Showing results by author "Julian Symons" in All Categories

Private detective Francis Quarles visits a man with a valuable collection of manuscripts written by murderers. During his stay, the man is killed after drinking cyanide-laced port. A cryptic literary clue in the front page of a book offers the only indication of who may be responsible. 

John Wilkins meets a beautiful, irresistible girl, and his world is turned upside down. Looking at his wife, and thinking of the girl, everything turns red before his eyes - the colour of murder. But did he really commit the heinous crime he was accused of?

Lady Wainwright presides over the Gothic gloom at Belting, in mourning for her two sons lost in the Second World War. Long afterwards a stranger arrives at Belting, claiming to be the missing David Wainwright, who was not killed after all but held captive for years in a Russian prison camp. With Lady Wainwright's health fading, her inheritance is at stake, and the family is torn apart by doubts over its mysterious long-lost son. Belting is shadowed by suspicion and intrigue, and then the first body is found.

A short story from British Library Crime Classic The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories. When the Russian Royal Family Jewels are put on display at Orbin’s department store in the fortnight leading up to Christmas, Mr Rossiter Payne can’t resist a present to himself. An inconspicuous London bookseller by day, an experienced jewel thief by night - can he pull off this latest festive heist?

The murder, a brutal stabbing, definitely took place on Guy Fawkes night. It was definitely by the bonfire on the village green. There were definitely a number of witnesses to a row between a group of Teddy Boys. And yet, was it definitely clear to anybody exactly what they had seen? In the writhing, violent shadows, it seems as if the truth may have gone up in smoke.

The Count and Bonnie played their game of love, lust, and power to the very limits of fantasy. When the fantasy became real, however, and the number of players grew, the sedate town of Rawley was shaken to its very roots: because when you lost the Game, you lost everything.

Il reverendo Gorman, di ritorno dalla visita a una moribonda, viene assassinato. Nella sua scarpa viene ritrovata una lista di persone, accomunate solo dal fatto di essere morte, all'apparenza, per cause naturali. Venuto casualmente a conoscenza della cosa, lo scrittore Mark Easterbrook si ricorda di una strana lite di cui era stato testimone, collega i fatti e comincia a indagare.

A short story from the British Library Crime Classic collection Final Acts. During a production of Hamlet, the actress playing the Queen is poisoned with cyanide. With castmates under suspicion, private detective Francis Quarles must unravel the threads of the Shakespeare play to find the murderer.