Penzler Publishers

Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard travels to England's windswept coastline to investigate a murder in a place where, several years after the end of WWI, the memory of the war still runs strong . . .

July, 1921: England is suffering a heatwave and the coast of Northumberland, just across the border from Scotland, is filled with holiday-makers bird watching and enjoying the beaches. Pilgrims also come to visit the home of Saints Cuthbert and Aiden?the founders of Christianity in England?located on the ?Holy Island? of Lindisfarne, accessible by a causeway at low tide.

When the murdered body of a local man washes ashore just south of Lindisfarne, the government and the Church of England are concerned about protecting both the reputation of the Church and the sacred sites that are a destination for hundreds of pilgrims at this time of year. With his ability to move in the highest social and political circles, Rutledge is sent by Scotland Yard to solve this crime and dispel any association with the Church.

Upon arrival, Rutledge finds himself pulled between two coastal fishing villages, scarred by home front battles and coastal bombardment from the German Navy, where animosity towards Germany still runs high even years after the war. This, combined with a constabulary in the process of being consolidated to form a countywide police force, with local militias still wielding a great deal of power, means Rutledge must tread with care.

Facing a puzzling case and a cast of locals that don't take kindly to outsiders, the newly promoted Rutledge meets one of the most challenging cases of his career. To solve it, he'll also have to confront his own demons left over from his time in the war.

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Mr. and Mrs. North live as quiet a life as a couple can amidst the bustle of New York City. For Jerry, a publisher, and Pamela, a homemaker, the only threat to their domestic equilibrium comes in the form of Mrs. North's relentless efforts as an amateur sleuth, which repeatedly find the duo investigating murders and sundry other crimes. So when the wealthy backer of a play is found dead in the seats of the West 45th Street Theatre, the Norths aren't far behind, led by Pam's customary flair for murders that turn eccentric and, yes, humorous. Alongside Lieutenant William Weigand of the New York Police Department, they'll employ illogical logic and bizarrely tangential suggestions to draw the curtains on a killer.

A light mystery set in a classic Broadway locale, Death on the Aisle is lent verisimilitude by author Richard Lockridge's career as a theater critic. Though it is the fourth novel in the saga of this charming, witty couple, the series can be enjoyed in any order, with each installment depicting its own self-contained story.

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Death and tennis meet in one of impossible crime master John Dickson Carr's most memorable cases.

John Dickson Carr is famous for his puzzling ?impossible crime? plots in which corpses are discovered in scenarios that seem to lack any logical explanation. Among all of Carr's ingenious crime scenes, the present case is one of the best known: a dead man is found strangled in the middle of a clay tennis court just after a storm. In the damp dirt, there is one set of footsteps?his own?leading back to the grass; the court is otherwise untouched.

It seems like a case of sudden death but, in order to find who's at fault, the authorities must first solve the mystery of the body's puzzling position. The bafflement has reached a harried volley by the time ace amateur sleuth Dr. Gideon Fell gets involved, bringing to the case a wit capable of cutting through the racket and discovering the truth. With brilliant deductive reasoning and plenty of humor, Fell untethers a confounding set of clues in search of a diabolical killer and a bizarre murder method, serving up a dazzling stroke of genius to expose whodunit.

Reissued for the first time this century, The Problem of the Wire Cage is an atmospheric and amusing Golden Age mystery with a memorable puzzle at its center, perfect for both long-time fans and first-time readers of John Dickson Carr.;

Hildegarde Withers is just your average school teacher-with above-average skills in the art of deduction. The New Yorker often finds herself investigating crimes led only by her own meddlesome curiosity, though her friends on the NYPD don't mind when she solves their cases for them. After plans for a grand tour of Europe are interrupted by Germany's invasion of Poland, Miss Withers heads to sunny Los Angeles instead, where her vacation finds her working as a technical advisor on the set of a film adaptation of the Lizzie Borden story. The producer has plans for an epic retelling of the historical killer's patricidal spree-plans which are derailed when a screenwriter turns up dead. While the local authorities quickly deem his death accidental, Withers suspects otherwise and calls up a detective back home for advice. The two soon team up to catch a wily killer.

At once a pleasantly complex locked room mystery and a hilarious look at the foibles of Hollywood, The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan finds Palmer, a screenwriter himself, at his most perceptive. Reprinted for the first time in over thirty years, this riotously funny novel shows why Hildegarde Withers was among the most beloved detectives of the Golden Age American mystery novel.

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When New Orleans coffee merchant Louis Durand first meets his bride-to-be after a months-long courtship by mail, he's shocked that she doesn't match the photographs sent with her correspondence. But Durand has told his own fibs, concealing from her the details of his wealth, and so he mostly feels fortunate to find her so much more beautiful than expected. Soon after they marry, however, he becomes increasingly convinced that the woman in his life is not the same woman with whom he exchanged letters, a fact that becomes unavoidable when she suddenly disappears with his fortune.

Alone, desperate, and inexplicably love-sick, Louis quickly descends into madness, obsessed with finding Julia and bringing her to justice - and simply with seeing her again. He engages the services of a private detective to do so, embarking on a search that spans the southeast of the country. When he finally tracks her down, the nightmare truly begins...

A dark tale of the destructive power of love, Waltz into Darkness is a classic "femme fatale" narrative that shows "the father of the modern suspense story" (LA Times) at the top of his unsettling craft. It has been adapted for film twice, most notably serving as the basis for Francois Truffaut's Mississippi Mermaid.

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