A Scotland Yard detective probes a high-society house party for someone rotten when a government official is murdered in this classic British mystery. Preparations are underway for a grand party at Scamnum Court, the sweeping English country estate of the fabulously wealthy Duke of Horton. Some of the nation's elite are invited for dinner, and some are even set to star in a semi-amateur production of Hamlet on an authentic Elizabethan stage in...

A Scotland Yard detective is snowed in with a strange family and a killer with a lethal passion for literature in this classic British mystery. Something's afoot in the village of Snarl. Incidents include animals turned to stone and ominous tombstones inscribed with deaths yet to come. Det. Insp. John Appleby is travelling by train from London to consult on the case. However, impending his arrival to his connecting train is a terrible snowstorm....

A Scotland Yard inspector holds the key when a college professor is shot behind a series of locked gates in this classic British mystery series opener. The usually quiet campus of St. Anthony's College is abuzz with talk of murder. Someone shot Prof. Josiah Umpleby, the college's president, in his room during the night. Word spreads all the way to London, and Insp. John Appleby of New Scotland Yard is dispatched to consult on the case. The...

A London detective investigates after a fictional character seems to come to life to harass his creator in this classic British mystery. Richard Eliot began writing crime novels to fund his son's education. The protagonist, known as "the Spider," started off as a notorious criminal and later transformed into a private investigator. Now, after thirty-eight entries in the series, Eliot is considering putting the Spider to bed. Someone else,...

A Scotland Yard detective probes a string of strange disappearances and paranormal phenomena in this classic British mystery adventure. Insp. John Appleby has his hands full. It begins when his aunt's horse, Daffodil, disappears from her stable in Harrogate. Meanwhile, Appleby's colleague, Superintendent Hudspith, is searching for a missing young woman by the name of Lucy Rideout. But the most bizarre case is the vanishing of a supposedly haunted...

A London detective investigates when a troubled Scottish laird takes a fall in this classic British mystery by the author of Hamlet, Revenge!. Strange things are happening around the remote Castle Erchany, located in the Scottish Highlands. The miserly and reclusive laird, Ranald Guthrie, roams the castle's freezing halls, reciting an old poem over and over: Timor mortis conturbat me. Fear of death disturbs me . . . Then on a wild winter night,...

An erudite Scotland Yard detective investigates after a professor meets a hellish end with a heavenly body in this classic British mystery. When Professor Pluckrose is found dead in his deckchair on the campus of a provincial English university, it looks as though the eminent biochemist was struck by a falling meteorite. But this was no act of God-the stone was dropped from a nearby tower. With the local authorities baffled, Scotland Yard's...

From a British Golden Age author "in a class by himself among detective story writers," Sir John Appleby solves an art world crime (The Times Literary Supplement). When Sir John Appleby is persuaded by Lady Appleby to attend an art exhibit, he believes he is only appeasing his wife, a sculptress herself, and quite the art collector, too. But when Appleby learns the show is a memorial exhibition for recently murdered artist Gavin Limbert, his interest...

Sir John Appleby, sometime Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and now retired, faces the challenge of finding Lord Osprey's murderer.