THE BLACK SERAPHIM. (1984). Michael Gilbert. ****.One of my favorite authors, Michael Gilbert has here woven a mystery tale around the goings-on among the cathedral community in a southern English town. James Scotland is in this small town in an attempt to treat his job burn-out. His section chie...
A gripping spy thriller with a deserved reputation. Philip sees an announcement in The Times from an old school friend who has instructed the newspaper to publish only if they don’t hear from him. This sets a trail running through Europe, with much of the action taking place on the Austro-Hungari...
"a parte la chiesa cattolica, che è una riconosciuta conoscitrice del comportamento umano, non esiste nessuno più rapido di un avvocato nell'avvertire le prime, vaghe tracce di uno scandalo: quello speciale, sfuggente odore di qualcosa che non è esattamente come dovrebbe essere"giallo molto class...
The headstrong young student Laura Hart is visiting her brother Charles, British vice-consul of Lienz in the Tyrol, when she sees something she shouldn't. There has been increasing tension between the Italian locals and the Austrians who control the region, and it looks as through Hofrat Humbold,...
This is how police procedurals used to be. Written before mobile phone, computers, or the super-modern techy ultra-super forensics police force this novel is superb for research for anyone wanting to get British police procedures correct in the 1950s.The story itself is excellent. Gilbert is a ma...
A collection of 12 stories: - The Twilight of the Gods (May 1967) - Emergency Exit (Sep 1968) - One-to-Ten (Jul 1968) - The Peaceful People (Aug 1968) - The Lion and the Virgin (Dec 1971) - The African Tree Beavers (Aug 1971) - Signal Tresham (Jul 1980) - The Mercenaries (Feb 1981) - Early Warnin...
Although it was first published in 1947, Gilbert began this novel in the years immediately before World War II and didn't finish it until he returned from active duty. Set behind the walls of the residential Close of Melchester Cathedral, it's a classic British mystery in which a young Scotland Y...
Television personality Katie Steelstock is killed when she returns to her rural hometown for a visit. Superintendent Charlie Knott begins to untangle the knot that was Katie's life. - The Mystery Lover's Companion, Art Bourgeau
BOTTOM LINE: #2 of 3 Luke Pagan, MO5, rural Suffolk 1906 and London 1912; gentle thriller. Edwardian intelligence officer and some very nasty spies pre-WW1. Convoluted tale of poor folks in London who want change and are willing to work for it, and of spies from other countries who want to crippl...
Hugo Greest, 'the tiger,; has rescued 91 beautiful girls and knocked out 91 villains -- on his television adventure series. But Hugo is approaching 40 and the career is slowing down a bit when a letter arrives from the Foreign Office. It seems there is a little war going on in the Middle East. A...
Once you start to follow Mr. Wetherall, headmaster of a London high school, in his one-man war on rime and the black-market, you will find it hard to leave him until victory is his.
The woman was young, French, and on trial for murdering a man said to be her ex-lover and the father of her dead child: an English major who had been one of the great heroes of the French Underground Resistance. during the war. Mr. Macrea, hired to be her attorney on the first day of the trial, m...
Sitting on the edge of his camp bed he listened to Sergeant Instone and finally said: “Well done. I think you may have got something there.” And he thought for a moment, swinging his legs. “When the Inspector’s finished with him, take him along to one of the interview rooms. Give him a large, str...
He had done it all so many times before that most of his actions were mechanical, and only a quarter of his mind was on the job. He had a lot to think about at that moment. It was as if two enormous kaleidoscopes were being shaken before his eyes, forming and reforming their incomprehensible patt...
I had a suspicion that I had not only drunk too much the night before, but that in some way I had made a fool of myself. However, before I could get into a complicated state about it, I went to sleep again, and didn’t wake up this time until two o’clock in the afternoon. Me, the Sleeping Beauty. ...
said Admiral Fairlie to Jonas, who was his solicitor and friend, “Shackleton is as nice a spot as you could find on the south coast. Plenty of young families on the new estate. The fathers have their businesses at Saltmouth or Poole, but they prefer to live here because it’s quiet.” “And the rate...
The driver, a big, light-haired boy with a solemn Slav face, held the car door open. She picked up the intercom and said, “I think the boss has arrived.” She heard Toby make a sound, halfway between a grunt and a gasp, like the noise driven from the body when it plunges into cold water. She opene...
Five or six rooms were adequate for its carefully screened employees. It was primarily a communications centre, with private lines to the Home Office, the Foreign Office, the Special Branch, the Passport Office and the headquarters of Customs and Excise at King’s Beam House. Also to the officer i...
said Mr. Leonard Caversham, “but it’s a long and tiring journey, and I’d suggest that you break it at Cologne. You can go on next morning.” “I’ve never been to Germany before,” said the man. “Matter of fact, I dropped quite a few bombs on it during the war.” “It might perhaps be wiser not to ment...
Then he rotated solemnly, until the stool was as high as it could be made to go, reversed direction, and came down again to keyboard level. Then he looked at the clock on the mantelshelf, shut the lid of the piano with a bang, and walked across to the window. The cook’s cat, a large, dangerous an...
The words were emblazoned across two columns of print. Underneath, in one column, there was a photograph of Hedges. He looked like everyone’s idea of a jolly old tramp. (You weren’t to know that it was the most successful of twelve photographs, in some of which, despite the efforts of a very clev...
He lay still, for fear of waking Anna, who was sleeping peacefully beside him. In the distance the clock of St. Barnabas’ Church beat out four muffled strokes. A few hours’ sleep had cleared his mind of the last dregs of shock and emotion. He had started thinking again. Most of his thoughts were ...
He was carrying, not very expertly, a tray with glasses on it. A tall glass of iced lager went to the savage-looking woman who wore her bangles with the air of an experienced gladiator coming out for another dusty battle in the arena of life. A brandy-and-soda for the savage lady’s red-faced, whi...
as Lord Cedarbrook had so reasonably observed, “why run between the shafts?” There are four important private detective agencies in London (there were five until last year when The Green Rhomboid got into such trouble over Lady Marshmoreton’s frivolous divorce and lost their licence). “Alberts’ A...
Calder & Mr. Behrens The Lion and the Virgin Mr. Calder first met Colonel Garnet in 1942 in the Western Desert. The colonel, who had commanded an Armoured Regiment with such dash that it had lost most of its tanks, was doing a stand-in job as GSO2 at Corps. He had acquired the reputation of ...
la Recherche du Temps Perdu “I’ve been forty years in the Metropolitan Police Force,” said Barstow, “and I can’t remember anything like it.” “It’s a pretty good tangle,” agreed Haxtell. They were in Haxtell’s office at Crown Road. A week had gone by since a jury had found Howton guilty of capita...
Bonnie Parker had left a note on his table. She had done the job which he had suggested. Introducing herself as an old school-friend of Rosemary Herbert she had extracted from the Secretary of the City Northern Institute the two addresses which they had on record. One was 10 Mornington Square, N1...
Key The letter, written in capitals on a sheet of plain white paper, said: “HOW MUCH DID FRED BARRON PAY YOU TO PERJURE YOURSELF? I EXPECT SCOTLAND YARD WOULD LIKE TO KNOW. SO I’M GOING TO TELL THEM. NOT NOW. PROBABLY NEXT WEEK. THINK ABOUT IT.” “When did you get this?” said Petrella. “This m...