'The red robe concealed the blood until it made my hand sticky. Father Christmas had been stabbed in the back, and he was certainly dead.' The murder of Father Christmas at one of London’s great toy shops is just one of many yuletide disasters in this new collection of stories from the Golden Age of crime writing and beyond. Masters of the genre such as Patricia Moyes and John Dickson Carr present perfectly packaged short pieces, and Martin Edwards delivers a sackful of rarities from authors such as Ellis Peters, Gwyn Evans and Michael Innes. The answer to any classic crime fiction fan’s Christmas wish – and the only way for you to answer Who Killed Father Christmas? – this new anthology is set to muddle, befuddle, surprise and delight.

'Then the rhythm of the train changed, and she seemed to be sliding backwards down a long slope. Click-click-click-click. The wheels rattled over the rails, with a sound of castanets.' Iris Carr's holiday in the mountains of a remote corner of Europe has come to an end, and since her friends left two days before, she faces the journey home alone. Stricken by sunstroke at the station, Iris catches the express train to Trieste by the skin of her teeth and finds a companion in Miss Froy, an affable English governess. But when Iris passes out and reawakens, Miss Froy is nowhere to be found. The other passengers deny any knowledge of her existence and as the train speeds across Europe, Iris spirals deeper and deeper into a strange and dangerous conspiracy. First published in 1936 and adapted for the screen as The Lady Vanishes by Alfred Hitchcock in 1938, Ethel Lina White's suspenseful mystery remains her best-known novel, worthy of acknowledgement as a classic of the genre in its own right.

The discovery of Sir Robert Boniface’s body on the floor of his blue limousine was made quite accidentally on a sultry Friday evening towards the end of June. The industrial and financial tycoon, and former stalwart of the British Cabinet, had been shot in the head and left in the quiet Vale of Health alongside London’s Hampstead Heath. Nearby, a rejected portrait of Sir Robert is found riddled with bullets in the studio of the now- missing romantic artist Matt Caldwell. As it hurtles towards its feverish denouement under the bells of the capital’s most famous clock, this closely observed and stylish study of both character and motive transports the reader from the Stock Exchange to Scotland Yard. It asks the question of what it means to be crooked and how immense power corrupts. First published in 1934, this novel is now extremely rare, and is long overdue its rediscovery.

Sharp left by the school and down the lane to the gas works. The gasworks? I, a dentist, heading for the gasworks in a small Welsh market town? It was the furnace I wanted... From the dramatic scenery of Snowdonia and the Gower to the stunning coastlines and hushed valleys, the landscapes of Wales have inspired many writers of Golden Age mystery stories - from within and without its borders. Centred around a lost novella by Cledwyn Hughes, this new collection features the best stories from celebrated Welsh authors such as Mary Fitt and Ethel Lina White, as well as short mysteries inspired by or set in the cities and wilds of the country by both beloved Golden Age writers and authors from the 1960s and 70s who continued to push the boundaries of the genre.

On holiday in Keldstone visiting his nephew, Jim, blanket manufacturer Athelstan Digby agrees to look after the old bookshop on the ground floor of his lodgings while his hosts are away. On the first day of his tenure, a vicar, a chauffeur and an out-of-town stranger enquire after The Life and Death of Mr. Badman by John Bunyan. When a copy mysteriously arrives at the shop in a bundle of books brought in by a young scamp, and is subsequently stolen, Digby moves to investigate the significance of the book along with his nephew, and the two are soon embroiled in a case in which the stakes have risen from antiquarian book-pinching to ruthless murder. First published in a limited run in 1934, this exceedingly rare and fast-paced bibliomystery set against the landscapes of Yorkshire is long overdue its return to print.

"I'm minded of the way a fire spreads in dry bracken when we burn it off the fellside: tongues of flame this way and that - 'tis human tongues and words that's creeping like flames in brushwood." It all began up at High Gimmerdale with the sheep-stealing, a hateful act in the shepherding lands around the bend in the Lune river - the Crook o' Lune. Then came the fire at Aikengill house and with the leaping of the flames, death, disorder and dangerous gossip came to the quiet moorlands. Visiting his friends, the Hoggetts, while searching for some farmland to buy up ahead of his retirement, Chief Inspector Robert Macdonald's trip becomes a busman's holiday when he is drawn to investigate the deadly blaze and the deep-rooted motives behind the rising spate of crimes. Renowned for its authentic characters and settings based partly on the author's own experiences of life in the Lune valley, E.C.R. Lorac's classic rural mystery returns to print for the first time since 1953.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.