From the Golden Age author of Green for Danger. “You have to reach for the greatest of Great Names to find Brand’s rivals in the subtleties of the trade” (The New York Times). Sir Richard’s family has spent years waiting for him to die, but despite his weak heart, the old man simply refuses to cooperate. In the meantime, he makes their lives miserable by changing his will every few months, depending on which of his strange brood he favors that moment. Now he calls them together to announce his most diabolical revision yet: complete disinheritance of all the wastrels who bear his name. But he never gets a chance to sign the papers—by morning, he’s dead. Scotland Yard sends Inspector Cockrill, the only detective clever enough to unravel the family’s tangle of jealousy and deceit. Each member had reason to kill Sir Richard, but which one plunged the syringe of poison into his heart? With a family this mad, nothing is as complicated as the truth.

This collection of short crime stories offers five courses of delectable depravity from mystery’s master chef. Playing Othello is hard on any actor, but for the great James Dragon, the role is toxic. During the play’s run, he must reenact the horrible crime that took his own wife’s life. Every person in the audience thinks that Dragon killed his real-life wife, and when the curtain rises they wonder if tonight will be the night when Othello finally cracks. “After the Event” is just the first in a round of Cockrill cocktails—bracing short fiction starring Christianna Brand’s famed Scotland Yard inspector. From there we proceed to bloody entrees, chilling desserts, and a cup of black coffee that will shock you wide awake. Brand’s short fiction is more than a sample—it is an all-night banquet that leaves the reader terrified and satisfied as only a good mystery can.

It’s a case of cold feet—and cold-blooded murder—as 92-year-old poet/sleuth Victoria Trumbull gets more than she bargained for after hosting an ill-fated wedding. A wedding on picturesque Martha’s Vineyard promises to be the affair of the season when Penny Arbuthnot asks her cousin, feisty 92-year-old poet Victoria Trumbull, if she can use her property for the reception. Victoria agrees—but she has no idea what’s in store for the hapless couple. For one, Penny is seriously in debt and desperate to marry money. She thinks she’s on the road to riches when she hooks Rocco Bufano, whose father is a multi-billionaire. But unbeknownst to Penny, Rocco’s been disowned by dad. He’s also in hock up to his ears, and thinks he’s bagged the catch of a lifetime in a wealthy Vineyard native. He also knows that someone is out to kill him. In fact, several guests have a reason to off Rocco, among them an autistic savant with a prodigious knowledge of murder weapons. Victoria has assumed the reception will be a modest lemonade-and-gingersnap affair—but when a body is found in her cellar, it may be a happily-never-after in Widow’s Wreath, the fourteenth engaging installment in Cynthia Riggs’s beloved Martha’s Vineyard mysteries.

A London writer falls into a trap of romance and false identityKatinka Jones spends her days beautifying, trying out the latest ointments, corsets, and creams in order to pass the information on to the thankful readers of Girls Together. When not immersed in a mud bath, she answers advice letters, and none are so compelling as those of Amista, a Welsh girl in love with a modern-day Heathcliff. Amista’s dramatic stories and beautiful descriptions of her village spark Tinka’s interest. For her next holiday, Tinka travels to Wales, where she finds that beauty-product salesmen aren’t the only people who lie. No one in Pentre Trist has heard of Amista, and no one will admit to writing the letters. As she tries to learn the identity of her pen pal, Tinka stumbles into an ancient Welsh mystery. The letters may have been lies, but the danger they described is all too real.

While the Blitz bombards London, the boisterous grandchildren of Sir Richard March have descended upon Swanswater Manor in Kent for a family gathering and the finalising of the patriarch's will. Disgruntled by the behaviour and life choices of his heirs, March seems poised to deny all of them their inheritance and heads out to his lodge to make arrangements — only to be discovered dead the next morning with strychnine in his blood. With evidence at the crime scene suggesting that nobody could possibly have entered the lodge to murder March, Inspector Cockrill— the "Terror of Kent"— has the challenge of finding any plausible solution for this impossible crime before death comes to darken the doors of Swanswater once more.