When a young man pays an unconscionable amount of money for a book of poetry, he suspects he may have been cheated and turns to a law clerk named Bland to play detective. A series of events lead the reader through forgery claims, black market traders, robbery, intrigue and murder.

Small-time actor, Sheridan Haynes, had a rather unhealthy preoccupation with Sherlock Holmes. So when the chance came for him to play the famous detective in a TV series, it seemed his dreams had come true. And when London was plagued by a series of unsolved murders, well, it seemed only natural for him to take his role into real life. Was this a case of a laughable and misguided actor, or was Sheridan actually on to something?

In 1950 for a series of short stories for London's Evening Standard newspaper, Julian Symons invented Private Detective Francis Quarles. After engaging in mysterious activities during the Second World War, Quarles opened an office in Trafalgar Square from where he investigates puzzles ranging from robbery to murder. Contains 42 previously uncollected stories.

Actor/detective Sheridan Haynes is confronted with a missing manuscript, a mad mogul, and murder in this intelligent, complex novel from Julian Symons.

Decades after the fact, Geoffrey Elder calls on Julian Symons to clear the name of his father, accused not only of a playboy poet's murder but of having an affair with the man's lover. An ingenious mystery follows, weaving together flashbacks from the 1930s with Geoffrey's passionate desire to avenge his father.

Two Englishmen have met suspicious ends in Veniceone by gunshot, the other by drowning. That much is certain but nothing else is. Murder? Suicide? Accident? Another mystery is the anonymous notes sent to residents of a quiet English village, spreading the scandalous though false word of an affair between Derek Crowley and Gerda Porson. She is the wife of Crowley's business partner, the unspeakable Charles Porson, a tireless macho who adores handguns and the spanking-and-bondage ritual meted out by his bored, disgusted wife, who is in love only with his money. Was the drug-laced Bloody Mary intended for Porson? How to explain Derek's wife's penchant for masculine clothing? Who loaded the supposedly blank pistol in an amateur theatrical production? Long afterward, Jason Durling's brilliant deductive sleuthing will resolve the murders left unsolved by trhe Italian police and ignored by Scotland Yard; but he will come to great grief in his turn. Again Symons meets his own high standards: this tale is quickwitted, civilized, highly intelligent, sharply observed, complicated without being cluttered, and always in the firm control of a dextrous and accomplished storyteller.

John and Eleanor Midway appear to preside over a happy family. But when outgoing daughter Jenny disappears, the Midway clan starts to unravel. In an about-face, the members of the Midway family start to repel each other, as anger, blame and hatred rage among them. Against undaunting odds, Detective Superintendent Hilary Catchpole is called to uncover the truth.

Octavius Gaye, founder and creator of the hugely successful magazine empire, Plain Man Enterprises, saw himself as the original 'plain man'. The truth however was rather different and Gaye was an unscrupulous tycoon with a strangely captivating nature who surrounded himself by a series of weak-willed puppets that he manipulated to his heart's content. One such puppet was Francie Lake and as the plot unfolds, Symons reveals how and why Francie simply had to die.

Judith Lassiter has a handsome architect husband who dotes on her, no financial worries, and a beautiful house. But when she begins to change the course of her life--and takes a lover--she soon feels that murder may be the essential next step.