BRITISH LIBRARY

(P/B) MURDER AFTER CHRISTMAS
Good old Uncle Willie―rich, truculent and seemingly propped up by his fierce willpower alone―has come to stay with the Redpaths for the holidays. It is just their luck for him to be found dead in the snow on Boxing Day morning, dressed in his Santa Claus costume and seemingly poisoned by something in the Christmas confectionery. As the police flock to the house, Willie's descendants, past lovers and distant relatives are drawn into a perplexing investigation to find out how the old man met his fate, and who stands to gain by such an unseas...
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(P/B) WEEKEND AT THRACKLEY
'I'm taking a revolver to Thrackley. You never know with blokes like Carson. I hate these harmless, potty people - they're always up to something.' The house is gloomy and forbidding but the party is warm and hospitable - except for the presence of Jacobson, the sinister butler. The other guests are wealthy people draped in jewels; Jim cannot imagine why he belongs in such company. After a weekend of adventure - with attempted robbery and a vanishing guest - secrets come to light and Jim unravels a mystery from his past. (From the publishe...
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(P/B) SMALLBONE DECEASED
Horniman, Birley and Craine is a highly respected legal firm with clients reaching to the highest in the land. When a deed box in the office is opened to reveal a corpse, the threat of scandal promises to wreak havoc on the firm's reputation - especially as the murder looks like an inside job. The partners and staff of the firm keep a watchful and suspicious eye on their colleagues, as Inspector Hazlerigg sets out to solve the mystery of who Mr Smallbone was - and why he had to die. Written with style, pace and wit, this is a masterpiece b...
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(H/B) THE PHILOSOPHY OF WINE
A companion volume to The Philosophy of Beards and The Philosophy of Coffee , this witty history of wine - its cultivation and enjoyment - sheds light on the rich traditions of wine from around the world. An apt gift for oenophiles everywhere, it includes chapters on the development of wine production - from casks to bottles and from feet to presses - as well as tracing the global shift of wine production from traditional wine-producing regions to emerging wine exporters. With a selective focus on unexpected facts and lesser-known characte...
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(P/B) SERPENTS IN EDEN
An eclectic mix of crime stories written over half a century. From a tale of poison-pen letters tearing apart a village community to a macabre mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle, the stories collected here reveal the dark truths hidden in an assortment of rural paradises. (From the publisher)...
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(P/B) WEIRD WOODS
Another Tales of the Weird anthology from John Miller, who previously edited Tales of the Tattooed and will publish The Philosophy of Tattoos with the British Library in Autumn 2020. The tales in this title span all regions of the U.K. - from the obviously eerie rural areas of Devon and Yorkshire to more unexpected cosmopolitan locations like Stoke Newington, London. It resonates with a growing readership of nature and folk stories, and contains fascinating notes on the history of these stories and their writers. Woods play an important an...
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(P/B) THESE NAMES MAKE CLUES
Chief Inspector Macdonald has been invited to a treasure hunt party at the house of Graham Coombe, the celebrated publisher of Murder by Mesmerism. Despite a handful of misgivings, the inspector joins a guestlist of novelists and thriller writers disguised on the night under literary pseudonyms. The fun comes to an abrupt end, however, when 'Samuel Pepys' is found dead in the telephone room in bizarre circumstances. Amidst the confusion of too many fake names, clues, ciphers and convoluted alibis, Macdonald and his allies in the CID must u...
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(P/B) MURDER BY THE BOOK
'If much of the action is set in a bookshop or a library, it is a bibliomystery, just as it is if a major character is a bookseller or a librarian.' - Otto Penzler. A bookish puzzle threatens an eagerly awaited inheritance; a submission to a publisher recounts a murder that seems increasingly to be a work of non-fiction; an irate novelist puts a grisly end to the source of his writer's block. There is no better hiding place for clues - or red herrings - than inside the pages of a book. But in this world of resentful ghost writers, indiscre...
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(P/B) THE CHIANTI FLASK
An enigmatic young woman named Laura Dousland stands on trial for murder, accused of poisoning her elderly husband Fordish. It seems clear that the poison was delivered in a flask of Chianti with supper, but according to the couple's servant in the witness-box, the flask disappeared the night Fordish died and all attempts to trace it have come to nothing. The jury delivers its verdict, but this is just the end of the beginning of Marie Belloc Lowndes' gripping story. First published in 1934, this exquisitely crafted novel blends the tenets...
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(P/B) DEATH OF A BOOKSELLER
An honest policeman, Sergeant Wigan, escorts a drunk man home one night to keep him out of trouble and, seeing his fine book collection, slowly falls in to the gentle art of book collecting. Just as the friendship is blossoming, the policeman's book-collecting friend is murdered. To solve the mystery of why the victim was killed, and which of his rare books was taken, Wigan dives into the world of 'runners' and book collectors, where avid agents will gladly cut you for a first edition and then offer you a lift home afterwards. This advent...
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(P/B) SETTLING SCORES
Another in the popular series of short story anthologies jam packed with classics and new discoveries. This is the first collection of purely sports-based mysteries ever assembled in the UK, featuring big names (J. Jefferson Farjeon, Anthony Gilbert) and rare BL finds (Leo Bruce, Bernard Newman). Talented sportsmen inexplicably go absent without leave, crafty gamblers conspire in the hope of making a killing, and personal rivalries and jealousies come to a head on fields of play... The links between sport and fictional crime were celebrate...
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(H/B) THE OLD MAN'S GUIDE TO HEALTH AND LONGER LIFE
A lifestyle guide to longevity and good health - from 1750. Writing in an age when the majority of men didn't live to see their fiftieth birthday, John Hill provides practical advice on diet, exercise and lifestyle, including sleep and emotional health. Full of genuinely good advice, the book offers sage insights as well as ridiculous regimes - making it a perfect gift for a man of more mature years. (From the publisher)...
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(P/B) THE FACE IN THE GLASS
A young girl whose love for her fiance continues even after her death; a sinister old lady with claw-like hands who cares little for the qualities of her companions provided they are young and full of life; and a haunted mirror that foretells of approaching death for those who gaze into its depths. These are just some of the haunting tales gathered together in this macabre collection of short stories. Reissued in the Tales of the Weird series and introduced by British Library curator Greg Buzwell, The Face in the Glass is the first selecti...
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(H/B) MAGIC IN MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS
From simple charms to complex and subversive rituals to summon demons, diverse forms of magic were practiced in the Middle Ages. With numerous fascinating illustrations from the British Library's rich medieval collection, Magic in Medieval Manuscripts explores the place of magic in the medieval world. It examines representations of the magician, wise-woman and witch; magical objects; and ritual procedures, revealing the medieval fascination with the points of contact between this world and the celestial and infernal realms. (From the publi...
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(P/B) SILENT NIGHTS
Christmas is a mysterious, as well as magical, time of year. Strange things can happen, and this helps to explain the hallowed tradition of telling ghost stories around the fireside as the year draws to a close. Christmas tales of crime and detection have a similar appeal. When television becomes tiresome, and party games pall, the prospect of curling up in the warm with a good mystery is enticing - and much better for the digestion than yet another helping of plum pudding. Crime writers are just as susceptible as readers to the countless ...
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(P/B) MOONRISE
Before the Apollo 11 mission succeeded in landing on the Moon in 1969, writers and visionaries were fascinated by how we might get there and what we might find. The Greeks and Romans speculated about the Moon almost two thousand years before H. G.Wells or Jules Verne wrote about it, but interest peaked from the late 1800s when the prospect of lunar travel became more viable. This anthology presents twelve short stories from the most popular magazines of the golden age of SF - including The Strand Magazine, Astounding Science Fiction and Am...
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(P/B) THE LOST GALLOWS
A third title from John Dickson Carr's incredibly popular 'Inspector Bencolin' series, this story takes place between previous British Library Crime Classic titles It Walks By Night and Castle Skull. John Dickson Carr remains one of the most influential and popular authors in Classic Crime fiction, and this fantastic early novel has been out of print for decades. This book also includes the extremely rare Dickson Carr short story, 'The Ends of Justice'. As the thick, autumnal fog chokes the capital, within the fire-lit lounge of London's ...
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(P/B) CROSSED SKIS
An atmospheric holiday novel from one of the most consistently popular authors in the series, Carol Carnac (also known as E.C.R. Lorac). 'Crossed skis means danger ahead...' In London's Bloomsbury, Inspector Julian Rivers of Scotland Yard looks down at a dismal scene. Here is the victim, burnt to a crisp. Here are the clues - clues which point to a good climber and expert skier, and which lead Rivers to the piercing sunshine and sparkling snow of the Austrian Alps. Here there is something sinister beneath the heady joys of the slopes, and...
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(P/B) SURFEIT OF SUSPECTS
"At 8 o'clock in the evening on the 8th November, there was a terrific explosion in Green Lane, Evingden." The offices of Excelsior Joinery Company are no more; the 3 directors are killed and the peace of a quiet town in Surrey lies in ruins. When the supposed cause of ignited gas leak is dismissed and the presence of dynamite revealed, Superintendent Littlejohn of Scotland Yard is summoned to the scene. But beneath the sleepy veneer of Evingden lies a hotbed of deep-seated grievances. Confounding Littlejohn's investigation is an impressiv...
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(H/B) THE PHILOSHOPY OF BEER
Have you ever wondered about the difference between a lager and an ale? Or marveled at how, with only four basic ingredients, there are around 150 different styles of beer? In The Philosophy of Beer, Jane Peyton, the UK's first Beer Sommelier of the Year, distills practical advice from the incredible history of this beverage, spanning the earliest evidence of beer 13,000 years ago, its central role in monasteries and on naval ships, its significance in the discovery of cholera, and its enduring popularity today. This fascinating insight in...
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