"Do you want to make 500 pounds? If you do and are willing to earn it, write to..."

So reads the handbill thrust on Car Fairfax. He is literally down and out, for the soles of his shoes had gone long ago and the uppers show a crack which mean doom to his hopes of a job. And he has just met Isobel: Isobel whom he had not seen for three long, weary years.

But Car's road back to fortune is beset by mystifying experiences involving his cousin Anna; a precise gentleman in neat clothes and pince-nez; and a job whose sole duties - apparently - consist of dining in a...

"I think you're tempting fate when you say that you will never go back to Danesborough."

Chloe laughed, suddenly, frankly. Her eyes were black again, and very bright.

"It's a fate I don't mind tempting," she said, and dropped his arm.

Young Chloe, poor but beautiful, is made heiress of her mysterious cousin who has made a tidy fortune in blackmailing. The capital - indiscreet letters which would make the likes of all sorts of distinguished English people - is kept secret in a safe behind a black cabinet. Cousin Dane whispers the combination...

She was looking at the place where the mirror had hung. It didn't reflect anything because the glass was gone. Instead there was a blackness, a dark hole full of shadows. There was a shuffling and a sighing, and a deep and dreadful groan. Then something moved.

Flossie Palmer worked in the kitchen at 16 Varley Street. It was her job to see that the trays were carried up to Miss Rowland on time. But the job lasted only a few hours and Flossie found herself running, her heart pounding in her throat, down the foggy street, not daring to stop or to listen for the footsteps that...

"I wouldn't like to make you really angry, darling. You know, the only time I did you nearly scared me dead. I believe if you were really roused you might do something rather frightful."

Lucas Dale, new owner of King's Bourne, was flirting with danger when he showed his priceless collection of pearls to the guests assembled in his period salon. But when, under threat, he forced lovely Susan Lenox to break her engagement and consent to marry him, he started a train of events that inevitably led to murder, shattering the quiet of the English village. Bill Carrick, Susan's...

"She's a hula mula wula girl,
She's a crazy daisy nightmare
My baby's a scream."

David Fordyce wasn't looking forward to his birthday party, an annual event he shared with his grandmother. But this year Eleanor would be there--Eleanor, whom he had not seen in seven years, ever since she'd married Cosmo Rayne.

There are mysteries concerning the late Mr. Rayne, and his lovely widow--but then David has secrets of his own. When a black clad figure crosses the line between shadow and moonlight the game is afoot in one of Patricia Wentworth's most eerie and...

Where is Anne Belinda?

Anne Belinda has disappeared--and every time John Waveney mentions her name there is an ominous silence. Lady Jenifer Marr, Anne's twin sister, says she is in Spain. Which is odd--for John is sure he has caught a glimpse of her that very day in Jenny's garden. Why is Jenny misleading him? What is the secret that has made her turn Anne's picture to the wall--that has made old Sir Anthony, on his deathbed, disinherit Anne and leave the estate to him, a distant cousin? John is determined to break through that grim wall of silence--but does Anne want to...

"Are you sure? Don't I inherit anything?"

"Not unless something happens to Miss Ann Vernon."

Ann Vernon won't marry her boyfriend Charles Anstruther, opting instead to become secretary to an old lady. She accompanies Mrs Halliday aboard the cruise-ship Emma, which eventually drops anchor at Loch Dhu, a remote and almost deserted Scottish lake. But what monstrous terror holds the region in its thrall? What is the secret of the island to which Ann gets taken? And what does Charles Anstruther find there when he comes to look for Ann?

Fear by...