Moray Dalton

> Kindly Reverend John Clare pays a social call upon the saturnine Simon Killick at his forbidding house, The Grange. Killick is a virtual recluse who relies on three dogs and a parrot for company. Killick is soon found murdered in his home, while in a nearby wood a local schoolboy, Toby, discovers a dying stranger whose last words refer to a "kneeling woman." This kick-starts a complicated case for the local police and it is not long before Scotland Yard, in the form of Inspector Collier, is called in. Yet more murders follow - this time by poisoned chocolates. Are all the deaths connected, and is the "kneeling woman" the link? What might Sir Henry Webber, the new owner of Brock Hall, know about the case, or, for that matter, his snobbish wife Beryl, and their two ghastly sons? Or odd jobs man Tommy Yates, or Florrie Soper, cook at the Hall, who adores Edgar Wallace thrillers and is intent on marrying Tommy? At least Collier has the eager assistance of Toby. . . and his widowed mother Sandra. Has love finally entered the life of Inspector Collier? *The Mystery of the Kneeling Woman* was first published in 1936.

>>*Together they looked down at the inert sprawling figure of a man fantastically dressed in red-and-white-striped pyjama trousers, with a red sash belt and a white silk shirt open at the neck.* >A Christmas gathering of young and old in a great country house in England - a masquerade - and the lights are turned off for a game of hide and seek. Silence - then a man's cry for "Lights!" The lights come on, revealing Hugh Darrow, blind since the War, standing in the main hall, fresh blood dripping from his hands and covering his white Pierrot costume. He tells the story of having discovered a dead man, stabbed through the heart, lying in a curtained window embrasure next to the one in which he was hiding. The murdered man proves to be Stallard, one of the visitors, and a writer of mystery tales. >There follows a thrilling tale in which the life of an innocent man hangs in the balance. A grand and baffling tale for the mystery lover. *The Night of Fear* was originally published in 1931.

>>*"We've managed to head off the Press men so far. But that wont last. We can't escape publicity, and the reading public enjoys murders."* >Harriet Hall, living in her isolated cottage outside the village of Larnwood, might not have been everyone's cup of tea, but why did someone feel the need to kill her on the eve of the arrival of her young niece, Amy? Why had the likeable Deene family seemingly been so in thrall to the late Harriet? The innocent in this classic murder mystery have every reason to be grateful for Inspector Collier of Scotland Yard's involvement, given the incompetent behavior of the local Chief Constable. But as Collier's investigation deepens, the case gets stranger still. Finally, however, the guilty are punished though readers will have to read through to the book's final, quietly devastating chapter to see just how. *The Strange Case of Harriet Hall* was originally published in 1936.

>>*It had been so quickly done that he felt almost as if a little knife had actually flashed by him and stuck, quivering, in the door at his back.* >Violet Hunter disappears at dusk one evening on a lonely road not far from a mysterious sanatorium. Her body is found buried in her friend’s garden. Has Linda strangled her in a fit of jealousy? Or has the sanatorium’s sinister foreign doctor drawn her into his macabre experiments? The police seize the few clues and Linda Merle is accused of murder. Bit by bit they build up the circumstantial evidence while the ingenious private detective Hermann Glide works in the background. By methods of intuition and a daring lack of scruple, Glide solves the mystery of the crime - a crime of passion and tragically warped mentality.