Ten years since it was first published in hardback, and now for the first time in mass market paperback, this volume of short stories by the cream of British crime writing talent celebrates 75 years of the quintessential Detection Club. The Detection Club represents the cream of British crime writing talent. Founded on the cusp of the 1930s, the Club's first President was G.K. Chesterton, and since then the mantle of Presidency has passed to some of the most significant names inthe history of crime fiction, including Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Julian Symons. The Club meets three times a year - to dine, to plot, and to exchange ideas. This anthology includes eleven new stories by the Best of British: Robert Barnard, Lyndsey Davis, Colin Dexter, Clare Francis, Robert Goddard, John Harvey, Reginald Hill, P.D. James, H.R.F. Keating, Michael Ridpath and Margaret Yorke, and has been edited by the Club's President, Simon Brett. Among the authors are a number of bestsellers, as well as winners of both Diamond and Gold Daggers. This outstanding collection is a must for crime lovers everywhere. P.D. James * The Part-Time Job Michael Ridpath * Partnership Track H.R.F. Keating * A Toothbrush John Harvey * The Sun, the Moon and the Stars Lindsey Davis * 'Going Anywhere Nice?' Colin Dexter * Between the Lines Robert Barnard * The Life-lie Margaret Yorke * The Woman from Marlow Robert Goddard * Toupee for a Bald Tyre Clare Francis * The Holiday Reginald Hill * Fool of Myself

PI can mean many things, but can it really mean a balding, middle-aged lathe operator from a high rise in Luton? Joe Sixsmith thinks it can. His Aunt Mirabelle thinks you'd have to be crazy to hire him, and Joe's current clients certainly fit the bill. One's confessing to the brutal murder of his whole family; another thinks she's a witch. Next to them, the two heavies who believe Joe is hiding their illicit drugs seem almost normal. As Joe stumbles his way through bodies, gangsters and hostile police officers, he is protected by a combination of sheer luck and the help of a new lady friend. And soon it seems like he might just surpass everyone's expectations...

'Few writers in the genre today have Hill's gifts: formidable intelligence, quick humour, compassion and a prose style that blends elegance and grace' Sunday Times Joe Sixsmith is going west, though only as far the Llanffugiol Choral Festival in Wales. But his plans are interrupted when they happen upon a burning house with a mysterious woman trapped inside. Joe risks life and limb to rescue the woman, only to be roped in to the investigation by the police officer in charge. Suddenly surrounded by a bevy of suspicious characters, he soon realizes that this case is much more than just arson. Aided by little more than his acute instinct for truth, Joe moves forward over the space of a single weekend to uncover crimes which have been buried for years.

A fantastic mystery short story collection, the perfect Christmas gift for crime fiction lovers A beloved detective dies in a fire Sherlock Holmes takes a trip to Italy A disastrous case of mistaken identity From his well-loved detective duo, DCI Dalziel and DI Pascoe to his own reimagining of Sherlock Holmes, Reginald Hill’s unforgettable characters and unique blend of humour and suspense make him one of Britain’s greatest crime writers. Complete with a foreword by Mick Herron, this collection of short stories showcases the very best of this iconic mystery writer.

A fast-moving, stunning new stand-alone psychological thriller from the award-winning author of the Dalziel and Pascoe series.
Wolf Hadda's life has been a fairytale. From humble origins as a woodcutter's son, he has risen to become a hugely successful entrepreneur, happily married to the girl of his dreams. But knock on the door one morning ends it all.
Universally reviled, thrown into prison while protesting his innocence, abandoned by friends and family, Wolf retreats into silence. Seven years later prison psychiatrist Alva Ozigbo makes the breakthrough. Wolf begins to talk and under her guidance gets parole, returning to his rundown family home in rural Cumbria. But there's a mysterious period in Wolf's youth when he disappeared from home and was known to his employers as the Woodcutter. And now the Woodcutter is back, looking for the truth -- and with the truth, revenge. Can Alva intervene before his pursuit of vengeance takes him to a place from which he can never come back . . . ?

"From the Hardcover edition."

Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel investigates a murder close to home in this first crime novel featuring the much-loved detective team of Dalziel and Pascoe. 'So far out in front that he need not bother looking over his shoulder' Sunday Telegraph Home from the rugby club after taking a nasty knock in a match, Sam Connon finds his wife more uncommunicative than usual. After passing out on his bed for a few hours, he comes downstairs to discover communication has been cut off forever - by a hole in the middle of her forehead. Andy Dalziel, a long-standing member of the club, wants to run the murder investigation along his own lines. But DS Peter Pascoe's loyalties lie elsewhere and he has quite different ideas about how the case should proceed...

'Reginald Hill stands head and shoulders above any other writer of homebred crime fiction' Observer PI can mean many things, but can it really mean a balding, middle-aged lathe operator from a high rise in Luton? Joe Sixsmith thinks it can. His Aunt Mirabelle thinks you'd have to be crazy to hire him, and Joe's current clients certainly fit the bill. One's confessing to the brutal murder of his whole family; another thinks she's a witch. Next to them, the two heavies who believe Joe is hiding their illicit drugs seem almost normal. As Joe stumbles his way through bodies, gangsters and hostile police officers, he is protected by a combination of sheer luck and the help of a new lady friend. And soon it seems like he might just surpass everyone's expectations...

'Killing the Lawyers...is entertaining, sly, jokey...cynical, well written, and teems with sparkly dialogue - all the virtues we expect from Hill' Marcel Berlins The Times Joe Sixsmith, Luton's premier PI, is naturally on the side of the Law... Trouble is, the Law isn't always ready to return the compliment. When Joe turns to the town's top law firm for help in a dispute, he is subjected to nothing but abuse. He walks out, vowing to have vengeance. Then someone starts killing the partners one by one, and Joe is the main suspect. At the same time as facing murder charges, Joe is trying to discover who is threatening top athlete Zak Oto. Everyone looks suspicious, from her ex-con minder, Starbright Jones, to her own family. But Joe knows he's getting close when someone starts trying to kill him...

'Few writers in the genre today have Hill's gifts: formidable intelligence, quick humour, compassion and a prose style that blends elegance and grace' Donna Leon, Sunday Times Hurrying out of St Monkey's church one day, Joe Sixsmith stumbles across a boy's corpse in a cardboard box and into more trouble than he's ever known. His casebook is full to bursting: retired colonial Mrs C. demands to know how the boy got there; Gallie, the Mutant from Outer Space, urges him to find the stranger nosing into her granddad's past; while Butcher, that briefest of briefs, is hellbent on digging the dirt on a deputy head's out-of-school activities. Joe threads his way through the mean streets of Luton, fighting off cops, druggies and the matchmaking machinations of his Auntie Mirabelle. But there's little joy to be found in the truth: that kids grow up fast, and that even the luckiest ones are born guilty.

'One of Britain's most consistently excellent crime novelists' The Times '[Reginald Hill] keeps one on the edge of one's wits throughout a bitterly enthralling detection thriller' Sunday Times Where better for a hitman to retire than in the Lake District, where the air is healthy and the scenery spectacular? And when Jaymith meets attractive young widow, Anya Wilson, he can't believe his luck. But Jaysmith soon discovers that settling down to the quiet life is not as easy as it seems. His old employers aren't keen to lose him, his past is always lying in wait, and when Anya introduces him to her family, Jaysmith realizes there's no way out. He's back in business, and it makes little difference that this time it's to defend, not destroy. However you wrap it up, his one accessible talent is the Long Kill.

'Luminously written, thrilling, unexpectedly erudite, and beautifully structured' Geoffrey Wansell, Daily Mail When Ellie Pascoe finds herself under threat, her husband DCI Peter Pascoe and Superintendent Andy Dalziel assume it's because she's married to a cop. While they hunt down the source of the danger, Ellie heads out of town in search of a haven... only to get tangled up in a conspiracy involving Irish arms, Colombian drugs and men who will stop at nothing to achieve their ends. Dalziel eventually concludes the security services are involved, but by then it is too late. Ellie's on her own - and must dig deep down into her reserves to survive...

New Dalziel and Pascoe novel from Britain's finest male crime writer: 'Reginald Hill stands head and shoulders above any other writer of homebred crime fiction' Tom Hiney, Observer A man drowns. Another dies in a motorbike crash. Two accidents ... yet in a pair of so-called Dialogues sent to the Mid-Yorkshire Gazette as entries in a short story competition, someone seems to be taking responsibility for the deaths. In Mid-Yorkshire CID these claims are greeted with disbelief. But when the story is leaked to television and a third indisputable murder takes place, Dalziel and Pascoe find themselves playing a game no one knows the rules of against an opponent known only as the Wordman.

The brilliant new crime thriller featuring Dalziel and Pascoe from the Top Ten Bestseller, Reginald Hill The locked-room suicide of Pal Maciver exactly mirrors that of his father ten years earlier. In both cases, Pal's stepmother Kay Kafka is implicated. But Kay has a formidable champion in the form of Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel... An obstructive superior is just the first of DCI Peter Pascoe's problems. Disentangling the tortured relations of the Maciver family is any detective's nightmare, and the fallout from Pal's death reaches far beyond Yorkshire. For some, it seems, the heart is a locked room where it is always midnight...

'Deplorably readable' Observer Everyone knew about the kind of films they showed at the Calliope Club - once the Residents' Association and the local Women's Group had given them some free publicity. But when Peter Pascoe's dentist suggests that one film in particular is more than just good clean dirty fun, the inspector begins to make a few discreet inquiries. Before they bear fruit, though, the dentist has been accused of having sex with an underage patient, the cinema has been wrecked and its elderly owner murdered. Superintendent Dalziel expects no more from professional men who watch blue films. But Pascoe has a hunch that this time Dalziel is way off target...

Superintendent Dalziel falls for the recently bereaved Mrs Fielding's ample charms, and has to be rescued from a litter of fresh corpses by Inspector Pascoe. Superintendent Andy Dalziel's holiday runs into trouble when he gets marooned by flood water. Rescued and taken to nearby Lake House, he discovers all is not well: the owner has just died tragically and the family fortunes are in decline. He also finds himself drawn to attractive widow, Bonnie Fielding. But several more deaths are to follow. And by the time Pascoe gets involved, it looks like the normally hard-headed Dalziel might have compromised himself beyond redemption.

'Hill is an instinctive and complete novelist who is blessed with a spontaneous storytelling gift' Frances Fyfield, Mail on Sunday Fifteen years ago they moved everyone out of Dendale. They needed a new reservoir and an old community seemed a cheap price to pay. But four inhabitants of the valley could not be moved, for nobody knew where they were: three little girls who had gone missing, and the prime suspect in their disappearance, Benny Lightfoot. This was Andy Dalziel's worst case and now he looks set to relive it. Another child goes missing in the next valley, and old fears arise as someone sprays the deadly message on Danby bridge: BENNY'S BACK!

The highly anticipated return of Dalziel and Pascoe, the hugely popular police duo and stars of the BBC TV series, in a new psychological thriller. Gina Wolfe is searching for her missing husband, believed dead, and hopes Superintendent Andy Dalziel can help. What neither realize is that there are others on the same trail. A tabloid hack with some awkward enquiries about an ambitious MP's father. The politician's secretary who shares his suspicions. The ruthless entrepreneur in question - and the two henchmen out to make sure the past stays in the past. Four stories, two mismatched detectives trying to figure it all out, and 24 hours in which to do it: Dalziel and Pascoe are about to learn the hard way exactly how much difference a day makes...

All is not well at Holm Coultram College. All is not well at Holm Coultram College: lecturers having affairs with students, witches' sabbaths, a body buried under a statue. Detective Superintendent Dalziel, despite his cynical view of academics, doesn't feel murder fits in here - let alone a rash of killings. But when he and DS Pascoe are sent to investigate a disinterred corpse at Holm Coultram College, that's exactly what they find...

For suspense, ingenuity and sheer comic effrontery this takes the absolute, appetizing biscuit' Sunday Times High in the Mid-Yorkshire Dales stands the traditional village of Enscombe, seemingly untouched by the modern world. But contemporary life is about to intrude when the disappearance of a policeman brings Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel and DCI Peter Pascoe to its doors. As the detectives dig beneath the veneer of idyllic village life a new pattern emerges: of family feuds, ancient injuries, cheating and lies. And finally, as the community gathers for the traditional Squire's Reckoning, it looks as if the simmering tensions will erupt in a bloody climax...

'Reginald Hill stands head and shoulders above any other writer of crime fiction' Observer When Geraldine Lomas dies, her huge fortune is left to an animal rights organization, a fascist front and a services benevolent fund. But at her funeral a middle-aged man steps forward, claiming to be her long-lost son and rightful heir. He is later found shot dead in the police car park, leaving behind a multitude of suspects. And Superintendent Dalziel and Peter Pascoe find themselves plunged into an investigation that makes most of their previous cases look like child's play...

'Hill is an instinctive and complete novelist who is blessed with a spontaneous storytelling gift' Frances Fyfield, Mail on Sunday If you've already met Dalziel and Pascoe, you're in for a treat. If you haven't yet had the pleasure, you're in for a revelation! Here in four stories we track their partnership from curtain-up to last act; from the mean streets of Mid-Yorkshire to the mountains of the moon. The Last National Service Man reveals the truth, hitherto buried in police files, of their momentous first encounter, while Pascoe's Ghost is a chilling tale taking us deep into Poe country. Dalziel's Ghost, meanwhile, finds the man who normally wouldn't be seen dead in a graveyard expressing a surprising interest in the 'other side'. And finally, One Small Step takes a giant leap forward to the first murder on the moon.

Another excellent Dalziel and Pascoe story from the master of the British crime novel Three old men die on a stormy November night: one by deliberate violence, one in a road accident and one by an unknown cause. Inspector Pascoe is called in to investigate the first death, but when the dying words of the accident victim suggest that a drunken Superintendent Dalziel had been behind the wheel, the integrity of the entire Mid-Yorkshire constabulary is called into question. Helped by the bright but wayward DC Seymour, hindered by ‘Maggie’s Moron’, the half-witted Constable Hector, Peter Pascoe enters the twilight and vulnerable world of the senior citizen – to discover that the beckoning darkness at the end of the tunnel holds few comforts.

'Hill's wit is the constant, ironic foil to his vision, and to call this a mere crime novel is to say Everest is a nice little hill' Frances Hegarty, Mail on Sunday When animal-rights activists uncover a long-dead uniformed body in the grounds of Wanwood House, a research facility, Dalziel is presented with a seemingly insoluble mystery. And he is further perplexed when he's attracted to one of the campaigners - now implicated in a murderous assault. Meanwhile, the death of his grandmother has led Peter Pascoe to the battlefields of World War 1 and the enigma of who his grandfather was - and why he had to die.

'One of the modern masters of the police procedural' Sunday Telegraph Peter Pascoe is in shock. A weekend in the country with old friends turns into a nightmare when he finds three of them dead and the missing fourth a prime suspect in the eyes of the local police. They want his cooperation, but Superintendent Dalziel needs him back in Yorkshire where a string of unsolved burglaries looks like turning nasty. As events unfold, though, the two cases seem to be getting entwined...

Reginald Hill's best-selling duo, Dalziel and Pascoe, return in this brilliant, complex and ultimately moving crime novel: 'Reginald Hill is probably the best living crime writer in the English-speaking world' - Independent Ex-convict and aspiring academic, Franny Roote, has started writing enigmatic letters to DCI Peter Pascoe who immediately smells a rat. DS Edgar Wield, intervening in a suspected kidnapping, takes a vulnerable rentboy under his wing, one who is hiding an earth-shattering secret. And young DC Bowler is looking forward to a weekend away with his girlfriend - but her dreams are filled with a horror too terrifying to share. Detective Chief Superintendent Andy Dalziel, lording it over his team, is famed for his omniscience. But even he is unable to foresee the disaster towards which they are all tumbling...