Sally Dobbs

The story opens with the apparently accidental drowning of a sixth form student in the Norfolk countryside. As a matter of routine, or so it seems, the case passes across the desk of Detective Sergeant Smith, recently returned to work after an internal investigation into another case that has led to tensions between officers at Kings Lake police headquarters. As an ex-DCI, Smith could have retired by now, and it is clear that some of his superiors wish that he would do so.

Just returned from years overseas on a secret mission, Albert Campion is relaxing in his bath when his servant Lugg and a lady of unmistakably aristocratic bearing appear in his flat carrying the corpse of a woman. At first Campion is unwilling to get involved, but he is forced to bring his powers of protection to bear on the case, and to solve not only the mystery of the murdered woman but also the alarming disappearance of some well-known art treasures.

Everyone fell under the spell of Jimmy Sutane, the charming and talented song-and-dance man. Everyone, that is, except the spiteful practical joker who put a pin in his stick of grease-paint and pasted 'Last Week' over the 'House Full' notices. Nothing too deadly. But as soon as Albert Campion is called in to investigate, people begin to die, and there's no shortage of suspects when the first victim's death is so convenient for so many.

Ngaio Marsh returns to her New Zealand roots to transplant the classic country house murder mystery to an upland sheep station on South Island - and produces one of her most exotic and intriguing novels. One summer evening in 1942, Flossie Rubrick, MP, one of the most formidable women in New Zealand, goes to her husband’s wool shed to rehearse a patriotic speech - and disappears.

It was planned as an act of charity: a new piano for the parish hall, an amusing play to finance the gift. But its execution was doomed when Miss Campanula sat down to play. A chord was struck, a shot rang out and Miss Campanula was dead. A case of sinister infatuation for the brilliant Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn.

In 1976, Albert Spaggiari engineered the European crime of the century - a bank heist in Nice accomplished "without guns, without violence, without hate." Spaggiari and his gang of 20 men dug a 25-foot tunnel from the city's sewer system into the bank and lifted about $10 million in gold, jewelry, gems, and cash. Tracked down and captured, Spaggiari escaped from the French police by jumping out a window and onto the back of a motorcycle.

One hot Monday morning in 1976, Albert Spaggiari engineered the European crime of the century. A bank president in Nice, France found his vault welded shut—from the inside. Spaggiari and his gang of 20 men had dug a 25-foot tunnel from the city's sewer system into the bank, where they spent a weekend cooking meals, drinking wine, and clearing millions of dollars in gold, jewelry, gems, and cash. Here is the breathtakingly compelling story of Spaggiari, his “sewer gang,” and the most daring, outrageous theft of the 20th century.