LORAC E.C.R.

(P/B) CHECKMATE TO MURDER
This crime classic is a spiritual successor to E. C. R. Lorac's Murder by Matchlight, one of the British Library Crime Classics' most popular titles from recent years (with Crossed Skis published in Spring 2020). It is a fantastically tight and twisty mystery set during the Second World War in London. The British Library is one of the only publishers currently re-releasing Lorac's work as they are increasingly difficult titles to find and very expensive secondhand. On a dismally foggy night in Hampstead, London, a curious party has gathere...
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(P/B) MURDER BY MATCHLIGHT
'"A man who played about on the fringes of the Black Market, who had fought for Sinn Fein, who lived by his wits - and who finally became dangerous to somebody and was knocked over the head in the blackout. It may prove to be a sordid story, but I certainly find it an interesting one."'During a stroll through Regent's Park, Bruce Mallaig witnesses two men acting suspiciously around a footbridge. In a matter of moments, one of them has been murdered; Mallaig's view of the assailant but a brief glimpse of a ghastly face in the glow of a stru...
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(P/B) DEATH OF AN AUTHOR
Vivian Lestrange - celebrated author of the popular mystery novel The Charterhouse Case and total recluse - has apparently dropped off the face of the Earth. Reported missing by his secretary Eleanor, whom Inspector Bond suspects to be the author herself, it appears that crime and murder is afoot when Lestrange's housekeeper is also found to have disappeared. Bond and Warner of Scotland Yard set to work to investigate a murder with no body and a potentially fictional victim, as E C R Lorac spins a twisting tale full of wry humour and red h...
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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 IN THE MILL-RACE
"Never make trouble in the village" is an unspoken law, but it's a binding law. You may know about your neighbours' sins and shortcomings, but you must never name them aloud. It'd make trouble, and small societies want to avoid trouble. When Dr Raymond Ferens moves to a practice at Milham in the Moor in North Devon, he and his wife are enchanted with the beautiful hilltop village lying so close to moor and sky. At first they see only its charm, but soon they begin to uncover its secrets - envy, hatred and malice. Everyone says that Sister ...
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(P/B) BATS IN THE BELFRY
When Bruce is called away on a sudden trip to Paris, he vanishes completely - until his suitcase and passport are found in a sinister artist's studio, the Belfry, in a crumbling house in Notting Hill. Inspector Macdonald must uncover Bruce's secrets, and find out the identity of his mysterious blackmailer. This intricate mystery from a classic writer is set in a superbly evoked 1930s London. (From the publisher)...
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(P/B) FIRE IN THE THATCH
The Second World War is drawing to a close. Nicholas Vaughan, released from the army after an accident, takes refuge in Devon - renting a thatched cottage in the beautiful countryside at Mallory Fitzjohn. Vaughan sets to work farming the land, rearing geese and renovating the cottage. Hard work and rural peace seem to make this a happy bachelor life. On a nearby farm lives the bored, flirtatious June St Cyres, an exile from London while her husband is a Japanese POW. June's presence attracts fashionable visitors of dubious character, and t...
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(P/B) POST AFTER POST-MORTEM
The Surrays and their five children form a prolific writing machine, with scores of treatises, reviews and crime thrillers published under their family name. Following a rare convergence of the whole household at their Oxfordshire home, Ruth - middle sister who writes 'books which are just books' - decides to spend some weeks there recovering from the pressures of the writing life while the rest of the brood scatter to the winds again. Their next return is heralded by the tragic news that Ruth has taken her life after an evening at the Sur...
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