Showing results by author "Ronald A. Knox" in All Categories

Is the ‘perfect murder’ possible? Can that crime be committed with such consummate care, with such exacting skill, that it is unsolvable—even to the most astute investigator? In this unique collection, legendary crime writers Margery Allingham, Anthony Berkeley, Freeman Wills Crofts, Ronald Knox, Dorothy L. Sayers and Russell Thorndike each attempt to create the unsolvable murder, which Superintendent Cornish of the CID then attempts to unravel.

A short story from British Library Crime Classic The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories. As Sir Leonard Huntercombe tells the elaborate story of one of his clients, listeners will love piecing together this strange locked-room mystery set on a sleeper train to Aberdeen.

Two cousins, Derek and Nigel Burtell, famously detest one another. Derek Burtell stands to inherit £50,000 under the will of his grandfather at age 25—unless his drug-taking and dissolute lifestyle kill him first, in which case Nigel inherits instead. Dismayed by the latter possibility, Derek's many creditors insure his life with the vast Indescribable Insurance company, and Derek is advised to take a river trip for his health; and curiously it is Nigel whom he chooses to accompany him.

Holidaying in a country inn, wealthy Jephthah Mottram dies, poisoned by gas. But Mr Mottram was insured with the massive Indescribable Insurance Company, under its famously extravagant Euthanasia policy: with half a million pounds payable on death... except in the case of death by suicide. The Indescribable's somewhat desultory private detective, Miles Bredon, along with his wife Angela, is sent to investigate. Was Mottram's death suicide, or something more sinister?

A brutally battered body is discovered on a golf course, initially deemed a suicide. However, a group of four leisurely gentlemen lodging at the nearby country club, along with the local police, beg to differ. The mystery appears to be solved multiple times, with evidence seemingly leaving no room for doubt. Yet, each time theres a hole in the logic, leading the investigation back to square one. The ultimate revelation serves as a reminder to our detectives and to us all - the most obvious truths are often the hardest to see. This narratives thrilling twists will captivate some, while others ...

Dive into an enigmatic mystery where the lines blur between murder and suicide. How could a murderer escape a room leaving the door locked from the inside? Or did the deceased ingeniously manage to turn off the gas after his demise? This tantalizing conundrum, presented in a brilliantly penned narrative, carries an unexpected charm despite its sharp absence of morality.

When Mordaunt Reeves and a group of friends playing a round discover the battered body of a man, clearly fallen from the viaduct, Reeves—a man a little too fond of reminding everyone that he was in Military Intelligence during the war—suspects that the police are not taking the death seriously, and persuades his friends to help him to investigate. Soon, theories of the crime begin to emerge.