The Christmas season is one of comfort and joy, sparkling lights and steam rising from cups of mulled wine at frosty carol services. A season of goodwill to all men, as families and friends come together to forget their differences and celebrate the year together.

Unless, of course, you happen to be harbouring a grudge. Or hiding a guilty secret. Or you want something so much you just have to have it - whatever the cost. In A Very Murderous Christmas, ten of the best classic crime writers come together to unleash festive havoc, with murder, mayhem and twists aplenty.

Following Murder on Christmas Eve and Murder under the Christmas Tree, this is the perfect accompaniment to a mince pie and a roaring fire. Just make sure you're really, truly alone ...

This anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together 18 tales from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form, including uncollected stories by Ngaio Marsh and John Dickson Carr. The Golden Age of detective fiction had begun inauspiciously with the publication of E.C. Bentley's schismatic Trent's Last Case in 1913, but it hit its stride in 1920 when both Agatha Christie and Freeman Wills Crofts - latterly crowned queen and king of the genre - had crime novels published for the first time. They ushered in two decades of exemplary mystery writing, the era of the whodunit, the impossible crime and the locked-room mystery, with stories that have thrilled and baffled generations of readers. This new volume in the Bodies from the Library series features the work of 18 prolific authors who, like Christie and Crofts, saw their popularity soar during the Golden Age. Aside from novels, they all wrote short fiction - stories, serials and plays - and although most of them have been collected in books over the last 100 years, here are the ones that got away... In this book you will encounter classic series detectives including Colonel Gore, Roger Sheringham, Hildegarde Withers and Henri Bencolin; Hercule Poirot solves 'The Incident of the Dog's Ball'; Roderick Alleyn returns to New Zealand in a recently discovered television drama by Ngaio Marsh; and Dorothy L. Sayers' chilling 'The House of the Poplars' is published for the first time. With a full-length novella by John Dickson Carr and an unpublished radio script by Cyril Hare, this diverse collection concludes with some early 'flash fiction' commissioned by Collins' Crime Club in 1938. Each mini story had to feature an orange, resulting in six very different tales from Peter Cheyney, Ethel Lina White, David Hume, Nicholas Blake, John Rhode and - in his only foray into writing detective fiction - the publisher himself, William Collins.

This anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together 16 tales by masters of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form, including a newly discovered Agatha Christie crime story that has not been seen since 1922. At a time when crime and thriller writing has once again overtaken the sales of general and literary fiction, Bodies from the Library unearths lost stories from the Golden Age, that period between the World Wars when detective fiction captured the public's imagination and saw the emergence of some of the world's cleverest and most popular storytellers. This anthology brings together 16 forgotten tales that have either been published only once before - perhaps in a newspaper or rare magazine - or have never before appeared in print. From a previously unpublished 1917 script featuring Ernest Bramah's blind detective Max Carrados, to early 1950s crime stories written for London's Evening Standard by Cyril Hare, Freeman Wills Crofts and A.A. Milne, it spans five decades of writing by masters of the Golden Age. Most anticipated of all are the contributions by women writers: the first detective story by Georgette Heyer, unseen since 1923; an unpublished story by Christianna Brand, creator of Nanny McPhee; and a dark tale by Agatha Christie published only in an Australian journal in 1922 during her 'Grand Tour' of the British Empire. With other stories by Detection Club stalwarts Anthony Berkeley, H.C. Bailey, J.J. Connington, John Rhode and Nicholas Blake, plus Vincent Cornier, Leo Bruce, Roy Vickers and Arthur Upfield, this essential collection harks back to a time before forensic science - when murder was a complex business.

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY Staying with a friend in Oxfordshire, poet turned amateur detective Nigel Strangeways pays a visit to Robert Seaton, a distinguished British poet whom Nigel greatly admires but whose reputation has been on the decline of late. Seaton proves to be an irascible, temperamental man, and his unconventional household, featuring a resentful daughter and mute dwarf servant, simmers with tension. When a headless corpse is found floating in the river by the Seaton's house just a few weeks later, the poet becomes the prime suspect. But whose body is it? A Nigel Strangeways murder mystery - the perfect introduction to the most charming and erudite detective in Golden Age crime fiction.

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY Private detective Nigel Strangeways receives a call for help from Wonderland, a new holiday camp that has recently opened only to be plagued by a series of cruel practical jokes conducted by someone calling themselves 'The Mad Hatter'. The camp's owners are convinced a rival firm, desperate to put them out of business, are behind the events. Or could it be a disgruntled employee, or even one of the four hundred guests currently staying at the camp? As the pranks become increasingly dangerous and tensions rise, Nigel must do all he can to uncover the Mad Hatter's true identity - before it's too late. A Nigel Strangeways murder mystery - the perfect introduction to the most charming and erudite detective in Golden Age crime fiction.

Detective Nigel Strangeways, and his explorer wife Georgia have taken a cottage in the countryside. They are slowly beginning to adjust to a more relaxed way of life when Georgia finds a mysterious locket in their garden and unwittingly sets the couple on a collision course with a power-hungry movement aimed at overthrowing the government. It will take all of Nigel's brilliance and Georgia's bravery if they are to infiltrate the order and unmask the conspirators.

FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BEAST MUST DIE - NOW A BRITBOX SERIES The annual Sports Day at respected public school Sudeley Hall ends in tragedy when the headmaster's obnoxious nephew is found strangled in a haystack. The boy was despised by staff and students alike, but English master Michael Evans, who was seen sharing a kiss with the headmaster's beautiful young wife earlier that day, soon becomes a prime suspect for the murder. Luckily, his friend Nigel Strangeways, nephew to the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, is on hand to help investigate the case. A Nigel Strangeways murder mystery - the perfect introduction to the most charming and erudite detective in Golden Age crime fiction.

FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BEAST MUST DIE - NOW A BRITBOX SERIES Fergus O'Brien, a legendary World War One flying ace with several skeletons hidden in his closet, receives a series of mocking letters predicting that he will be murdered on Boxing Day. Undaunted, O'Brien throws a Christmas party, inviting everyone who could be suspected of making the threats, along with private detective Nigel Strangeways. But despite Nigel's presence, the former pilot is found dead, just as predicted, and Nigel is left to aid the local police in their investigation while trying to ignore his growing attraction to one of the other guests - and suspects - explorer Georgina Cavendish. A Nigel Strangeways murder mystery - the perfect introduction to the most charming and erudite detective in Golden Age crime fiction.

Netherplash Cantorum in Dorset was the village John Waterson and his young wife chose to live in after his retirement. In the event, this idyllic spot had one severe but unforeseeable drawback: among its inhabitants was a practical joker whose fertile mind ran to the most bizarre and grotesque designs. The Village was no place for a quite retirement, or for a gentle recuperation from the nervous breakdown that had afflicted Waterson's wife. In Netherplash Cantorum you couldn't tell what was going to happen next. Extra-ordinary events tripped over each other. Maybe it was just good fun - or fairly good fun, except that it became less and less funny, and eventually someone died hideously and painfully of it. There has never been a village murder story with a flavour comparable to that of The Deadly Joker. The weird events at Netherplash Contorum are made fascinating and convincing by characters who are both bizarre and credible, including the beautiful Indian Vera Paston, the brothers called Card, and Waterson himself. The many crime readers who are addicts of Nicholas Blake will delighted with the originality of this tour-de-force of crime fiction.

FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BEAST MUST DIE - NOW A BRITBOX SERIES Private detective and poet Nigel Strangeways is invited to address the Maiden Astbury literary society. The picturesque Dorset town is home to Bunnett's Brewery, run by the much disliked, and feared, Eustace Bunnett and shortly before Nigel's visit, Bunnett's dog Truffles, was found dead in one of the brewery's vats. The culprit was never caught - although there was no shortage of suspects - but when a body is then found in the same vat, boiled down to its bones, Nigel is called into action to help capture the killer. The third book in the Nigel Strangeways series, this is a gloriously inventive, puzzling and witty investigation to delight all fans of classic crime. A Nigel Strangeways murder mystery - the perfect introduction to the most charming and erudite detective in Golden Age crime fiction.

This volume first addresses the material details of the Human Rights Act 1998 and then examines the schemes for immigration control mandated by the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Further chapters contain in-depth analyses of the impact of the Human Rights Act 1998 on a number of areas of immigration and asylum law and practice in the UK.