off trains), Mitteleuropean sexpot Lilli Cluj (crushed her husband with a bumper-car), et al.—offers a warm welcome. Benji doesn't love the thought of sharing digs with people more than usually inclined to poison the sherry, but the motherly Mrs. Barratt (dosed Mr. B with ground glass) is delighted. So nice to have fresh blood. And it will be such fun to watch him meet the neighbors!

Good breeding simply doesn’t pay the rent anymore.And while Miss Melville has bucketloads of breeding, she finds herself somewhat...lacking, shall we say, when it comes to finances. Distinctly lacking. Her rich friends are no help; they think “broke” means having to buy a smaller yacht. What is an impoverished gentlewoman to do?Become a killer for hire, of course. But Miss Melville (who prefers the term “hitwoman”) doesn’t take just any job, no matter how well paid. That kind of sordid money-grubbing is beneath contempt. No, she reserves her talents for those who...let’s say those who really deserve them. It’s true, her ancestors would roll in their graves at the thought of Miss Melville working—and for a paycheck, my dear! But finger sandwiches and opera tickets don’t come cheap: One does what one must.

With World War II only barely in the rear view mirror, New York apartments are scarcer than hen’s teeth.Janice Cameron has moved to the City to be a writer, trading Honolulu’s sun and flowers for Manhattan in the grip of icy winter. She’s imagined her own cunning little flat, a little table by the window, a little lace cloth...fat chance! Her own flat is completely out of the question, and in fact she’s going to have to share a boarding-house bedroom with a perfect stranger.At least the stranger is perfect: Lily Wu is beautiful, exquisitely dressed, and swathed in mystery. But Janice hasn’t even unpacked before a rather less exquisite mystery intrudes. True, the handyman wasn’t brilliant at maintaining the boiler, but murder seems a rather extreme response.In the best Golden Age tradition, the rooming house is crammed with intriguing suspects, from the tortured musician to the French emigree to the actress with a face for radio. Lily and Janice would much prefer to leave, but they’ve nowhere to go. Solving the murder seems the best possible option, especially since if someone were arrested and taken away...well, that would free up a room, now wouldn’t it?

New York in the 1920s is the world’s most glamorous city, and drinking it in like the finest champagne is Philo Vance, an expert in art with the deepest pockets, the brainiest brains, and the most gloriously ludicrous pretensions in the history of crime fiction.When a scheming young stockbroker is murdered—in a delicious locked-room scenario based on a real case of the day—Vance steps in to solve the puzzle not merely because he is bored and seeking new entertainment, but also because honor compels him to point out all the ways in which the police are getting it wrong. The cops of course are profoundly grateful, like all members of the lower orders when their mistakes are pointed out. Peter Wimsey would be appalled, but the reader will be delighted. Philo Vance (here in his first outing) is the sleuth you love to hate.

Clifford Flush, happily—if wrongly—acquitted of and semi-contentedly retired from the pursuit of murder, has not felt the need to off anyone in ages. Sure, he fled London when the return of the old urges left him open to a spot of blackmail, but he's been doing fine—thriving, in fact. He and the other members of the Asterisk Club, all murderers the law couldn't manage to hold, have turned the gory business of killing into a legitimate business venture: they've set up a homicide consultancy firm and are teaching discerning students the ropes (and guns, and getaways). Nice work if you can get it...or it is until one aspiring killer turns up dead on their very own premises. It's an intolerable embarrassment, and the culprit must be found out!

Manhattan’s art scene in the 1980s is full of backstabbers, but Miss Melville regards this as needlessly messy. She prefers to use a gun—and she uses it well, in this darkly funny series perfect for fans of Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club. Life is full of surprises. Susan Melville, for example, was raised to marry well, but when the Melville millions went South, she turned to...let’s call it freelance problem-solving in order to pay the rent. Bluntly? She became a hired killer. Surprise! And now, surprisingly, her little watercolors have found an audience. Miss Melville can join the world of museums and artistes, and bid adieu to the grubby realm of hitmen and...hitwomen. Hitpeople? A shining, law-abiding life will be hers, she is certain—until another artist drops dead, the police get the story wrong, and Miss Melville is forced, yet again, to step in and tidy things up.

Robert Forsythe, London's favorite gentleman sleuth, is called to determine which of 87 suspects is taking potshots at a rich old coot, and Fosythe's intrepid assistant finds herself in the middle of a locked-room murder mystery.You thought the quest for eternal life was a new preoccupation, the preserve of tech bros with too much money? Not so. It's the 1980s, and rich old dilettante Winslow Maxwell Penndragon is shooting for a century or more...but somebody else is shooting, and they're aiming at Maxwell. With heirs a-plenty, Winslow P. calls in Robert Forsythe, a London barrister with a nose for trouble and a reputation for discretion, to figure out who's got murder on the mind. Forsythe loves a good puzzle, but he does not love Winslow P.—and it would appear he's got company.As assistant to Forsythe and witness to his exploits, "Sandy" Sanderson surely knows that when you bring a group of celebrity strangers to a snowbound, isolated hotel, it rarely ends well. But Christmas in the countryside—it sounded so appealing! So when one of the guests fails to turn up for breakfast, it's terrible, of course, but for Sandy it's also ever-so-slightly familiar. She knows her Agatha Christie. And this is not her first rodeo.

Sarah Deane may be a newly minted college professor, but whether she's on the rocky coast of Maine or an elegant English estate, her real calling is as "the Nancy Drew of the 1980s" (Publishers Weekly). Everybody loves Dolly! At least, that's what Sarah Deane's sister says. But Sarah's siblings aren't so sure, and when Dolly turns up drowned, they ask Sarah to start asking questions. After all, in the finest cozy-mystery tradition, the police may not be up to the task. And while Sarah may be more PhD than PD, she has a well-known knack for nosing around and uncovering secrets like the ones that may have killed Dolly. Not long thereafter, Sarah is bamboozled into shepherding tiresome Aunt Julia around the great gardens of Europe. It helps that her old friend Ellen Trevino is the expert leading the tour, but when Ellen misses the plane, Sarah's oh-so-sensitive nose starts twitching. When you've solved as many murders as she has, you get a sense about these things, and before the group sits down to its first cream tea, Sarah's nose is jumping like it has springs attached.