Introducing private investigators Lily Raynor and Felix Wilbraham in the first of the brand-new World’s End Bureau Victorian mystery series.London, 1880. “I’m dreadfully afraid someone is threatening to kill my wife …” When accounts clerk Ernest Stibbins approaches the World’s End investigation bureau with wild claims that his wife Albertina has been warned by her spirit guides that someone is out to harm her, the bureau’s owner Lily Raynor and her new employee Felix Wilbraham are initially sceptical. How are the two private enquiry agents supposed to investigate threats from beyond the grave?But after she attends a séance at the Stibbins family home, Lily comes to realize that Albertina is in terrible danger. And very soon so too is Lily herself …

For Mr. and Mrs. North, there's no vacation from murderIn a remote cabin far from New York City, Jerry and Pamela North are getting killed. On the brink of annihilation, they grit their teeth and battle back. In a minute, the fight is finished—and the Norths are named mixed doubles champions. It's a happy moment during a splendid vacation, but off the tennis court, all is not well. Following an afternoon of fun and games, the evening's entertainment will be murder. Mr. and Mrs. North have invited their closest friends—an ex-aviator, a mysterious doctor, and NYPD's own Lt. William Weigand—to join them on this glittering retreat, but the joviality ends when Weigand finds Helen Wilson lying across the path, a knife buried in her neck. A member of the group surely killed her, and unless the Norths act quickly, the murderer will strike again. 

Review “Quite aside from the delightful privilege that it affords of meeting the Norths again, this book is distinctly worthwhile on its merits as a mystery alone.” —The New York Times “Class A.” —The Saturday Review of LiteraturePraise for the Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries “One of the funniest and most satisfactory mysteries in this excellent series.” —The New Yorker on Payoff for the Banker About the Author Frances and Richard Lockridge were some of the most popular names in mystery during the forties and fifties. Having written numerous novels and stories, the husband-and-wife team was most famous for their Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries. What started in 1936 as a series of stories written for the New Yorker turned into twenty-six novels, including adaptions for Broadway, film, television, and radio. The Lockridges continued writing together until Frances’s death in 1963, after which Richard discontinued the Mr. and Mrs. North series and wrote other works until his own death in 1982.

"A top-notch mystery full of keen characterization, humor, old English atmosphere, a charmingly decadent family, and a few sudden deaths" (The New York Times). One of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction's Four Queens of Crime"There is a more marked kinship here to Dorothy Sayers and her type of crime detection novels…. Superior fare."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)A beggarwoman on a bench arouses Albert Campion's curiosity—and helps Scotland Yard lure him into a case of family dysfunction. The seemingly destitute woman is none other than a member of the eccentric Palinode family, which has recently lost two of its members. The police suspect a poisoner is on the loose, which is why Campion is willing to go undercover as a lodger in the boardinghouse where they live. As the recently deceased are exhumed, Campion becomes acquainted with the old-fashioned, out-of-the-ordinary family members, who talk in crossword puzzle clues, sneak out at night, and cook vats of stinky food in the basement to save money. And if that's not enough to keep Campion on his toes, the local undertaker seems to be digging himself into a hole…Praise for Margery Allingham "Margery Allingham stands out like a shining light."—Agatha Christie "The best of mystery writers."—The New Yorker "Don't start reading these books unless you are confident that you can handle addiction."—The Independent "One of the finest Golden-Age crime novelists."—The Sunday Telegraph "Spending an evening with Campion is one of life's pure pleasures."—The Sunday Times

A river cruise may be sunk by a ruthless criminal in this novel by "the doyenne of traditional mystery writers" (The New York Times).Inspector Alleyn's wife, the artist Agatha Troy, has a special fondness for Constables—the paintings, that is, not the policemen. So she jumps at the chance to take a river cruise through "Constable Country" in the east of England, in honor of the nineteenth-century master of landscapes. Her enthusiasm dims a little, though, when it becomes clear that the ticket became available at the last minute only because a previous passenger was murdered in his cabin . . ."It's time to start comparing Christie to Marsh instead of the other way around." —New York Magazine