Bodies from the Library :Thirteen Lost Tales of Mystery and Suspense (Bodies from the Library #1)

This anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together 16 tales by masters of the golden age of detective fiction for the first time in book form. It includes a newly discovered Agatha Christie crime story that has not been seen since 1922.

Tony Medawar's collection came out in 2018 and proved popular; there have been five more since. Bodies from the Library, volume 6, came out in 2023.

At a time when crime and thriller writing has once again overtaken the sales of general and literary fiction, Bodies from the Library unearths lost stories from the period between the World Wars when detective fiction captured the public’s imagination. That period saw the emergence of some of the world’s cleverest and most popular storytellers.

It contains forgotten tales that have either been published only once before – perhaps in a newspaper or rare magazine – or have never before appeared in print. From a previously unpublished 1917 script featuring Ernest Bramah’s blind detective Max Carrados to early 1950s crime stories written for London’s Evening Standard by Cyril Hare, Freeman Wills Crofts and A.A. Milne, it spans five decades.

Most anticipated of all are the contributions by women writers: the first detective story by Georgette Heyer, unseen since 1923; an unpublished story by Christianna Brand, creator of Nanny McPhee; and a dark tale by Agatha Christie published in an Australian journal in 1922 during her grand tour of the British Empire.

With other stories by Detection Club stalwarts Anthony Berkeley, H.C. Bailey, J.J. Connington, John Rhode and Nicholas Blake, plus Vincent Cornier, Leo Bruce, Roy Vickers and Arthur Upfield, this essential collection harks back to a time before forensic science – when murder was a complex business.

Librarian's note: the stories are: 1) Before Insulin by J.J. Connington (1936), 2) The Inverness Cape by Leo Bruce (1952), 3) Dark Waters by Freeman Wills Crofts (1953), 4) Linckes' Great Case by Georgette Heyer (1923), 5) Calling James Braithwaite by Nicholas Blake (1940), 6) The Elusive Bullet by John Rhode (1936), 7) The Euthanasia of Hilary's Aunt by Cyril Hare (1950), 8) The Girdle of Dreams by Vincent Cormier (1933), 9) The Fool and the Perfect Murder (1979), 10) Bread Upon the Waters by A.A. Milne (1950), 11) The Man with the Twisted Thumb by Anthony Berkeley (1933), 12) The Rum Punch by Christianna Brand (2018), 13) Blind Man's Bluff by Ernest Bramah (2018), 14) Victoria Pumphrey by H.C. Bailey (1939), 15) The Starting-Handle Murder by Roy Vickers (1934), and 16) The Wife of the Kenite by Agatha Christie (1922).