"Ted Lyte, amateur thief, has chosen an isolated house by the coast for his first robbery. But Haven House is no ordinary country home. While hunting for silverware to steal, Ted stumbles upon a locked room containing seven dead bodies. Detective Inspector Kendall takes on the case with the help of passing yachtisman Thomas Hazeldean. The search for the house's absent owners brings Hazeldean across the Channel to Boulogne, where he finds more than one motive to stay and investigate"--Page [4] of cover.

Ben the tramp's uncanny knack of running into trouble is unsurpassed in the final crime thriller written for him by J. Jefferson Farjeon. On a grey afternoon he was destined never to forget, Ben sat down on a park seat and proceeded to think, not of cabbages and kings, but of numbers, lucky and unlucky. But it wasn't Ben's lucky day, or that of the nondescript-looking stranger sitting at the other end of the bench - murdered before his very eyes! That was the prelude to the most uncomfortable and eventful twenty-four hours Ben had ever spent in an uncomfortable and eventful life. J. Jefferson Farjeon's famous Cockney character Ben, who first appeared in No.17 and six other novels, was never so richly humorous or so absurdly heroic as in this, his last hair-raising adventure taking place at No.19, Billiter Road.

Ben the tramp, the awkward Cockney with no home and no surname, turns detective again - and runs straight into trouble. Ben encounters a dead man on a London bridge and is promptly rescued from the same fate by a posh lady in a limousine. But like most posh ladies of Ben's acquaintance, this one isn't what she seems. Seeking escape from a gang of international conspirators, Ben is whisked off to the mountains of Scotland to thwart the schemes of a poisonous organisation and finds himself in very unfamiliar territory. With its startling prelude, Detective Ben is a glorious adventure, told with the unsurpassed mixture of humour and creepy thrills that made J. Jefferson Farjeon famous and Ben the tramp one of the best-loved characters of the Golden Age.

With his usual knack of getting into trouble, Ben the tramp finds himself hunted by the law and the lawless.in this breathless adventure. Returning home to his Cockney roots after a trip to Spain, Ben meets a mysterious stranger on a cross-Channel steamer and is promised a job. On arrival at Southampton they take a taxi. Ben gets out to post a letter, but on returning to the cab finds the stranger has been murdered! Pursued by a mysterious foreigner, Ben escapes his clutches, only to find the police are now after him and the whole political establishment is in danger. Combining laughs and thrills, J. Jefferson Farjeon's sinister tale of murder and blackmail is made all the more exciting thanks to the presence of Ben, the big-hearted vagabond who gets himself into scrape after scrape.

Ben the tramp, self-confessed coward and ex-sailor, is back in the Merchant Service and shipwrecked in the Pacific. Ben the tramp, self-confessed coward and ex-sailor, is back in the Merchant Service and shipwrecked in the Pacific. Tired of being homeless and down on his luck, the incorrigible Ben has taken a job as a stoker on a cruise ship. But his luck doesn't last long when they are all shipwrecked in the Pacific. Seen through Ben's eyes, the uncharted island is a hive of cannibals, mumbo-jumbo, and gals who are more nearly naked than any he has ever seen. And every time he tries to bluff his way out of a situation, he just bluffs himself further in, somehow convincing the natives that he has God-like powers . . . Brought back by popular demand after a gap of three years, Ben the tramp's reappearance in Little God Ben transported his humour, charm and rare philosophy to a startlingly new setting in this quintessentially 1930s comedy thriller.

Ben the tramp, with his usual genius for trouble, runs into danger when he finds a dead body and decides to help out. Ben knew that whenever his thumbs were itching, something 'orrible' was about to happen. Sure enough, on one foggy afternoon of itchy thumbs, the hapless Ben is implicated in criminal activity by the police - the kind of mistake it isn't easy to explain. Doing a runner, Ben hides in the basement of a deserted house, where he discovers the body of a well-dressed man, shot through the head . . . and much more trouble than he bargained for. The subsequent hair-raising events are charged with all the mounting excitement that made J. Jefferson Farjeon a peerless storyteller and Ben one of the most popular but unorthodox amateur detectives of his day.

The return of Ben, the prince of tramps with his rich Cockney humour and naïve philosophies - and in trouble as usual. Strange things are happening in the untenanted houses of Jowle Street. There are unaccountable creakings and weird knockings on the door of No.29, where the homeless ex-sailor Ben has taken up residence. But even stranger things are happening in the House Opposite, from where a beautiful woman in an evening gown brings Ben a mysterious message - and an errand that puts him in more danger than he bargained for. Once Ben the 'passing tramp' had been immortalised on film by Alfred Hitchcock in No.17, his return in a new novel was guaranteed. The House Opposite tells the story of criminal goings-on from both sides of a London street, and was admired for being delightfully amusing and genuinely uncanny.

The King's Cross restaurant is nearly empty when a timid London clerk overhears a few muttered words at a neighbouring table - a young woman is to be followed, and dealt with roughly if she proves troublesome. Before he can talk himself out of it, he is on a northbound express, pursuing the men and the girl they mean to harm. The journey ends on the windswept moors of Northumberland, where a tumbledown house sits alone against the sky. An out-of-work navvy has already taken shelter there, and soon a pair of young adventurers join the vigil. But the house is not as empty as it appears. Something beneath it gives a hollow boom, a professor works against his will, and a ruthless schemer will stop at nothing to protect what is buried below. First published in 1928, this thriller of treason, courage, and a secret that must never see daylight is vintage British mystery at its most atmospheric.