Behind the dank confining walls of Dartmoor Prison young Rory Macshane collected the strange items—sugar, needle and thread, bits of leather—that would aid him in his cleverly contrived break. Then on a foggy winter morning a fight in the work area distracted the guards, and Rory slipped into the chill mist that hung over the moors and disappeared.Two months later the residents of the serene fell country to the north—where Superintendent MacDonald, C.I.D., had retired—were alarmed by scattered evidence of an unknown visitor, recalling a terrifying, long-forgotten past. It was a past from which there could be no escape—not for the retired MacDonald, not even for the elusive Rory Macshane.

A lost novel from the golden age of crime, published for the very first time. 
It happened on a dark and misty night; the night of the ball at The Prince’s Hall, Fordings. Abuzz with rumours surrounding the disappearance of Rosemary Reeve on the eve of last year’s ball, the date proves ill-fated again when two homebound partygoers, Nick and Dilys, come to a swerving halt before a corpse on the road. 
Arriving at the scene to the news that Nick has been attacked after telephoning for the police, Inspector Turner suspects there may be more to the case than deadly accident. It’s not long before Waring of the local C.I.D. is drawn into the investigation, faced with the task of unravelling an increasingly tangled knot of misleading alibis and deep-rooted local grievances. 
Written in the last years of the author’s life, this previously unpublished novel is a tribute to Lorac’s enduring skill for constructing an ingenious puzzle, replete with memorable characters and gripping detective work. This edition also includes an introduction by the CWA Diamond Dagger Award-winning author Martin Edwards. 
E.C.R. Lorac was a penname of Edith Caroline Rivett (1894–1958), a prolific author of Golden Age mysteries who also wrote as Carol Carnac. For many years, Lorac’s novels were familiar only to rare book collectors; now many of her greatest mysteries are widely available again as British Library Crime Classics, including Fire in the Thatch, Crossed Skis and Checkmate to Murder.

Mystery crime fiction written in the Golden Age of MurderA classic Golden Age mystery from acclaimed author E.C.R. Lorac '...this crime is conditioned by the place. To understand the one you've got to study the other.'The Garths had farmed their fertile acres for generations, and fine land it was with the towering hills of the Lake Country on the far horizon. Here hot-tempered Robert Garth, still hale and hearty at eighty-two, ruled Garthmere Hall with a rod of iron. Until, that is, old Garth was found dead—'dead as mutton'—in the trampled mud of the ancient outhouse.Glowering clouds gather over the dramatic dales and fells as seasoned investigator Chief Inspector Macdonald arrives in the north country. Awaiting him are the reticent Garths and their guarded neighbors of the Lune Valley; and a battle of wits to unearth their murderous secrets.First published in 1944, Fell Murder is a tightly-paced mystery with...

[A] twisty "snake in the garden" country-house mystery [where] Lorac constructs a challenging puzzle and provides a marvelous glimpse into pre-WWII Oxford life." — Booklist, Starred Review"Lorac keeps everything professional and smartly paced"— Kirkus Reviews"Now tell us about your crime novel. Take my advice and don't try to be intellectual over it. What the public likes is blood."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's...

Police Constable Tom Brandon overhears a chance conversation in a local pub. A few days later, he recalls the incident when an elderly widow dies in an apparent accident. An Accident that was planned and is—murder.

They were five strangers on a fogbound train—a psychiatrist’s pretty secretary,an agitated young man,a tweedy lady with a deep voice,a stockbrokerish businessman,and an eel-like “spiv.”One was brutally attacked in the chokingblack fog at Paddington Station.Attempted murder became bona fide manslaughter,and examination of the intimate livesof the passengers involved Chief Inspector Macdonaldin a macabre game of hide-and-seekin which one man had tried to find his identity,and another was ready to kill to preservethe shroud of darkness that obscured his.

SUPERINTENDENT MACDONALD, C.I.D., studied his fellow-passengers on the Vienna plane simply because he couldn’t help it, because he hadn’t conditioned himself to being on holiday. The distinguished industrialist he recognised: the stout man he put down (quite mistakenly) as a traveller in whisky. The fair girl was going to a job (he was right there) and the aggressive young man in the camel coat might be something bookish. Macdonald turned away from his fellow-passengers deliberately; they weren’t his business, he was on holiday—or so he thought.Against the background of beautiful Vienna, with its enchanting palaces and gardens, its disenchanted back streets and derelicts of war, E. C. R. Lorac constructs a detective story with ail its complexities; an exciting and puzzling new crime story.

GILES HOGGETT viewed the flooding of his native Lancashire dales that September morning with secret pleasure. With the rain coming down in sheets he had a good excuse for fishing. He had to give some reason to his wife for braving the weather when farming was impossible, so he said he was going to take a look at their summer cottage, and because, although an angler, he was a truthful man, he did so before even glimpsing the river. There he made a discovery that temporarily made him forget all else—he noticed two iron dogs were missing from the fireplace, as well as a complete reel of salmon line, a strong chain and hook, a clothesline and a large sack . . . a significant haul if one imagined someone wanting to sink a heavy article safe and deep in the waters of the Lune. E. C. R. Lorac has again selected as background to a fascinating mystery the beautiful fell country of Lunesdale in Lancashire.

WULFSTANE MANOR, a rambling old country house with many unused rooms, winding staircases and a maze of cellars, had been bequeathed to Veronica Mallowood and her brother Martin. The last time the large family of Mallowoods had all foregathered under the ancestral roof was on the occasion of their father’s funeral, and there had been one of those unholy rows which are infrequently follow the reading of a will. That was some years ago, and as Veronica found it increasingly difficult to go on paying for the upkeep of Wulfstane she summoned another family conference—a conference in which Death took a hand. Rope’s End—Rogue’s End is, of course, an Inspector Macdonald case, in which that popular detective plays a brilliant part. It is a first rate story with an enthralling denouement.

For a long time Muriel Farrington had ruled the lives of her children, gathering them all together, married or single, under the same roof in the old family mansion. She made a fetish of getting her own way, and liked to do it gracefully if possible, but if there was any resistance she could always rely on the subtle effects of the time-honoured heart attack. Self-satisfied, and selfish beyond belief, she did not sense the bitter resentment that burned in the breasts of her family, and was far from realising the point of desperation reached by one of them, a desperation which was leading inexorably to her own destruction. For Chief-Inspector Macdonald this was not one of the easy cases, but it is one of E. C. R. Lorac’s best.