Nigel Strangeways

In the first book in the Nigel Strangeways classic crime series, an obnoxious schoolboy is found dead at his school Sports Day. Can amateur detective Nigel Strangeways help find the killer?

Private detective and poet Nigel Strangeways is invited to address the Maiden Astbury literary society. The picturesque Dorset town is home to Bunnett's Brewery, run by the much disliked, and feared, Eustace Bunnett and shortly before Nigel's visit, Bunnett's dog Truffles, was found dead in one of the brewery's vats.

One of the Observer's 1,000 novels everyone must read, The Beast Must Die is a darkly compelling psychological thriller in which a crime writer plans to commit the perfect murder. The fourth Nigel Strangeways mystery. Respected crime writer Frank Cairns plots the perfect murder - a murder that he himself will commit. Cairns intends to murder the hit-and-run driver who killed his young son, but when his intended victim is found dead and Cairns becomes the prime suspect,

Nigel Strangeways is summoned to Easterham Manor in the depths of winter to investigate a series of strange events, which culminate in the apparent suicide of a wealthy young woman whose behaviour has scandalised the village. As Nigel begins his investigations into the dead girl's past, it soon becomes clear that someone in the manor is trying to hide something, and they will stop at nothing to keep their secrets safe.

Staying with a friend in Oxfordshire, Nigel Strangeways pays a visit to Robert Seaton, a distinguished British poet whom Nigel greatly admires but whose reputation has been on the decline of late. Seaton proves to be an irascible, temperamental man, and his unconventional household, featuring a resentful daughter and mute dwarf servant, simmers with tension. When a headless corpse is found floating in the river by the Seaton's house just a few weeks later, the poet becomes the prime suspect.

The government's security department have asked private detective Nigel Strangeways to keep a discreet eye on Professor Alfred Wagley, a research scientist who is spending the Christmas holidays in the South-West of England. But someone else is also very interested in the professor and his work, and when his young daughter is kidnapped, Nigel finds himself in a race to avert a tragedy.