Sir John Phillips, the Harley Street Surgeon, and his beautiful nurse Jane Harden are almost too nervous to operate. The emergency case on the table before them is the Home Secretary - and both have very good, personal reasons to wish him dead. Within hours he does die. Although the operation itself was a complete success.....

Mr Oberon is the adored leader of a coven of rich amateur witches - until one of them stumbles on his thriving heroin factory. Suddenly Mr Oberon needs a new element for a special magical ceremony: one fresh, respectable, female, middle-aged corpse...

The crime was committed in a gas-filled theatre dressing room. The victim was Clark Bennington, an unlovable actor whose best friend was the bottle. The suspects were Bennington's fellow actors, who found him more than annoying. They included his wife and her lover. Roderick Alleyn's problem was to find out which one was annoyed enough to kill him....

The last ditch: hidden behind a hedge, is a sheer drop, murderously deep - especially when someone stretches a wire across to trip a horse. The last to jump is a young stablehand, who is duly crushed beneath several stone of well groomed mare. The last straw for Roderisk Alleyn is when his young son Ricky becomes involved - right up to his considerably endangered neck

There are times when even the most sophisticated theatre-goer is gripped by the drama of the stage, and wishes - unconsciously perhaps - that it were not quite so lifelike. The borderline between actuality and acting seems too close, and almost too tempting not to be true....

The 'Zodiac' cruise had its usual lot of passengers......except one. Scotland Yard's Inspector Alleyn knew that one of them was a faceless 'Jampot' - a ruthless killer who could take on any personality. Alleyn had only five days to trap him, or the other passengers would pay with their lives - and one of those passengers was Alleyn's wife.

The crime is assassination - in the best part of London. The scene is a gala reception for the exuberant President of Ng'ombwana, affectionately known as The Boomer. The investigation passes out of the hands of Special Branch to a tribal court - until a small black cat named Lucy Lockett out-detects them both.

Sir Hubert Handesley was famous for his house parties; indeed he had every right to be, for he planned these occasions with as much care and forethought as a producer would the presentation of a new play. Nigel Bathgate considered himself rather a lucky young man, when, through his cousin Charles, who was also to be of the party, he secured an invitation to one of these weekends. He was not to be disappointed, for this time the host had planned a game of murder.

The crime took place at the height of World War II on the New Zealand coast, where someone had plainly been helping the Germans sink British ships. The murderer had lured his victim into a pool of boiling mud at a run-down spa. The victim was suspected by many of being a German agent. But he was so unpleasant that he could have been killed for many reasons. Among those who could have done it were several dubious Englishmen and a whole village of Maoris, none of whom were sorry that the victim was dead

The setting is idyllic.....a luxury island mansion in an unspoilt New Zealand wilderness. The party-goers are glamorous....they include a world-famous opera soprano, her millionaire 'companion', the artistic elite of three continents - and the distinguished detective, Alleyn of The Yard.