A fascinating thrill with unusual twists - a 'Buchanesque' tale Writing under the pseudonym Neil Gordon, A. G. Macdonell wrote several crime and thriller novels. In the classic genre of '20s and '30s crime fiction, Macdonell managed to introduce a different element, unusual twists that keep the reader captivated and anxious to discover what came next. The Factory on the Cliff begins with a spoilt golf holiday at a coastal golf-links hotel in Aberdeenshire. 'George Templeton's car refused to start on the self-starter. He jumped out impatiently and gave the handle a mighty twist. The engine back-fired and dislocated his thumb and he found himself unable to play golf for the remainder of his holiday.' Unable to play golf with his friends, he resorts to country walks and stumbles upon suspicious goings-on at a cliff-top farmstead where there are numerous outbuildings. The story moves from Scotland to London, and then to a small village in the Home Counties. In a fast-moving thriller which in some degree resembles John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps, George Templeton and his friends foil an international plot to mass-poison many countries in the World. Macdonell uses his usual skill, well-dosed with ingenious twists, and a fast moving story-line, to keep the reader riveted to the book. Chase, conspiracy, espionage, quick-thinking initiative and much adventure with Irishmen and Russians thrown in, keeps the adventure in a high gear from beginning to end. New Introduction by Alan Sutton

Writing under the pseudonym Neil Gordon, A. G. Macdonell wrote several crime and thriller novels. In the classic genre of '20s and '30s crime fiction, Macdonell managed to introduce a different element, unusual twists that keep the reader captivated and anxious to discover what came next. Silent Murders begins with murder of an elderly tramp on the road between King's Langley and Berkhampstead. Nobody really knows who the tramp was or what his background was. To his gentlemen-of-the-road peers he was known as 'Stuck-up Sam'. The only unusual aspect of the crime was a square of cardboard tied to the last surviving button of the tramp's ragged overcoat and on which was written the word 'Three.' The next victim could not have been different; for the gentleman silently shot through the open window of a taxi, stationery in traffic, was Mr Aloysius Skinner, Chairman of the Imperial Cochineal Company. A clue, for what it was worth, was a piece of white cardboard on which was printed in ink the single word 'Four', presumably thrown through the open window by the murderer. Another murder took place at a quiet family tennis party in suburbia, with the host's elder brother being the unfortunate victim of the bullet. The police assumed the bullet was intended for the host, Mr Henry Maddock, a gentleman of great wealth with a dubious background in Africa from where poverty had changed with peculiar suddenness to riches. But with skill, ingenious twists, and a fast moving story-line, a tale is woven to show that not all was what it seemed...New Introduction by Alan Sutton

Lords and Masters is a work of fiction, but with mastery and style Macdonell uses his undoubted journalistic skill to unmask much that was unpleasant in the West End Society circles of the early 1930s. He exposes the hypocrisy of the monied class and with biting satire weaves a tale of intrigue, turning it into a thriller. His character depiction of the unscrupulous war-profiteer Sir Montagu Anderton-Mawle is a masterpiece and his ability to so ably define all that is wrong in the world - as relevant today as it was in the 1930s - reveals a genius in the art of narrative composition. Although written in 1936, Macdonell was early in seeing that war was becoming inevitable and in Lords and Masters he foresaw with frightening prescience how events would unfold. He was correct in foreseeing the attack on Singapore, but was happily wrong in regard to Japanese attacks on San Francisco and Montreal. The book is built around the character of James Hanson, a steel millionaire, and the cynical manoeuvrings of those who would seek to profiteer out of human misery. James' youngest daughter, Veronica, is a Nazi-lover, presumably modelled on Unity Mitford. "Veronica, dear," said Mrs. Hanson admiringly, "aren't you being a little impertinent?" "No, seriously, Daddy, that atrocity stuff is all rot. Hitler wouldn't allow it for a moment. He isn't that sort of man. A few Jews have been beaten up perhaps, but that's nothing. Veronica, who heartily despised the physical appearance of any male under about six-foot-three, was not so narrow-minded as to despise male intelligence simply because it was encased in a relatively dwarfish body. After all, no one could call the Fuehrer particularly handsome, and yet what a mammoth intellect he had got! Dr. Goebbels was positively ugly, but look how he scattered the non-Aryans with his inner fires of patriotism and genius! Happily for Macdonell, England was not invaded in 1940, otherwise he might have been on the list of those to be rounded up.

""It's very, very comforting, it's very funny and whenever you think things in this country are pretty bonkers then you can read this book from the thirties and realise 'Ah, they've always been fairly similar' ... I love it."" IAN HISLOP

As a young Scot exiled to the alien landscape of 1920s England, Douglas Cameron finds himself navigating his way through the intimacies and excesses of a nation undergoing great cultural and social upheaval. Witnessing the last gasps in the demise of a privileged earlier world, our hero finds himself negotiating archetypal English situations, including the lavish country house weekend, a traditional fox hunt, international diplomacy at the League of Nations and, most famously, a village cricket match - all as part of his efforts to compile a book capturing the essence of Englishness. Affectionately narrated, eloquent and poignant, yet at times just slightly ruthless and often with an acerbic note of satire, this description of England in the throes of social turmoil remains an hilarious, irreverent yet compassionate portrait.

""5 stars A CLASSIC OF ENGLISH HUMOUR"" Since winning the James Tait Black Memorial Prize on publication in 1933, England, Their England has retained an enduring appeal for generations and is now regarded as a classic of literary humour.

"5 stars - "So much more than just the cricket match.""

"5 stars - "Fun Everlasting.""

"5 stars - "Wonderful.""

"5 stars - "Such a good book.""

Writing under the pseudonym Neil Gordon, A. G. Macdonell wrote several crime and thriller novels. In the classic genre of '20s and '30s crime fiction, Macdonell managed to introduce a different element, unusual twists that keep the reader captivated and anxious to discover what came next. The Shakespeare Murders is another example of Macdonell's carefully thought-through detective stories, where the detective is aided by the star of the cast. Peter Kerrigan saw a pickpocket take the wallet of a shabby little man, and with speed and precision he stole from the thief. Peter was a handsome gentleman-adventurer - not too scrupulous - and before he returned the pocketbook he read the letter which it contained. It was so that he heard of the million pound treasure, and began the search which was to lead him through so many horrors. At Marsh Manor he found the police trying to solve a murder, and lent somewhat grudging assistance; three more violent deaths followed rapidly. The working out of the solution to the mystery, and the final disposition of the treasure are brilliantly satisfying. The strictly logical framework of the book is filled in witty and entertaining fashion with strange and amusing characters. Macdonell uses his usual skill, well-dosed with ingenious twists, and a fast moving story-line, to keep the reader riveted to the book. Chase, conspiracy, and American gangsters add to the excitement of solving the Shakespeare riddle.

A VISIT TO AMERICA CHAPTER ONE Approaching Manhattan up by the long-stretching island. quot WALT WHITMAN. THE voyage was uneventful. My main impressions of it were the width of the Atlantic, which I had never before crossed, the number of references made by my fellow passengers to the salutary effect of sea-air upon the human constitution, and the benevolent expression upon the face of President Harding, whose portrait presided, like a Patron Saint, over most of our activ ities. It is true, now that I come to look back upon it, that few, if any, Americans on the ship referred to Mr. Harding in conversation as a Saint, or seemed at all pleased to be sailing under his Patronage. But perhaps they were political opponents, and therefore biased against the good man. At any rate they were unani mous, for some reason which I could not fathom, in the opinion that no ship connected in any way with President Harding was likely to run out of oil On the morning of the seventh day the first incident occurred since the evening at Cobh nee Queens town, when dainty Irish colleens had tried to sell us genuine hand-made peasant lace from Manchester, and broths of boys had offered us unique bargains 2 A VISIT TO AMERICA mass-produced in shillelaghs. We saw land. Long Island appeared on the horizon. A few hours later we arrived at Quarantine and halted for the Medical Examination. It was a long business, but it incommoded us not a whit. For the Hygienic Theory of the United States appears to be based on a remarkable notion. Anyone who can afford to buy a first-class ticket is automatically presumed to be free from all contagious infection. A doctor com ing from a campaign against bubonic plague in Turkey, a medical missionary from the yellow fever districts of Central Africa, an explorer from the typhus infested villages of Turkestan, all these are exempt from medical inspection if they have taken the precau tion of travelling first class. But let a man be as free from germs as an iceberg, and let him scrub himself in antiseptics three times a day, and let him travel in the steerage class, and by Heavens he will learn that Quarantine is no idle word. For at least an hour we leant in a superior manner on the rail, while our poorer fellow passengers were presumed to be suffering from the deadliest and most baffling diseases known to, or unknown by, medical science, and as we leant we affirmed and re-affirmed and stated frankly and repeated with the utmost em phasis at our command, to each and all our charming American friends on board, that the Skyline of Man hattan not only came up to, but far exceeded our wild est, our most hallucinatory we groped frantically for bigger, taller words expectations. A VISIT TO AMERICA 3 As the liner steamed slowly up the Hudson, the stream of expert pointers-out grew thicker and thicker, and better and better informed. quot The one on the left, Mr. Macdonell, is the Woolworth Building next to it is the Chrysler Building, and beyond the Chrysler is the Empire State. But the building which you can t see is Number One, Broadway, the office of the Stand ard Oil Company. After I had duly pigeonholed this information, the next one would reverse the order of the buildings, and add that I couldn t see Number One, Broadway, the office of the Cunard Company, and then a third would substitute the R. C. A. for Woolworth, and the Irving Trust for the Empire State, andadd that Number One, Broadway, was the office of Messrs, J. P. Morgan. But all were agreed on one point, the invisibility of that mysterious building. I never discovered whether they were right or not, but I should imagine that they were not. As we advanced closer and closer, the effect of the Skyline was somewhat counter-balanced by the sink ing feeling induced by the nearness of the Customs Examination. In Europe we hear more about the hor rors of the latter even than about the magnificence of the former...

One of a genre at the time, the novel is examines the changing nature of English society in the interwar period. The style and subject matter is comparable to the works of Evelyn Waugh, his contemporary, and earlier writers such as P.G.Wodehouse and Jerome K. Jerome. It is also known for its portrayal of traditional village cricket.The novel won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction in 1933.

Set in 1920s England, the book is written as if a travel memoir by a young Scotsman who had been invalided away from the Western Front, "Donald Cameron," whose father's will forces him to reside in England. There he writes for a series of London newspapers before being commissioned by a Welshman to write a book about the English from the view of a foreigner. Taking to the country and provincial cities, Donald spends his time carrying out research for a book on the English by consorting with journalists and minor poets, attending a country house weekend, serving as private secretary to a Member of Parliament, attending the League of Nations, and playing village cricket. The village cricket match is the most celebrated episode in the novel, and a reason cited for its enduring appeal. A key character is Mr Hodge; a caricature of Sir John Squire (poet and editor of the London Mercury) while the cricket team described in the book's most famous chapter is a representation of Sir John's Cricket Club -- the Invalids -- which survives today.