Catherine Aird

A collection of short mystery stories, some featuring Detective Inspector Sloan, whilst others feature Malcolm Venables of the Secret Service.

There were two things wrong when someone found Mr Meredith in the library of Ornum House and greeted him with a 'good morning'. For one thing, it was five o'clock in the afternoon and for another, the greeting took the form of a murderous blow.

When a body is discovered by two lady golfers in the steepest bunker on the golf course, Detective Inspector Sloane and DC Crosby are called in to solve the murder mystery.

Decades ago Germans bombed the village at Lamb Lane, but now redevelopment is under way. During the excavation, the skeleton of a girl is found with a bullet lodged in her spine. The trail is stone cold when Inspector Sloan takes on the case.

The dramatic theft of an 18th-century painting is discovered just moments before the old manor house depicted in the background of the portrait is set alight. Is it coincidence? DI Sloan and DC Crosby are soon on the case.

Detective Inspector Sloan knew there would be trouble when he was called in to the student sit-in at Calleshire University. The dons were nervous, the students excited - a clash of some kind seemed inevitable. But what did happen was totally unexpected, with the discovery of a man found bleeding slowly to death and able with his parting breath only to utter one enigmatic phrase. But what significance can 'Twenty-six minutes' really have?

Things are not going well at the Almstone Flower Show, especially when the fortune teller disappears. Events become decidedly macabre when the fortune teller is found murdered.

A young girl is found dead in a river, but what connection did she have to the recently deceased Josephine Short? And who broke into Josephine's old room at the Berebury nursing home? Detectives Sloan and Crosby are faced with a puzzling case with turns at every corner.

When octogenarian Gertrude Powell is found dead at the retirement home where she lives it does not seem too surprising but on the morning of the funeral her son, Lionel, receives a letter from her saying that she believes someone is trying to kill her.