E. C. R. Lorac - Free Library Land Online - Reference

These Names Make Clues

Thu, 28 Jan 2021 14:51:08 +0200

‘Should detectives go to parties? Was it consistent with the dignity of the Yard? The inspector tossed for it—and went.’  Chief Inspector Macdonald has been invited to a treasure hunt party at the house of Graham Coombe, the celebrated publisher of Murder by Mesmerism. Despite a handful of misgivings, the inspector joins a guestlist of novelists and thriller writers disguised on the night under literary pseudonyms. The fun comes to an abrupt end, however, when ‘Samuel Pepys’ is found dead in the telephone room in bizarre circumstances.  Amidst the confusion of too many fake names, clues, ciphers and convoluted alibis, Macdonald and his allies in the CID must unravel a truly tangled case in this metafictional masterpiece, which returns to print for the first time since its publication in 1937.

Crossed Skis

Wed, 16 Oct 2024 17:00:52 +0300

The investigation of a dead body in London's Bloomsbury takes Rivers to the Austrian Alps to hunt down the murderer amidst the visitors to a ski resort.

Accident by Design

Wed, 14 Nov 2018 09:53:15 +0200

The Last Escape

Sat, 16 Oct 2021 16:50:06 +0300

The last novel to feature Superintendent Robert MacDonald finds the officer planning his retirement. After buying a hill farm to the south of Lunesdale, he rents it to a young couple to oversee his property while he's still working.

A prison break and the discover of an unexpected corpse in the abandoned farm house complicate things for Macdonald.

I Could Murder Her

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 14:54:23 +0300

Checkmate to Murder: A Second World War Mystery

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 00:25:28 +0300

"[An] excellent fair-play mystery...this British Library Crime Classic more than deserves that status."—Publishers Weekly, STARRED Review

On a dismally foggy night in Hampstead, London, a curious party has gathered in an artist's studio to weather the wartime blackout

As World War II takes its toll around them, a civil servant and a government scientist are matching wits in a game of chess, while an artist paints the portrait of his characterful sitter, bedecked in Cardinal's robes at the other end of the room. In the kitchen, the artist's sister is hosting the charlady of the miser next door.

When the brutal murder of said miser is discovered by his nephew, it's not long before Inspector Macdonald of Scotland Yard is at the scene, faced with perplexing alibis and with the fate of the young man in his hands. In the search for the culprit, Macdonald and his team of detectives must figure out if one of the members of the studio...

The Live Wire

Mon, 16 Oct 2023 17:00:48 +0300

Jeff Lorimer, newly released from prison, takes advice to heart: "Use your brains. Use them to your advantage." So he sets about doing just that. This classic mystery story by E.C.R. Lorac was originally published in 1939 in Detective Medley.

Death at Dyke's Corner

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 17:00:53 +0300

When a stationary car is struck by an oncoming lorry at a very dangerous hairpin bend known as Dyke's Corner and the driver killed it seems an obvious accident. However, MacDonald's methodical investigations reveal it was in fact a cleverly contrived murder. "We've taken the wrong fork. There's a double hairpin bend somewhere." There was! Immediately in front of them a car was drawn up on the opposite side of the road. As they swung round the wicked curve headlights blazed full at them, blinding them both. A lorry had drawn out to pass the standing car and was coming at them like a battle cruiser. They sensed the rending, tearing scream of metal as the lorry hit them, and darkness came down on them. In that threefold crash it was the occupant of the stationary car who was found dead. Out of the details of a commonplace accident Inspector Macdonald relentlessly builds up the most amazing elucidation of a murder mystery—a case devised with all E. C. R. Lorac's customary brilliance.

Murder in the Mill-Race

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 21:41:47 +0300

ANNE FERENS liked practically everything about Milham in the Moor where she and her husband, Dr. Raymond Ferens, were to live. But she loathed Monica Torrington, warden of the children’s home, at first sight. Sister Monica, as she was called, was a macabre figure, her height accentuated by the ancient, black nurse’s uniform she wore. She had the dark, unsmiling eves of a fanatic, and Anne was convinced that she was a wicked, wicked woman—one who shouldn’t have small children in her charge.

Dr. Raymond Ferens warned Anne not to meddle. Sister Monica was considered a “saint” and she was an unholy power in the village. Still there were furtive rumours—rumours that connected her with the strange death of Nancy Hilton, one of her maids. But as the voting bailiff told Anne, “The village cherishes its own feuds and loyalties and way of life ... but when you make enemies in a village like this, you don’t murder one another...”

The bailiff’s philosophy was proved inadequate. The drowned body of Sister Monica was found floating in the millpool. Chief Inspector Macdonald was called in to solve one of the most difficult cases of his career as he unravelled the hidden events and causes that led to the death of a “saint.”

Fire in the Thatch

Thu, 15 Nov 2018 11:44:26 +0200

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MARTIN EDWARDSThe Second World War is drawing to a close. Nicholas Vaughan, released from the army after an accident, takes refuge in Devon – renting a thatched cottage in the beautiful countryside at Mallory Fitzjohn. Vaughan sets to work farming the land, rearing geese and renovating the cottage. Hard work and rural peace seem to make this a happy bachelor life.On a nearby farm lives the bored, flirtatious June St Cyres, an exile from London while her husband is a Japanese POW. June's presence attracts fashionable visitors of dubious character, and threatens to spoil Vaughan's prized seclusion.When Little Thatch is destroyed in a blaze, all Vaughan's work goes up in smoke – and Inspector Macdonald is drafted in to uncover a motive for murder.

Post After Post-Mortem: An Oxfordshire Mystery

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 18:31:36 +0200

The Surrays and their five children form a prolific writing machine, with scores of treatises, reviews and crime thrillers published under their family name. Following a rare convergence of the whole household at their Oxfordshire home, Ruth – middle sister who writes ‘books which are just books’ – decides to spend some weeks there recovering from the pressures of the writing life while the rest of the brood scatter to the winds again. Their next return is heralded by the tragic news that Ruth has taken her life after an evening at the Surrays’ hosting a set of publishers and writers, one of whom is named as Ruth’s literary executor in the will she left behind.  Despite some suspicions from the family, the verdict at the inquest is suicide – but when Ruth’s brother Richard receives a letter from the deceased which was delayed in the post, he enlists the help of CID Robert Macdonald to investigate what could only be an ingeniously planned murder.

Murderer's Mistake

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 17:50:24 +0300

It's not long after the end of WWII, rationing is still in force in the UK, and Chief Inspector Macdonald of Scotland Yard is hot on the heels of a coupon racketeer, Gordon Ginner. Just then he gets a letter from Lancastrian farmer Giles Hoggett about some odd goings on recently in Lunesdale. Normally he'd pass on the letter to some subordinate, but the possibility that Giles's suspicions might link to the Ginner investigation are just too tantalizing to leave alone, so off to Lancashire goes Chief Inspector Macdonald... soon to discover the murdered body of Gordon Ginner!

Case in the Clinic

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 17:00:50 +0300

The story begins with the sudden death of an elderly clergyman named Anderby, who drops dead while hosing the garden ... death that is followed by another in circumstances which give rise to suspicion and to the local police calling upon Inspector MacDonald. E. C. R. Lorac's novels are always enjoyable, and Inspector MacDonald is rapidly becoming one of the most popular Crime Club sleuths.

Crook o' Lune

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 17:57:08 +0300

"Effortlessly atmospheric [with] a killer likely to take most readers by surprise." — Kirkus Reviews

Renowned for its authentic characters and settings based partly on the author's own experiences of life in the Lune Valley, E. C. R. Lorac's classic rural mystery returns to print for the first time since 1953. This edition includes an introduction by award-winning author Martin Edwards.

"I'm minded of the way a fire spreads in dry bracken when we burn it off the fellside: tongues of flame this way and that—tis human tongues and words that's creeping like flames in brushwood."

It all began up at High Gimmerdale with the sheep-stealing, a hateful act in the shepherding fells above the bend in the Lune River—the Crook o' Lune. Then came the fire at Aikengill house and with the leaping of the flames, death, disorder, and dangerous gossip came to the quiet moorlands.

Visiting his friends, the Hoggetts, while searching for...