<div>It&rsquo;s &ldquo;great fun&rdquo; when a baker&rsquo;s dozen of Golden Age authors collaborate on a whodunit&mdash;including Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and G. K. Chesterton (The Guardian). Originally published in 1931, The Floating Admiral is a classic literary collaboration by members of the Detection Club, in which each chapter is written by a different mystery author, with G. K. Chesterton adding a prologue after the novel was completed. Each writer was tasked with building on what the previous writer created, without ignoring or avoiding whatever plot points had come before. Although Anthony Berkeley wrote the definitive conclusion to the mystery in his final chapter, the writers all provided their own individual solutions, each in a sealed envelope, which appear in the appendix. In the words of Dorothy L. Sayers in her introduction, the spirit of the project was that of a &ldquo;detection game,&rdquo; for the amusement of the authors&mdash;and their readers. In the sleepy English seaside village of Whynmouth, an old sailor discovers a corpse floating serenely in a rowboat owned by the local vicar. The victim has been stabbed in the chest. It falls to Inspector Rudge to solve this most baffling mystery, in which not only the identity of the killer but the identity of the victim is called into question. The Floating Admiral includes contributions by Canon Victor L. Whitechurch, G. D. H. and Margaret Cole, Henry Wade, Agatha Christie, John Rhode, Milward Kennedy, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ronald A. Knox, Freeman Wills Crofts, Edgar Jepson, Clemence Dane, and Anthony Berkeley. &ldquo;I was . . . hugely entertained by the virtuoso displays of mental gymnastics, which kept me guessing all the way.&rdquo; &mdash;The Guardian </div>

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The Floating Admiral

<div>With &ldquo;a touch of genius,&rdquo; this round-robin mystery follow-up to The Floating Admiral features famous detectives including Lord Peter Wimsey (The Times Literary Supplement). Following the success of The Floating Admiral, in which certain members of the Detection Club&mdash;including Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and G. K. Chesterton&mdash;collaborated on a whodunit, six writers pooled their talents to create another coauthored mystery. This time the premise had an added twist: authors would swap their detective characters, allowing for some extremely entertaining parodies of one another&rsquo;s sleuths. When a ruthless British newspaper tycoon is shot dead in his home, the high-level suspects include the assistant commissioner of Scotland Yard, casting doubt on the impartiality of a formal police investigation. As a solution, the home secretary brings in four brilliant detectives to solve the murder: Mrs. Bradley, Sir John Saumarez, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Roger Sheringham. Featuring a preface by inaugural Detection Club member Agatha Christie, this playful tour de force gathers together half a dozen Golden Age Mystery masters: John Rhode, Helen Simpson, Gladys Mitchell, Anthony Berkeley, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Milward Kennedy. </div>

Ask a Policeman

<div>A man&rsquo;s car is impounded as a stolen vehicle&mdash;but that&rsquo;s not the worst of it&mdash;in this classic British mystery starring a &ldquo;tartly logical professor&rdquo; (The New York Times). Kenneth Winslow&rsquo;s company has sold a car to his nephew, Noel Yewdale, who&rsquo;s supposed to transport the large, locked chest in it. But before he can get the job done, the police seize the car&mdash;saying they think it&rsquo;s stolen. When the cops confirm he won&rsquo;t get the car back, he&rsquo;s out of luck&mdash;but at least they&rsquo;re willing to help him carry the heavy chest out of the garage where the vehicle has been stored. Unfortunately, Yewdale has an even bigger problem when they pry the chest open to find out why it smells so bad&mdash;his uncle&rsquo;s body is stuffed inside. Superintendent Waghorn will do his best to solve the crime, but he may need some help from Dr. Lancelot Priestley to put the puzzle pieces together . . .</div>

Blackthorn House

<div>A scientifically minded professor is stumped by a case involving s&eacute;ances and an inexplicable inheritance . . . After drifting apart from Sir John Claverton, Dr. Lancelot Priestley is finally visiting his old friend for dinner. But Claverton&rsquo;s situation is worrying. He&rsquo;s surrounded by relatives, among them a sister who speaks to the dead&mdash;but not to him&mdash;and a niece who may or may not be a qualified nurse. Based on Claverton&rsquo;s odd behavior, Priestley and a mutual friend suspect that someone is slipping him arsenic. But when Priestley discovers that Claverton has died just a week later and shares his concerns with the police, no trace of arsenic&mdash;or anything else untoward&mdash;is found during the autopsy. Still, the perceptive professor can&rsquo;t shake his sense that something isn&rsquo;t right, and Claverton&rsquo;s recently revised will only adds to the mystery . . . &ldquo;The puzzle is sound, the atmosphere menacing in a splendidly gloomy way.&rdquo; &mdash;Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor, A Catalogue of Crime &ldquo;You can never go far wrong with a Dr. Priestley story.&rdquo; &mdash;The New York Times</div>

The Claverton Affair

<div>An &ldquo;extremely clever&rdquo; mystery about a doctor who appears to have fatally injected himself and a dinner party devoted to detection (The Saturday Review). Dr. Richard Mawsley was a happy man and a careful man. So how and why did the Harley Street specialist inject himself with strychnine while in his locked office? There&rsquo;s no hint that anyone else was at the scene, and the guests at Dr. Lancelot Priestley&rsquo;s weekly dinner party, including two from Scotland Yard, are determined to figure out what happened. Did he suddenly become despondent, or pick up the wrong bottle? This band of crime-solvers is puzzled indeed, and Priestley is left to wonder if there&rsquo;s another possibility beyond accident, murder, or suicide . . . &ldquo;A scientist who turns to crime puzzles for recreation . . . The more difficult they are, the better he likes them.&rdquo; &mdash;The New York Times</div>

Death in Harley Street

<div>Was it a tragic drunk-driving accident, or something more twisted? &ldquo;You can never go far wrong with a Dr. Priestley story.&rdquo; &mdash;The New York Times Superintendent King has concluded that the drunk driver with a dead body in his car was only guilty of manslaughter, not intentional murder. But Dr. Lancelot Priestley thinks there&rsquo;s more to the story&mdash;especially considering that the victim&rsquo;s estate, Pinehurst, has been plagued by burglaries of late. As he applies his usual scientific rigor to the case, Priestley will be drawn into not one crime but many&mdash;and some of them date back years&mdash;in this classic British mystery.</div>

Dr. Priestley Investigates

<div>The &ldquo;astute and sharp-spoken&rdquo; crime-solving professor must find out if a missing man got away with murder (The New York Times). After some initial suspicion, the death of Ernest Venner&rsquo;s wealthy uncle was attributed to natural causes&mdash;a simple infection. But Dr. Lancelot Priestley and his crime-solving companions find it intriguing, to say the least, that as soon as Venner collected his much-needed inheritance, he vanished into the wind. Digging into the disappearance, though, will lead Priestley to some dangerous places, in this suspenseful Golden Age mystery featuring the scientifically minded sleuth . . .</div>

The Venner Crime

<div>A body on the tracks and a pair of missing wills have Dr. Priestley puzzled . . . Gervase Wickenden&rsquo;s estate is close to a railroad line&mdash;and that&rsquo;s where his mangled body is found after an unfortunate meeting with a train. The timing is a bit odd though, considering this happened only two days after Wickenden changed his will. And now, neither version of the will can be located . . . The heirs ask Dr. Lancelot Priestley to look into the matter of the missing documents, but he soon stumbles on something else entirely: evidence that the train was not the actual cause of death. It&rsquo;s up to him to deduce the facts behind this fatal so-called accident, in a compelling British mystery by a Golden Age master. &ldquo;You can never go far wrong with a Dr. Priestley story.&rdquo; &mdash;The New York Times</div>

Tragedy on the Line

<div>A shady operator is targeted for death and needs help from a professor with an &ldquo;uncanny ability to ferret out the truth&rdquo; (The New York Times). An expert in alternative medicine is creating a clinic in Cranbury Hall that promises to cure fatigue, and Arnold Gilroy is happy to invest in this promising moneymaking venture. Unfortunately, his brother Oliver has just finished a stint in prison for fraud&mdash;and has weaseled his way into running Cranbury Hall while pursuing some nefarious business on the side. Before long, he&rsquo;s been grazed by a bullet&mdash;and Dr. Lancelot Priestley will have to step in before the killer strikes again, with more success this time, in this Golden Age British mystery.</div>

Peril at Cranbury Hall

<div>A night of revelry ends with a perplexing death in the first novel featuring one of the greatest detectives of the Golden Age of Mystery. In the early hours of a wintery morning, Harold Merefield returns home from a festive little party at The Naxos, a popular nightclub in Paddington. But just as he tries to get some much-needed sleep, he is startled by a gruesome discovery on his bed: a corpse. There is no way to identify the dead man or the cause of his death. At the inquest, the jury rules it a &ldquo;Death from Natural Causes.&rdquo; But even if they are correct, how did this unfortunate stranger meet his end in Harold&rsquo;s home? Determined to uncover the whole truth, Harold seeks the help of Dr. Lancelot Priestley. A retired professor of applied mathematics, Dr. Priestley employs a simple but unusual method of logical reasoning to shed light on what proves to be a dark and exceedingly curious affair.</div>

John Rhode
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Books By John Rhode (8 Books)

Blackthorn House

The Claverton Affair

Death in Harley Street

Dr. Priestley Investigates

The Venner Crime

Tragedy on the Line

Peril at Cranbury Hall

The Paddington Mystery

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John RhodeFollow this author