His old friend Helena Gort calls on Carolus Deene to come to Cat's Cradle, a seaside guest house and find out about two deaths judged respectively "natural causes" and "suicide." There is no doubt in Helena's mind that something sinister has happened and something very unpleasant is brewing. She is right.
Someone very, very clever planned this murder: the place, a remote shelter on the promenade at Selby-on-Sea; the occasion, a blustery evening in late November; the victim, somebody ready-made for a crack-of-doom from a coal hammer. Diary notes indicate someone had been planning the "ideal" murder, one which no police, no detective could solve. The murderer's gratification would be wholly cerebral, a triumph of mind over matter. However, the murderer had not counted on the clever, tenacious, unpredictable mind of that unique schoolmaster, Carolus Deene.
Walking on the sand before breakfast, Carolus Deene's cousin Fay, who was staying on the Suffolk coast, had come upon the head of Lilliane Bomberger, the celebrated and universally detested novelist. The body was buried in the sand with only the head protruding; at least one tide had washed over it. Before this frustrating case ends, three murders are committed. This is vintage Bruce, mixing thrills and chills with unique humor.
Cosmo Ducrow was a wealthy heir known to friends and family for his friendly though reclusive nature. When he is found dead on his grounds, bludgeoned by a croquet mallet, the evidence damningly points to his nephew. The deceased's closest confidant, Theo Gray, however, suspects a setup. Sergeant Beef is called upon to find the truth of who had the access and motive to so viciously murder the man.
Five men occupied their usual places in a first-class carriage, but the sixth place was empty..." It is most unusual for the sixth man, Mr. Parador, to be late. The five commuters are wondering what happened to him, when a strange-looking man enters the compartment, dressed in black and wearing dark glasses. When he is told that the sixth seat is taken, he replies, in a deep sepulchral voice, "He won't be coming." He was right. Parador does not come, and his companions never see him alive again. And if Carolus Deena had not taken an interest in the case, the coroner's verdict of suicide would not have been questioned.
Carolus Deene becomes involved in his latest adventure when a famous restaurateur is threatened by a protection racketeer and a well-known writer of cookbooks is murdered under extraordinary circumstances.
Lionel Townsend is Sergeant Beef's priggish biographer, most often found exasperated by Beef’s boorish manners. But now Townsend’s aunt has been poisoned. Townsend must turn to Beef for assistance—he has surprisingly found himself the prime suspect of the murder. When an unpopular publisher is found hanged in the Cotswolds, it seems utterly unrelated. Beef, in his inimitable way, flatfoots his way to a stunning conclusion.
Possibly the most unusual mystery ever written. A murder is committed, behind closed doors, in bizarre circumstances. Three amateur detectives take the case: Lord Simon Plimsoll, Monsieur Amer Picon, and Monsignor Smith (in whom discerning readers will note likeness to some familiar literary figures). Each arrives at his own brilliant solution, startling in its originality, ironclad in its logic. Meanwhile Sergean Beef sits contemptuously in the background. "But, " says Sergean Beef, "I know who done it!
Once again Lionel Townsend, Beef's Dr. Watson, faithfully records the redoubtable Sergeant's escapades. Beef has left the Braxham police and gone into business for himself. Beef gets a client: Stewart Ferrars, who has been arrested for the Sydenham Murder. Beef is hired by Stewart's brother Peter to prove Stewart is innocent of the murder of Dr. Benson, who has been found stabbed in the throat in the library of Peter's gloomy Victorian mansion, The Cypresses. An ornamental dagger with Peter's fingerprints on it has been left on a table near the dead man's armchair.
In this "rousing mystery" (Booklist), Gentleman Detective Carolus Deene, the schoolmaster created by Bruce and featured in so many of his other books, has his work cut out for him . A respectable solicitor has vanished into thin air in the remote village of Hallows End. Deene senses foul play, and when he goes on the hunt for the missing lawyer, the wealthy client himself suffers a heart attack in what proves to be too much of a coincidence for Deene. Deene ferrets out the culprits in his own inimitable style. Julian Symons of the Sunday Times has said of this series, "Mr. Leo Bruce is one of the few criminal practitioners who keep the tattered old flag of pure detection flying high.
In the cleverly plotted Case for Sergeant Beef, Mr. Wellington Chickle, a retired watchmaker, plans the perfect murder, but he chooses the wrong victim. The dead man's sister refuses to accept the idea that her brother committed suicide and calls in the unprepossessing Sgt. Beef who unravels the plot with the aid of the local police. Meanwhile, Townsend, Beef’s indefatigable chronicler, comes to a completely different—and completely wrong—conclusion. A delightful read by one of the best mystery plotters who ever lived.
Everyone knew there'd been a murder, everyone knew who the murderer was, and when this murderer committed suicide by jumping overboard from the cargo boat Saragossa, they thought "Good riddance." Everyone, that is, except Carolus Deene.
There are strange goings-on at St. Asprey's, an expensive boys' preparatory school: footsteps in passages at night . . . strange lights . . . rabbits with battered skulls. Carolus Deene has some spine-tingling experiences before he solves the mystery.
In a gloomy London suburb, a modern Jack the Ripper stalks at night, killing at random with brutal knife thrusts from behind. Three women fall victim, and the terrorized residents wait to see who will be next.
A murder is yet to be committed—that much is certain—but who will be the victim? And who will be the murderer? It is Sgt. Beef's job to discover these facts, if he can, in time to prevent the deed from being done. But when he reaches the small traveling circus where the murder is to take place, he finds that practically everyone there is seething with hatred, each has a motive which might make him a killer; and any one of a dozen people could easily be the victim. The doughty Sgt. Beef has broken some pretty tough cases, and this one—with mystery entagled within mystery—stirs the bulldog within him. The clues are there, but unless the reader is very astute, he or she will overlook them; but Sgt. Beef misses nothing.
The dead bodies of two elderly ladies are discovered; both had been strangled. Each is found lying full-length, clasping in her hand the stem of a Madonna lily.
Richard Hoysden's body is discovered in his country flat, a revolver beside him, and a bullet through the head, apparently a suicide. Missing from the room is a tape of Hoysden's last moments on which he confesses ti the murder of a young woman. Lady Drombone, a member of Parliament and the dead man's aunt, hires Carolus Deene to help suppress the evidence. He must reconstruct the confusing circumstances in order to solve this baffling crime.
This is one of Sgt. Beef's most interesting and perplexing cases. It involves a murder, but one in which no body can be found. Young Rogers announces to Beef and others assembled in a local pub that he has committed a murder—then takes his own life. But where is the victim? How did it happen? "I always supposed," says Beef. "a murder case started with a corpse, and then you had to find out 'oo done it. This time we know 'oo's done it, but we can't find the corpse.
Carolus Deene, history master at Queen's School, Newminster, manages on the side to dabble in the art of gentlemanly detective work. In Leo Bruce's beloved A Bone and a Hank of Hair, Deene is approached by Mrs. Chalk, who is convinced her heiress cousin has been murdered. The suspect is, of course, Mr. Rathbone, the lady's wily widower. On the way to the truth, Deene encounters a host of friendly characters and oafish constabulary, leading readers in a delightful romp through the English landscape.
The coroner’s jury found that the boy hanged in the school gymnasium had killed himself, but Sergeant Beef disagrees. He takes a job as a temporary school caretaker, abetted by the reluctant Townsend, Beef’s biographer, whose brother is a master at the school. Beef’s methods entail endless games of darts and beer all around in the local pub, much to Townsend’s dismay of course. But when another remarkably similar murder occurs elsewhere, Beef bestirs himself to uncover the guilty.
Billed as “the ugliest case that Carolus Deene ever chose to investigate,” Leo Bruce’s Death of a Bovver Boy finds the redoubtable schoolmaster-turned-detective involved in yet another mystery murder—this time among teenage outcasts and skinheads in rural 1970s England. When Carolus’s housekeeper, stoic Mrs. Stick, announces one evening that her husband has seen the naked body of a youth lying in “a peculiar hunched-up position” in a ditch beside the road, his hair shorn and his wrists slashed, Carolus knows that he has, at last, met the supreme challenge to test his powers of deduction. And this is just the beginning: from this point on, the detective is involved in a lively series of adventures infiltrating England’s provincial underworld and gaining insight into the dead boy’s unhappy background and surroundings. A rude collection of thugs and punks become involved in the search for the murderer; all are equally dangerous and each might be to blame. Only through his ingenuity and determination to persevere—despite all the forces urging him to the contrary—does Carolus finally solve the mystery. This is one of Leo Bruce’s grittiest novels, giving the reader an insight into the milieu of rebellious 1970s England, a world where prejudice was the order of the day and hostility and violence were the only means of survival.
Everyone knew there'd been a murder, everyone knew who the murderer was, and when this murderer committed suicide by jumping overboard from the cargo boat Saragossa, they thought "Good riddance." Everyone, that is, except Carolus Deene.
Carolus Deene is enjoying himself on a holiday cruise. On the first night aboard the Summer Queen, he hears a shout of "Man Overboard!" From that point on to the moment of Deene's unexpected revelations, the reader will find that unique mixture of artless fun and grim terror Leo Bruce devotees savor.
Carolus Deene is summoned to a small Kentish village where the presence of a possible coven of witches lends an eerie aura to the presumed "accidental" death of a young local boy a year ago on Hallowe'en. Before his work is completed, Carolus Deene has the answers to this and two other deaths.
Gentleman Detective Carolus Deene, the schoolmaster created by Bruce and featured in so many of his other books, has his work cut out for him this time. A respectable solicitor has vanished into thin air in the remote village of Hallows End. Deene senses foul play, and when he goes on the hunt for the missing lawyer, the wealthy client himself suffers a heart attack in what proves to be too much of a coincidence for Deene. Deene ferrets out the culprits in his own inimitable style. Julian Symons of the Sunday Times has said of this series, “Mr. Leo Bruce is one of the few criminal practitioners who keep the tattered old flag of pure detection flying high.”
Carolus Deene is summoned to a small Kentish village where the presence of a possible coven of witches lends an eerie aura to the presumed "accidental" death of a young local boy a year ago on Hallowe'en. Before his work is completed, Carolus Deene has the answers to this and two other deaths.
In a gloomy London suburb, a modern Jack the Ripper stalks at night, killing at random with brutal knife thrusts from behind. Three women fall victim, and the terrorized residents wait to see who will be next.
The dead bodies of two elderly ladies are discovered; both had been strangled. Each is found lying full-length, clasping in her hand the stem of a Madonna lily.
A murder is committed behind closed doors, in bizarre circumstances. Three detectives take the case. Each arrives at his own solution, startling m its originality, ironclad in its logic. Meanwhile Sergeant Beef sits contemptuously in the background.
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