When meek, submissive little Arthur Brownjohn decides to murder his dominating wife Clare he consults all the best authorities, reading the stories of famous murderers and trying to avoid their mistakes. But Arthur has been ineffectual all his life, and he is a bungling murderer. When his plans go wrong he seeks the aid of the flamboyant Major Easonby Mellon, who for various reasons needs to disappear from his shady matrimonial agency. What has timid Arthur Brownjohn to do with dashing Easonby Mellon? That is the heart of a story which is comic, fantastic, and full of surprises.

This is a collection of articles, reviews, interviews and essays by the 1990 Cartier Diamond Dagger award winner - critic and writer, Julian Symons. Following an introduction entitled The Crime Story Yesterday, Today, Tommorrow, this book offers a collection of Symons's writing on crime fiction from Britain, the United States and elsewhere, plus a section on real life stories, such as The Hiss Affair and the Yorkshire Ripper.

Crime-writer Charles Applegate decided to set his second novel in a progressive school. Taking a job at Bramley Hall to see what such a school was like 'from the inside, ' Applegate found to his dismay that he was expected to do rather more than just people-watch. And when a murder took place on his first night there, his skills as a detective writer were called upon as well. But real-life crime was to prove very different from its fictional counterpart...

To research a new detective story, Charles Applegate takes a post in a progressive school of misfits, set deep in the English countryside. The game turns serious when a fellow teacher is murdered and a weird variety of criminals seem convinced that Charles has something they want.