A request from the Danish Ambassador leads Albert Campion into a baffling murder case in this finely crafted historical mystery. The Danish Ambassador has requested Albert Campion's help on 'a delicate family matter'. He's very concerned about his eighteen-year-old daughter, who has formed an attachment to a most unsuitable young man. Recruiting his unemployed actor son, Rupert, to keep an eye on Frank Tate, the young man in question, Mr Campion notes some decidedly odd behaviour on the part of the up-and-coming photographer. Before he can act on the matter, however, both the Ambassador's daughter and her beau disappear without trace. Then a body is discovered in a lagoon. With appearances from all of Margery Allingham's regular characters, from Campion's former manservant Lugg, to his wife Lady Amanda Fitton and others, this witty and elegant mystery is sure to delight Allingham's many fans. The dialogue is sharp and witty, the observation keen, and the climax is thrilling and eerily atmospheric.

Following the death of the senior English master in a tragic road accident, Mr Campion's son Rupert and daughter-in-law Perdita are helping out at Ash Grange School for Boys, where Perdita's godfather is headmaster. While Perdita is directing the end-of-term play, a musical version of Dr Faustus, Rupert is tackling the school's rugby football team - and both of them are finding their allotted tasks more of a challenge than they had anticipated. When the headmaster telephones Albert Campion to inform him that Rupert has been arrested, Mr Campion heads to Yorkshire to get to the bottom of the matter. There are no secrets in the traditional mining village of Denby Ash, he's told - but on uncovering reports of a disruptive poltergeist, a firebrand trade unionist, a missing conman and a local witch, he finds that's far from being the case. And was the English master, Mr Browne's, death really an accident . . .?

Following the death of the senior English master in a tragic road accident, Mr Campion's son Rupert and daughter-in-law Perdita are helping out at Ash Grange School for Boys, where Perdita's godfather is headmaster. While Perdita is directing the end-of-term play, a musical version of Dr Faustus, Rupert is tackling the school's rugby football team - and both of them are finding their allotted tasks more of a challenge than they had anticipated. When the headmaster telephones Albert Campion to inform him that Rupert has been arrested, Mr Campion heads to Yorkshire to get to the bottom of the matter. There are no secrets in the traditional mining village of Denby Ash, he's told - but on uncovering reports of a disruptive poltergeist, a firebrand trade unionist, a missing conman and a local witch, he finds that's far from being the case. And was the English master, Mr Browne's, death really an accident . . .?

A request from the Danish Ambassador leads Albert Campion into a baffling case of murder in this finely-crafted historical mystery. The Danish Ambassador has requested Albert Campion's help on 'a delicate family matter'. He's very concerned about his eighteen-year-old daughter, who has formed an attachment to a most unsuitable young man. Recruiting his unemployed actor son, Rupert, to keep an eye on Frank Tate, the young man in question, Mr Campion notes some decidedly odd behaviour on the part of the up-and-coming photographer. Before he can act on the matter, however, both the Ambassador's daughter and her beau disappear without trace. Then a body is discovered in a lagoon. With appearances from all of Margery Allingham's regular characters, from Campion's former manservant Lugg, to his wife Lady Amanda Fitton and others, this witty and elegant mystery is sure to delight Allingham's many fans. The dialogue is sharp and witty, the observation keen, and the climax is thrilling and eerily atmospheric.

The idyllic English village of Lindsay Carfax isn't run by the parish council, the rating authority, the sanitary inspector nor the local cops as you might suppose. The real bosses are the Carders - something to do with wool, four hundred years back. They wound stuff on cards, I suppose. But these boys are very fly customers - they're right on the ball. Boiled down, it comes to this; they're a syndicate who run this place - which makes a packet - with their own rules. One way and another they probably own most of it." Thus ruminated Superintendent Charles Luke to Albert Campion who was contemplating visiting his wayward artistic niece in Carfax. And when a missing schoolteacher reappeared after nine days, and Campion's car was "inadvertently" damaged, not to mention Campion himself, then all the signs were that not all was what it seemed. Campion himself plays the central role in this quintessentially British mystery, but there are appearances too from all of Margery Allingham's regular characters, from Luke to Campion's former manservant Lugg, to his wife Lady Amanda Fitton and others. The dialogue is sharp and witty, the observation keen, and the climax is thrilling and eerily atmospheric.

Albert Campion is in the bleak, remote and very muddy village of Wicken on the Essex coast on a mission to rescue Dame Jocasta's dog, but soon finds himself sinking into something far more dangerous. East coast of England, 1971. Harvard student Mason Clay is writing a thesis on a group of settlers who travelled to America from the remote Essex coastal village of Wicken-juxta-Mare 300 years ago. Clay plans to visit Wicken as part of his research, and who better assist him with all things Essex than Albert Campion? But Wicken is already firmly on Campion's radar thanks to Dame Jocasta Upcott's luxury yacht found beached on a mudbank close to the village, its captain very stuck - and very dead - in the mud. Was it a bizarre accident or something more sinister? Agreeing to Dame Jocasta's request to recover her beloved pet pooch, Robespierre, Campion finds himself in Wicken, surrounded by suspicious locals and tales of witchcraft, and soon discovers its past is linked to a number of current disturbing events . . .

Nick Miller is Central Division's maverick Detective Sergeant. Disliked and distrusted by friends and foes, he works alone. He crosses the line. And he gets results. The Graveyard Shift... Nick Miller is new to the graveyard shift - the midnight hours when the driven and the desperate come out to play. Tonight Ben Garvald is out of prison. After nine years inside, he's back in the old neighbourhood. Back to his remarried ex-wife. Back for revenge. Brought in Dead... Then after a fatal night out, a girl's body is pulled from an isolated stretch of river. The last person to see her alive had enemies on both sides of the fence. Miller wants justice. But so does her father - with or without the law on his side. Hell Is Always Today... And the Rainlover. Whose victims are always women. Always at night when the streets are wet. He could be any one of a thousand men. Hounded by the public and the press, Miller needs to find him before he strikes again. It's time to throw out the rule book in the line of duty. GRAVEYARD TO HELL Jack Higgins' gritty police saga set in the 1960s, first released as three short volumes and long out of print, is now reimagined as one gripping novel, packing a punch as only 'The Legend' of thriller fiction knows how.

A gruesome discovery at an aircraft hanger leads Albert Campion into a turbulent mystery set in Cambridge in the middle of the Cold War. "Ripley again marries a crafty plotline with a persuasive evocation of Allingham's style and characterizations. Fans of the originals will be delighted"- Publishers Weekly Starred Review "I have often said that my wife is a constant surprise to me." Cambridge, 1965. The honorary doctorate ceremony for Albert Campion's wife takes a dramatic turn when Lady Amanda is arrested by Special Branch for breaking the Official Secrets Act. Never before having taken much interest in his wife's work in cutting-edge aircraft design, Mr Campion sets out to discover more about the top-secret Goshawk Project in which Amanda is involved. He quickly realizes he is not the only one keen to learn the secrets of the project. When a badly mutilated body is discovered at the Goshawk Project's hangar - the result, it would appear, of a bizarre accident - Campion is drawn into a turbulent mix of industrial espionage and matters of national security. And as he attempts to get to the bottom of the deadly goings-on, it seems that the bicycles and punts are almost as dangerous as the aircraft . . .

The truth is stranger than fiction for Albert Campion in this gripping mystery where murder, detective novels and the supernatural collide. 1946, London. The eagerly anticipated new detective novel from Albert Campion's godsibling, bestselling author Evadne Childe, is proving to be another runaway success. Unfortunately, it has also caught the attention of Superintendent Stanislaus Oates for reasons that go beyond its superior plotting. The crime at the heart of The Bottle Party Murder bears a number of striking similarities to a very real, recent and unsolved murder at the Grafton Club in Soho. Evadne wrote the book before the murder occurred, yet predicts it remarkably accurately - is it just a weird coincidence, is Evadne getting her information from 'the other side', or is something more sinister afoot? The repercussions of this extraordinary and complex case will reach out over the next fifteen years, drawing in three of Mr Campion's favourite policemen - Oates, Yeo and Luke - before finally coming to its violent conclusion in 1962.

Campions young and old, extended family members and loyal friends are gathered at the Dorchester Hotel to celebrate Albert Campion's seventieth birthday - along with some intriguing, unrecognizable guests. Who exactly are the mysterious, aristocratic, scar-faced German, Freiherr Robert von Ringer, and the elegantly chic Madame Thibus - and what is their connection to Mr Campion? Campion has decided the time has come to enthral his guests with his account of his wartime experiences in Vichy France more than twenty-five years before, but in doing so he unveils a series of extraordinary events. Why here, and why now? Not least as Campion's shocking revelations have repercussions which reverberate to the present day, putting one of his guests in deadly danger . . .

'So where exactly did Albert Campion stand on the Abdication?' 'Behind the throne, slightly to the left?' suggested Commander Charles Luke. Margery Allingham's Mr Campion finds himself masquerading as technical advisor to a very suspicious but glamorous Italian film producer and her crew hunting for buried treasure that never was in the Suffolk village of Heronhoe near Pontisbright which used to host trysts between Edward VIII and Mrs Wallis Simpson. 'When it came to the Abdication Crisis in '36 those dirty week-ends in Heronhoe were quickly forgotten, except not by the Prince. The story goes - that when he married Mrs Simpson, in 1937 that would be, he actually sent a valuable thank you gift to Heronhoe. That was what became known as the Abdication Treasure although there's no record of anything going to Heronhoe Hall, or of anybody ever receiving anything from the Duke of Windsor and nobody anywhere claims to have actually seen anything resembling treasure.' 'So how is Albert Campion involved? You said the treasure doesn't exist.' 'It doesn't,' Lord Breeze said firmly, 'and I have been instructed to tell you to tell Campion, that unless he wants to risk embarrassing Buckingham Palace, he'd better lay off. There's no such thing as the Abdication Treasure, so there's nothing to find and Campion had better make sure he doesn't find it!'

A request from the Danish Ambassador leads Albert Campion into a baffling murder case in this finely crafted historical mystery. The Danish Ambassador has requested Albert Campion's help on 'a delicate family matter'. He's very concerned about his eighteen-year-old daughter, who has formed an attachment to a most unsuitable young man. Recruiting his unemployed actor son, Rupert, to keep an eye on Frank Tate, the young man in question, Mr Campion notes some decidedly odd behaviour on the part of the up-and-coming photographer. Before he can act on the matter, however, both the Ambassador's daughter and her beau disappear without trace. Then a body is discovered in a lagoon. With appearances from all of Margery Allingham's regular characters, from Campion's former manservant Lugg, to his wife Lady Amanda Fitton and others, this witty and elegant mystery is sure to delight Allingham's many fans. The dialogue is sharp and witty, the observation keen, and the climax is thrilling and eerily atmospheric.

An intriguing case of higher education and lower morals: the entertaining new Albert Campion mystery. Suffolk, 1970. Albert Campion is back in Black Dudley, once the scene of murder and mayhem but now home to the brand-new University of Suffolk Coastal. Appointed to the role of the university's Visitor, Campion finds he has a curiously vague remit, but his initial visit to the concrete campus takes an unexpected turn when the body of charismatic Chilean professor Pascual Perez-Catalan, a rising star and genius scientist in the field of geochemistry, is fished out of the ornamental lake. It seems Pascual was unpopular among his fellow academics and lecturers, his trail-blazing research taking up most of the university's new computing capacity . . . and he was also a keen ladies man. Drawn into another puzzling murder, Campion must negotiate internal politics, seething jealousy and resentment, blackmail, betrayal and a phantom trumpeter as he searches for a ruthless killer.

A gruesome discovery at an aircraft hanger leads Albert Campion into a turbulent mystery set in Cambridge in the middle of the Cold War. "Ripley again marries a crafty plotline with a persuasive evocation of Allingham's style and characterizations. Fans of the originals will be delighted"- Publishers Weekly Starred Review "I have often said that my wife is a constant surprise to me." Cambridge, 1965. The honorary doctorate ceremony for Albert Campion's wife takes a dramatic turn when Lady Amanda is arrested by Special Branch for breaking the Official Secrets Act. Never before having taken much interest in his wife's work in cutting-edge aircraft design, Mr Campion sets out to discover more about the top-secret Goshawk Project in which Amanda is involved. He quickly realizes he is not the only one keen to learn the secrets of the project. When a badly mutilated body is discovered at the Goshawk Project's hangar - the result, it would appear, of a bizarre accident - Campion is drawn into a turbulent mix of industrial espionage and matters of national security. And as he attempts to get to the bottom of the deadly goings-on, it seems that the bicycles and punts are almost as dangerous as the aircraft . . .

Albert Campion travels to Dorset as he attempts to get to the bottom of a series of shocking events connected to a TV adaptation of one of Evadne Childe's famous novels. "Ripley's brilliant inventiveness demonstrates that golden age characters and tropes can still work for contemporary fair-play fans"- Publishers Weekly Starred Review London, 1972. The Evadne Childe Society has gathered in honour of what would have been the author's eighty-second birthday, and Albert Campion is there as a reluctant guest speaker and ceremonial birthday cake cutter. But Campion's oratory skills aren't the only thing in demand. A TV remake of a twenty-year-old film adaptation of one of Evadne's classic novels, The Moving Mosaic, has been derailed by someone attempting to murder the leading man - the latest in a series of increasingly disturbing incidents - and the society wants Campion to investigate. Who is determined to sabotage the production at any cost, and why? Travelling to the picturesque village of Kingswalter Manor in Dorset where filming is due to start, Campion soon stumbles upon dark secrets, ghosthunters, an impressive mosaic, and murder.

"Pop has never talked about what he did in the war . Whatever he did, it was pretty secret stuff": the intriguing new Albert Campion mystery. Campions young and old, extended family members and loyal friends are gathered at the Dorchester Hotel to celebrate Albert Campion's seventieth birthday - along with some intriguing, unrecognizable guests. Who exactly are the mysterious, aristocratic, scar-faced German, Freiherr Robert von Ringer, and the elegantly chic Madame Thibus - and what is their connection to Mr Campion? Campion has decided the time has come to enthral his guests with his account of his wartime experiences in Vichy France more than twenty-five years before, but in doing so he unveils a series of extraordinary events. Why here, and why now? Not least as Campion's shocking revelations have repercussions which reverberate to the present day, putting one of his guests in deadly danger . . .

An intriguing case of higher education and lower morals: the entertaining new Albert Campion mystery. Suffolk, 1970. Albert Campion is back in Black Dudley, once the scene of murder and mayhem but now home to the brand-new University of Suffolk Coastal. Appointed to the role of the university's Visitor, Campion finds he has a curiously vague remit, but his initial visit to the concrete campus takes an unexpected turn when the body of charismatic Chilean professor Pascual Perez-Catalan, a rising star and genius scientist in the field of geochemistry, is fished out of the ornamental lake. It seems Pascual was unpopular among his fellow academics and lecturers, his trail-blazing research taking up most of the university's new computing capacity . . . and he was also a keen ladies man. Drawn into another puzzling murder, Campion must negotiate internal politics, seething jealousy and resentment, blackmail, betrayal and a phantom trumpeter as he searches for a ruthless killer.

WINNER OF THE HRF KEATING AWARD FOR BEST NON-FICTION CRIME BOOK 2018 An entertaining history of British thrillers from Casino Royale to The Eagle Has Landed, in which award-winning crime writer Mike Ripley reveals that, though Britain may have lost an empire, her thrillers helped save the world. With a foreword by Lee Child. When Ian Fleming dismissed his books in a 1956 letter to Raymond Chandler as 'straight pillow fantasies of the bang-bang, kiss-kiss variety' he was being typically immodest. In three short years, his James Bond novels were already spearheading a boom in thriller fiction that would dominate the bestseller lists, not just in Britain, but internationally. The decade following World War II had seen Britain lose an Empire, demoted in terms of global power and status and economically crippled by debt; yet its fictional spies, secret agents, soldiers, sailors and even (occasionally) journalists were now saving the world on a regular basis. From Ian Fleming and Alistair MacLean in the 1950s through Desmond Bagley, Dick Francis, Len Deighton and John Le Carre in the 1960s, to Frederick Forsyth and Jack Higgins in the 1970s. Many have been labelled 'boys' books' written by men who probably never grew up but, as award-winning writer and critic Mike Ripley recounts, the thrillers of this period provided the reader with thrills, adventure and escapism, usually in exotic settings, or as today's leading thriller writer Lee Child puts it in his Foreword: 'the thrill of immersion in a fast and gaudy world.' In Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Ripley examines the rise of the thriller from the austere 1950s through the boom time of the Swinging Sixties and early 1970s, examining some 150 British authors (plus a few notable South Africans). Drawing upon conversations with many of the authors mentioned in the book, he shows how British writers, working very much in the shadow of World War II, came to dominate the field of adventure thrillers and the two types of spy story - spy fantasy (as epitomised by Ian Fleming's James Bond) and the more realistic spy fiction created by Deighton, Le Carre and Ted Allbeury, plus the many variations (and imitators) in between.

'England's funniest crime writer' The Times 'Charming and full of surprises' Booklist Strange things happen in the picture-postcard English village of Lindsay Carfax. When a young man falls into a quarry, it takes nine days to find the body. When rowdy hippies descend on the village, they're given nine days to leave. When an outspoken schoolmaster is kidnapped for nine days, he stays eerily quiet after his release. Now Albert Campion has come to town - meaning to investigate all this strangeness. But whoever is behind the unusual goings-on quickly makes it very clear that his nosing around is not welcome. Undeterred by threats, Campion is determined to expose the criminal masterminds hiding in this sleepy village.