Books in the British Library Crime Classics series

Detective stories from the golden age and beyond have used European settings - cosmopolitan cities, rural idylls and crumbling chateaux - to explore timeless themes of revenge, deception and haunting.

While hunting for silverware to steal, amateur thief Ted Lyte stumbles upon a locked room containing seven dead bodies.Seven Dead is an atmospheric crime novel first published in 1939.

Entreated by the Belgian financier D'Aunay to investigate the gruesome and grimly theatrical death of actor Myron Alison, the Inspector Bencolin and his accomplice Jeff Marle find themselves at the imposing hilltop fortress Schloss Schadel, in which a killer lurks amongst a small group of suspects.

This British Library anthology uncovers the best mysteries set below the surface and atop the waves, including stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, William Hope Hodgson and R. Austin Freeman.

A darkly humorous depiction of fraught family ties, The Murder of My Aunt was first published in 1934.

Jim Henderson is one of six guests summoned by the mysterious Edwin Carson, a collector of precious stones, to a weekend party at his country house, Thrackley.

Excellent Intentions is a classic crime novel laced with irreverent wit, first published in 1939.

'The death was an odd one, it was true; but there was after all no very clear reason to assume it was anything but natural.' First published in 1943, Raymond Postgate's wartime murder mystery combines thrilling detection with rich characters and a fascinating depiction of life on the home front.

Staffordshire in the 1950s. Within the clay tanks at the pottery company Shentall's, a body has been found. Amid cries of industrial espionage and sabotage of this leader of the pottery industry, there is a case of bitter murder to solve for Inspector Hedley Nicholson.

This unorthodox novel from 1934 is by a gifted crime writer who, wrote Dorothy L. Sayers, 'handles his characters like a "real" novelist and the English language like a "real" writer - merits which are still, unhappily, rarer than they should be in the ranks of the murder specialists.'

This classic crime novel from 1952 evokes all the sunlit glamour of life on the Riviera, and combines deft plotting with a dash of humour

When the show opens at the Grosvenor Theatre to a packed house, Brandon Baker is killed by a real bullet. When another member of the company is found dead, initial appearances suggest a straightforward case of murder followed by suicide. But there is, of course, more to it than that!

Dr James Earle and his wife live in comfortable seclusion near the Hog's Back, a ridge in the North Downs in the beautiful Surrey countryside. When Dr Earle disappears from his cottage, Inspector French is called in to investigate. At first he suspects a simple domestic intrigue - and begins to uncover a web of romantic entanglements

A collection of 14 vintage mysteries from the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle, GK Chesterton, Anthony Berkeley, Phyllis Bentley among others.

For Miss Cordell, principal of Persephone College, there are two great evils to be feared: unladylike behaviour among her students, and bad publicity for the college. So her prim and cosy world is turned upside down when the drowned body of the college bursar is found floating in her canoe.

When a body is found at an isolated garage, Inspector Meredith is drawn into a complex investigation where every clue leads to another puzzle: was this a suicide, or something more sinister? A classic mystery novel set amidst the stunning scenery of a small village in the Lake District.

An eclectic mix of crime stories written over half a century. From a tale of poison-pen letters tearing apart a village community to a macabre mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle, the stories collected here reveal the dark truths hidden in an assortment of rural paradises.

In the peaceful seaside town of Broadgate, an impossible crime occurs. The operator of the cliff railway locks the empty carriage one evening; when he returns to work, a dead body is locked inside - a man has been stabbed. Jimmy London, a newspaper reporter, is first on the scene and is quick on the trail for clues.

This richly characterised and elegantly written crime novel from 1933 is a true forgotten classic.