Nicholas Blake

”Imponerar fortfarande som en av de mörkaste och mest gripande psykologiska romaner.” The Times Deckarförfattaren Frank Cairnes tänker ut det perfekta mordet – ett mord han själv tänker begå. Alltsedan hans lille son omkommit i en smitningsolycka har han tänkt spåra upp gärningsmannen och mörda honom. Men när stunden väl är kommen och mördaren mördas sker det inte utifrån Cairnes noggranna plan. Plötsligt är han i akut behov av privatdetektiv Nigel Strangeways för att bevisa sin oskuld – med en övertygande motivbild emot sig. Död åt odjuret (1938) är ett pionjärverk i den psykologiska deckargenren, djupare och mörkare än de flesta kriminalromaner dittills i historien. Tv-serien The Beast Must Die (2021) är baserad på boken. Denna utgåva är en revidering av en äldre anonym översättning. ”Unik till kompositionen och mästerlig till utförandet.” Spectator ”Ett bevis på att en detektivroman, i händerna på en riktigt förstklassig författare, kan stå sig i jämförelse med vilken annan skönlitteratur som helst.” Manchester Guardian Nicholas Blake var en pseudonym för Cecil Day-Lewis (1904–1972), poet laureate och en av sin tids mest eleganta deckarförfattare.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERYSeveral days after private detective and poet Nigel Strangeways dines with Dr Piers Loudon and his family, the doctor vanishes, only for his legless corpse to be fished out of the river Thames.

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERYThe government's security department have asked private detective Nigel Strangeways to keep a discreet eye on Professor Alfred Wagley, a research scientist who is spending the Christmas holidays in the South-West of England.

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERYStaying with a friend in Oxfordshire, poet turned amateur detective Nigel Strangeways pays a visit to Robert Seaton, a distinguished British poet whom Nigel greatly admires but whose reputation has been on the decline of late.

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERYWhen private detective Nigel Strangeways books tickets for a holiday in the Greek islands with renowned sculptor Claire Massinger, he has no idea that the trip will end in tragedy.

A small boy playing in the park is handed a crumpled piece of paper by a stranger, who then collapses and dies. The boy, realising that he himself is now in danger, flees from the park with the help of detective Nigel Strangeways, only to discover that the mysterious message consists of just his own name and age: Bert Hale 12.

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.

When one of the brothers is found murdered, the local police request Nigel's help in catching the killer, but little does Nigel know just how close he is to the murderer. A Nigel Strangeways murder mystery - the perfect introduction to the most charming and erudite detective in Golden Age crime fiction.

Someone 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.