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Good breeding simply doesn’t pay the rent anymore. And while Miss Melville has bucketloads of breeding, she finds herself somewhat...lacking, shall we say, when it comes to finances. Distinctly lacking. Her rich friends are no help; they think “broke” means having to buy a smaller yacht. What is an impoverished gentlewoman to do?Become a killer for hire, of course. But Miss Melville (who prefers the term “hitwoman”) doesn’t take just any job, no matter how well paid. That kind of sordid money-grubbing is beneath contempt. No, she reserves her talents for those who...let’s say those who really deserve them. It’s true, her ancestors would roll in their graves at the thought of Miss Melville working—and for a paycheck, my dear! But finger sandwiches and opera tickets don’t come cheap: One does what one must.

A comedy of manners and the odd dead bodyLondon is full of clubs. The Garrick, for example, caters to those with theatrical inclinations, the Athenaeum to eggheads. But the Asterisk may have the strictest membership regulations: Acquitted murderers only.Happily, Benjamin Cann fits the brief. Sure, he strangled Rachel Bolger with a length of pongee silk, but the jury thought different, so while Benji's old landlord may not want him back, the Asterisk gang—suave Clifford Flush (pushed ladies off trains), Mitteleuropean sexpot Lilli Cluj (crushed her husband with a bumper-car), et al.—offers a warm welcome. Benji doesn't love the thought of sharing digs with people more than usually inclined to poison the sherry, but the motherly Mrs. Barratt (dosed Mr. B with ground glass) is delighted. So nice to have fresh blood. And it will be such fun to watch him meet the neighbors!

The Clayborn clan has been waiting 25 years to divvy up Grandmama's fortune, locked up by her will and in a small room in the Clayborn mansion. Tomorrow The Room is to be opened, and the Clayborns can't wait to get their fingers on the old lady's reportedly priceless button collection. Harriet Clayborn, who doesn't quite trust her family, asks Henry Gammadge to witness the Opening of The Room, to make sure there's no funny business. Gammadge agrees, and it's a good thing this masterful sleuth is on hand: the Room has been hiding something grislier than buttons

It's a slow day at Scotland Yard, so Inspector Henry Tibbett takes a busman's holiday, immersing himself in the world of puzzling puzzlers. The hijinks kick off with an amusing gift: Someone unnamed has sent Henry the beginnings of a crossword puzzle. Even more mysterious: The clues point to the group of mystery writers to whom Henry has pledged to give a presentation. Most mysterious of all: None of the writers are who they claim to be, and one is a murderer. Which one? For that you'll need to solve the puzzle. Six across and then down, down, down.

New York in the 1920s is the world's most glamorous city, and Philo Vance, an arrogant art expert, steps in to solve the puzzle of why a scheming stockbroker was murdered, not merely because he is bored and seeking new entertainment, but because honor compels him to point out the myriad ways in which the police are getting it wrong.

Alice Dunbar was a very proper upper East Side woman with a very boring life. There is, in fact, absolutely no reason anyone can think of for Alice to go missing, and yet that's exactly what she does, shortly after the death of an elderly aunt. Henry Gamadge thinks there's more to the story, and as he tracks down Alice's last trip, he turns up a secret life no one suspected. Originally published in 1949.

Grad student Sarah Deane was on a birdwatching vacation in Texas when she discovered her true calling as the “Nancy Drew of the 1980s” (Publishers Weekly). In these two adventures, however, she's brought her eagle eye back home to Maine.The first stop is Bowmouth College, where Sarah, a newly minted teaching fellow, learns that some things may be even deadlier than academic infighting. One reviewer noted that he was “actually tempted to assign the book to grad students, so they'll know what they're getting themselves into.”Sarah's next port of call is in fact the water, as she and her boyfriend kick back on a swanky yacht in exchange for helping the oddball owner distribute Bibles to churches along the rocky coast. It's all smooth sailing until another passenger turns up dead, and Sarah realizes (with some terror and just a little sleuthly delight) that a death on a ship at sea is just a water-logged version of a locked-room mystery.

With Adonis and Darling we are delighted to open the Robert Forsyth series, which was written primarily in the 1980s but carries all the flavors (er, flavours) that fans of British Golden Age mystery have come to expect.Forsyth himself—a brilliant young barrister forced to give up the law in response to a dreadful and undisclosed disgrace—is very much in the Wimsey mold, which is to say that solving crimes is his personal passion but by no means his bread and butter. And though Forsyth lacks a Lugg-like manservant, he does have an indispensable and devoted secretary who shares the spotlight as the series develops. Structurally, both Adonis and Darling nod very distinctly in the direction of the classics: Darling, in fact, is set during a country-house weekend! And for all that Giroux (pseudonym of Canadian writer Doris Shannon) was clearly steeped in the genre, the Forsyth series is no museum piece, managing the neat trick of being both charmingly vivid and delightfully well bred.

It's awful: dear old Malcolm Creed, one of Virginia Freer's favorite neighbors, has been killed in a hit-and-run. Even worse, Malcolm's wife (er...widow) was in hospital at the time, so her homecoming is going to be a misery. Aside from the expected grief, she'll need lots of help with meals and so forth, so you'd think it would be a blessing that Felix--Virginia's on-again/off-again husband--is on hand, paying one of his occasional visits. But a Felix Visitation is never an unalloyed blessing: he has what one reviewer called "a dishonest relationship with the truth," and also a positive genius for seeing conspiracy and murderous intent in what looks to the ordinary person like a tragic but garden-variety accident. Of course, he also has a remarkable knack for being right about this and for picking out the bad guys. So one shouldn't grouse about Felix too much. Not too much.

Murder and Felix have the habit of turning up--and turning up together--in Virginia Freer's life, like some macabre set of twinned bad pennies. This time around, a broken leg and the resulting need for soothing ministrations have led Felix to take up residence in Virginia's spare bedroom, giving him a front-row seat to the dramatic doings in the neighborhood.These mostly involve Virginia's friend Ann Brightwell, who has simultaneously come into a legacy and offered a home to a suddenly orphaned young cousin. The excitement only ratchets up when the cousin disappears and a ransom is demanded. Ann is prepared to sell her newly valuable goodies if it will bring her back, but Felix, cynic that he is, isn't sure that's the wisest course of action. He points out, among other things, that the cousin has a history with the police, and that a local mystery writer seems to be taking a curiously keen interest in the whereabouts of this...quite nubile young woman he's only barely met.

When Denton hears there's a fellow missing from Oxford, it takes him a while to grasp that "fellow," in this instance, means some sort of academic character, and not, you know, a fellow. A bloke. Never mind: He's very happy to set off for Oxford and a spate of poking around. It will be a holiday, a peaceful sojourn, he imagines, among the hushed libraries and the famous dreaming spires. It will be so different from frantic, filthy London, muscling its way into the 20th century. Not exactly. Those dreaming spires hide nightmares as wicked as anything to be found in London's back alleys. He stumbles in particular into the web of vicious rivalries otherwise known as the School of Archeology, hatreds rooted in the discovery--just 30 years ago--of the ancient city of Troy. Grisly suicides, terrifying curses, threats of eye-popping violence...it's the stuff of penny dreadfuls. No wonder the fellow has disappeared; Denton wouldn't mind following his lead and hopping a train back to London.

Those plans for peaceful seaside holidays? They never really work out well, at least not in the world of classic British mysteries. Retired professor Andrew Basnett, for example, envisioning little more than sandcastles and the blessings of a pale English sun on his pale English skin, is startled to meet his nephew, Peter, on the beach. He's yet more startled (and not entirely thrilled) when Peter gets him invited to dinner with a celebrity novelist. And he's extremely startled when the novelist's sister-in-law is shot in the summer house and nephew Peter seems the likeliest man for the job. We have often suggested that Andrew Basnett should be known as "Mr. Marple," because the series' village settings and pinpoint plotting--and its canny, creaky sleuth--are so pleasingly reminiscent of the tales of St. Mary Mead. But they feature, in addition, a gentle wit that (dare we say it?) Ms. Christie could only dream about, and this final installment is a perfect exemplar.

London is smoking hot, and not in a good way.It's the Autumn of 1666, and the Great Fire is still burning, the ashes of hundreds of houses and shops and St. Paul's Cathedral choking the air. The people, too, are choking, raging at the French, the Dutch, at the foreigners who--they are certain--lit the torch. Lord Arlington, the Secretary of State, might conceivably be interested in harnessing this anger: It can be so useful, at times, to have the population united in loathing of a common enemy.But this is not one of those times. And inconveniently, a Frenchman--clearly an insane Frenchman--has confessed to setting the fire. He did it with an accomplice, he says. And he subsequently killed the accomplice. It's all most irritating for Arlington, or it would be if he didn't have John Grey on call. Go poke around the smoldering ruins, Arlington says. Find me a convenient fall guy. Make this problem go away.

The irresistible Andrew Basnett series may have been written in the 1980s and '90s, but its soul lies with the classic crime fiction of the 1930s.Here, for example, is A Hobby of Murder, with its setting at--wait for it--a classic country-house party, that staple of the Golden Age. Rounding out the guest list are, among others, a mystery writer, a lawyer with a reason to dislike him, a doctor, a retired teacher with a passion for photography, and the lord of the local manor, keen amateur chef Sam Waldron--so keen that he has recreated an 18th-century dinner. His skills may not match his ambition, but he didn't mean to poison the coffee. Oh no? The local police inspector isn't so sure, but in the finest Golden Age tradition he's rather an idiot. When the bodies start piling up, it's a good thing that Basnett is on hand to sort things out!