Terrence Hardiman

When Cora is savagely murdered, the extraordinary remark she made the previous day at her brother Richard's funeral suddenly takes on a chilling significance. At the reading of Richard's will, Cora was clearly heard to say: 'It's been hushed up very nicely, hasn't it! But he was murdered, wasn't he?’. Hercule Poirot studies the case.

The house guests at Styles seemed perfectly pleasant to Captain Hastings, so it came as a shock to him when Poirot declared that one of them was a five-times murderer. The ageing detective was crippled with arthritis, but had his deductive instincts finally deserted him?

Fetherhoughton is a drab town somewhere in a half-real 1950s north England. Father Angwin, the town’s priest, has lost his faith, and wants nothing more than to be left alone. Yet all of that is about to change. A strange visitor appears one night, bringing with him the hint of something unknown. But who is Fludd? An angel come to shake the Fetherhoughtonians from their stupor. Or is he the devil himself, a shadowy wanderer of the darkest places in the human heart?

When a body is found at an isolated garage, Inspector Meredith is drawn into a complex investigation where every clue leads to another puzzle: was this a suicide, or something more sinister? Why was the dead man planning to flee the country, and how is this connected to the shady business dealings of the garage?

Guy Crouchback is determined to fight in the Second World War so takes a commission in the Royal Corps of Halberdiers. But he does not see any of the action. His first campaign, an abortive affair on the West African coastline, ends with an escapade which seriously blots his copybook.

Seven clocks tick ominously in a suicide's room and a dying friend whose last words are "seven dials" lead dapper Jimmy Thesiger and his irrepressible girlfriend to a Soho club. There they learn of the Seven Dials Society, seven masked conspirators who meet in a secret room to talk about stealing scientific secrets - and plan the next murder.

This volume of selections from Evelyn Waugh's early travel writings includes accounts of a Mediterranean pleasure cruise, of the coronation of the Emperor Haile Selassie in Abyssinia in 1930 and the Italian invasion five years later, and of visits to Aden and Brazil.