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 With a full-length novella by John Dickson Carr and an unpublished radio script by Cyril Hare, this diverse collection concludes with some early 'flash fiction' commissioned by Collins' Crime Club in 1938.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.

Bodies from the Library 3 - Lost Tales of Mystery and Suspense from the Golden Age of Detection

Bien entendu, Mr et Mrs Bendix n'avaient pas résisté aux chocolats. C'est un ami de Mr Bendix, au club, qui avait reçu la boîte, un envoi promotionnel, et qui les avait offerts au couple. Les chocolats à la liqueur étaient bons, mais un peu forts. Tellement forts, même, que Mr Bendix avait été malade. Et que Mrs Bendix en était morte.Malheureusement, la police n'a pu remonter la piste des confiseries empoisonnées : aucun indice, aucune trace... Alors, en désespoir de cause, pourquoi ne pas soumettre le problème à la sagacité des éminents membres du Club des Détectives ? Peut-être les amateurs éclairés verront-ils plus loin que Scotland Yard...

Le Club Des Détectives

Republished for the first time in nearly 95 years, a classic winter country house mystery by the founder of the Detection Club, with a twist that even Agatha Christie couldn't solve!

 Stephen Munro, a demobbed army officer, reconciles himself to taking a job as a footman to make ends meet. Employed at Wintringham Hall, the delightful but decaying Sussex country residence of the elderly Lady Susan Carey, his first task entails welcoming her eccentric guests to a weekend house-party, at which her bombastic nephew - who recognises Stephen from his former life - decides that an after-dinner séance would be more entertaining than bridge. Then Cicely disappears!

 With Lady Susan reluctant to call the police about what is presumably a childish prank, Stephen and the plucky Pauline Mainwaring take it upon themselves to investigate. But then a suspicious death turns the game into an altogether more serious affair.

 This classic winter mystery incorporates all the trappings of the Golden Age - a rambling country house, a séance, a murder, a room locked on the inside, with servants, suspects and alibis, a romance - and an ingenious puzzle.

 First published as a 30-part newspaper serial in 1926 - the year The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was published, The Wintringham Mystery was written by Anthony Berkeley, founder of the famous Detection Club. Also known as Cicely Disappears, the Daily Mirror ran the story as a competition with a prize of £500 (equivalent to £30, 000 today) for anyone who guessed the solution correctly. Nobody did - even Agatha Christie entered and couldn't solve it. Can you?

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