<div>This anthology draws together some of the best new stories of mystery and murder&mdash;compiled by the Anthony Award&ndash;winning crime fiction editor. This anthology collects the most original stories of murder by some of mystery fiction&#39;s most inventive talents from the United States and United Kingdom. With innovative new takes on locked-room mysteries and impossible crimes, these short stories are full of vexing conundrums and reality-defying puzzles. A murder has been committed&mdash;but how could it have happened? Curated by Maxim Jakubowski, one of the crime genre&rsquo;s most renowned editors, this volume features never-before-seen stories by acclaimed authors&mdash;including British Science Fiction Award&ndash;winner Eric Brown, Derringer Award&ndash;winner O&#39;Neil de Noux, and multiple CWA Dagger Award&ndash;winners and nominees.</div>

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The Book of Extraordinary Impossible Crimes and Puzzling Deaths

<div>From the author of Herring on the Nile, a fellow novelist&rsquo;s plea for help plunges a mid-list mystery writer and his agent into a murder investigation. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t believe me, do you?&rdquo; asked Henry. &ldquo;That I might have killed somebody.&rdquo; Well, really. The genuine murderer&mdash;the real pro&mdash;tends to keep track of that sort of thing. And besides, there is no dead body to speak of. Understandably, Ethelred, our struggling mystery writer, is reluctant to help his colleague figure out whether or not he killed someone on New Year&rsquo;s Eve. But then his agent, the chocolate-chomping Elsie, points out that Henry is in a position to write a good review of Ethelred&rsquo;s work, and good reviews are worth going to a little bit of trouble for. Peppered throughout with Amazon reader reviews, which add to the fun, and told from both Ethelred and Elsie&rsquo;s points of view, the book is a funny, insightful commentary on literary fame, as well as a solid mystery. Praise for Crooked Herring &ldquo;Wodehouse-like characters . . . L. C. Tyler pulls it off brilliantly.&rdquo; &mdash;Booksmonthly (UK) &ldquo;A clever plot, with lots of laughs along the way.&rdquo; &mdash;Daily Mail (UK) &ldquo;Delightful.&rdquo; &mdash;Publishers Weekly</div>

Crooked Herring

<div>For fans of Lindsey Davis and Iain Pears—A lawyer stands accused of murder in this historical mystery series opener set in Cromwell’s England. Two-time Edgar nominee L. C. Tyler is best known for his series featuring Ethelred and Elsie— a third-rate novelist and his gloriously vulgar agent, respectively. And so he should be: He’s twice won Britain’s “Last Laugh” award for the Best Humorous Mystery of the Year. But with A Cruel Necessity, the first in the John Grey series, Tyler takes a sharp turn into the shadows. There are still some chuckles to be had, but not many . . . This is England in the year 1657, Oliver Cromwell is in power, and joy has essentially been outlawed. A young lawyer with a taste for beer and pretty women, Grey finds pleasures enough, even in this backwater Essex town, but he’d be wise to keep his amusement to himself: A Royalist spy has been found dead in a local ditch, and Cromwell’s agents are eager—distressingly eager—to explain to Grey that this is nothing to laugh about. Praise for A Cruel Necessity “Tyler juggles his characters, story, wit and clever one-liners with perfect balance.” —The Times (UK) “The characterization is good, it is well-paced, and the plot fits in beautifully with the historical events of the day. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will look out for this author again.” —Historical Novel Society</div>

A Cruel Necessity

<div>From the author of Ten Little Herrings, murder is on the menu when a two-bit British crime writer and his sub-par agent dine at a country estate. Ethelred and Elsie are an unlikely duo: he&rsquo;s a deeply mediocre mystery writer, and she&rsquo;s his deeply nosy, chocolate-chomping agent. And yet they are stuck with one another, if only because their combined sleuthing abilities are much more impressive than anything either one of them can come up with alone. Tonight&rsquo;s agenda: dinner with Ethelred&rsquo;s pal &ldquo;Shagger&rdquo; Muntham and his titled wife. Elsie may not be overly fond of the Shag, but she wasn&rsquo;t exactly hoping someone would murder him in the library of his own stately home. However, now that someone has done the dastardly deed, would it kill Ethelred to take a little interest, show a little Sherlockian spirit for once? Praise for The Herring in the Library &ldquo;Biting social satire and loads of fun detective work.&rdquo; &mdash;Booklist &ldquo;A wonderful send up both of Christie&#39;s classic country house murder, and the so-called &ldquo;locked room&rdquo; mystery.&rdquo; &mdash;Reviewing the Evidence</div>

The Herring in the Library

<div>From the author of The Herring in the Library, a struggling mystery author takes an Egyptian cruise for inspiration only to become surrounded by murder. Ethelred Tressider&rsquo;s career is not, let&rsquo;s face it, what one might call glittering. In fact, it&rsquo;s barely what one might call capable of paying the gas bill. To be honest, this is not surprising: Ethelred lost any real interest in writing mystery novels many years ago, and his audience has never been truly excited about reading them. In a desperate effort to revive his imagination, Ethelred books a cruise down the Nile&mdash;cradle of civilization and so on. Well, it worked for Agatha Christie. It is not, however, working very well for Ethelred. No sooner has he settled into his state room&mdash;followed by his literary agent, the splendid Elsie&mdash;than dead bodies start littering the premises. There are any number of suspects, but for many of the boat&rsquo;s amateur sleuths, it seems that the dastardly murderer is none other than the sweating Ethelred . . . Perfect for fans of Golden Age mysteries Praise for Herring on the Nile &ldquo;Joyously entertaining . . . An outrageously clever parody of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and all those other masters of the whodunit . . . the equivalent of a sparkling glass of champagne.&rdquo; &mdash;Lancashire Evening Post (UK)</div>

Herring on the Nile

<div>In this Edgar-nominated cozy series opener, a second-rate British crime novelist and his quirky agent investigate his devious ex-wife&rsquo;s murder. A mediocre mystery-writer (and thus a purveyor of red herrings), Ethelred Tressider has even less interest in writing his books than his (dwindling) fan base has in reading them, and his agent&mdash;the pesky, nosy, vulgar, chocolate-chomping Elsie&mdash;has no interest in them at all. But with a name like Ethelred, things can always get worse, and when Ethelred&rsquo;s dishy ex-wife turns up dead, they do. The Case of the Dead Dish is the most exciting project Elsie&rsquo;s come across in years, but however much she bullies Ethelred he refuses to take much interest in the mystery. Chalk it up to some pathetic mid-life crisis? Maybe. But how much more interesting would it be to note that Ethelred&rsquo;s lack of interest raises what might be called some extremely interesting questions? Praise for The Herring-Seller&rsquo;s Apprentice &ldquo;Fans of comic mysteries will welcome British author Tyler&rsquo;s debut.&rdquo; &mdash;Publishers Weekly &ldquo;Tyler is a stylish writer, and his humor is both subtle and sly.&rdquo; &mdash;Booklist</div>

The Herring-Seller's Apprentice

<div>In this mystery by the author of Crooked Herring, a lawyer in Cromwell&rsquo;s England receives dangerous info that could stop a murder&mdash;or get him killed. John Grey is a newly minted lawyer and would-be ladies&rsquo; man with a bad habit of poking his nose into other people&rsquo;s business and getting tangled up in intrigue. That&rsquo;s unfortunate, because a mis-delivered letter from royalists has left Grey with more information about a murderous plot than it&rsquo;s entirely safe to know. Can Grey prevent the murder? And of infinitely more importance, can he keep his mouth shut long enough to save his own skin? Praise for A Masterpiece of Corruption &ldquo;Tyler cleverly marries plot and period in his sequel to A Cruel Necessity set during the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell . . .. Tyler&rsquo;s judicious use of dry humor enhances a page-turning and plausible story line.&rdquo; &mdash;Publishers Weekly &ldquo;A dizzying whirl of plot and counterplot.&rdquo; &mdash;The Guardian (UK)</div>

A Masterpiece of Corruption

<div>In this Edgar-nominated cozy mystery, a sub-par literary agent and her crime-writing client must ferret out a murderer in a French hotel. Ethelred Tressider is eager to pack in his career a mid-level mystery author—and happy to leave his (deservedly) long-suffering agent, Elsie, holding the bag. But Elsie has tracked Ethelred from England to his hideout, a run-down hotel hosting a stamp-collectors’ conference in the French Loire Valley. After a guest is stabbed, other murders follow—as does a swarm of policemen. Suspicion soon falls on the remaining guests, while Ethelrod can’t be bothered to help, and Elsie can’t resist the urge to meddle in police business—or devour chocolate. But soon both agent and author are joining forces to say “Au revoir” to the killer. Perfect for fans of Agatha Christie and other authors of Golden Age mysteries Praise for The Herring-Seller’s Apprentice “Fans of comic mysteries will welcome British author Tyler’s debut.” —Publishers Weekly “Tyler is a stylish writer, and his humor is both subtle and sly.” —Booklist</div>

Ten Little Herrings

<div>A politically sensitive murder is detected amid the chaos of a deadly plague in this &ldquo;stellar . . . well-crafted&rdquo; mystery set in Restoration London (Publishers Weekly, starred review). It&rsquo;s 1665, and the Black Death has London in its hideous grip. It&rsquo;s bad news for everyone . . . almost. For a mysterious killer, it presents an opportunity to hide a dead body among a city full of them. But as corpses are collected and brought to the burial pit, one of the bodies is revealed to have a knife in its back. When the victim is identified as an agent of the King&rsquo;s spy network, fixer John Grey is called in to handle the situation&mdash;and, above all, locate the sensitive documents the agent had been carrying at the time of his demise. Now Grey must navigate the deadly pestilence as he uncovers a potentially explosive conspiracy. </div>

The Plague Road

<div> It&rsquo;s the Autumn of 1666, and the Great Fire is still burning, the ashes of hundreds of houses and shops and St. Paul&rsquo;s Cathedral choking the air. The people, too, are choking, raging at the French, the Dutch, at the foreigners who&mdash;they are certain&mdash;lit the torch. Lord Arlington, the Secretary of State, might conceivably be interested in harnessing this anger; it can be so useful, at times, to have the population united in loathing of a common enemy. But this is not one of those times. And inconveniently, a Frenchman&mdash;clearly an insane Frenchman&mdash;has confessed to setting the fire. He did it with an accomplice, he says. And he subsequently killed the accomplice. It&rsquo;s all most irritating for Arlington, or it would be if he didn&rsquo;t have John Grey on call. Go poke around the smoldering ruins, Arlington says. Find me a convenient fall guy. Make this problem go away. </div>

L.C. Tyler
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Books By L.C. Tyler (9 Books)

Crooked Herring

A Cruel Necessity

The Herring in the Library

Herring on the Nile

The Herring-Seller's Apprentice

A Masterpiece of Corruption

Ten Little Herrings

The Plague Road

Fire

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