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Eight BBC Radio crime dramas featuring Golden Age detective Gideon Fell, starring Donald Sinden With his cape, canes and shovel hat, portly amateur sleuth Dr Gideon Fell cuts an eccentric figure - but his odd appearance belies his sharp intellect and astonishing faculty for deduction. Created by...

A sinister case of deadly poisoned chocolates from Sodbury Cross's high street shop haunts the group of friends and relatives assembled at Bellegarde, among the orchards of 'peach-fancier' Marcus Chesney. To prove a point about how the sweets could have been poisoned under the nose of the shopkeeper, Chesney stages an elaborate memory game to test whether any of his guests can see beyond their 'black spectacles'; that is, to see the truth without assumptions as witnesses.

When Miles Hammond is invited to a meeting of the Murder Club in London, he is met instead with just two other guests and is treated to a strange tale of an impossible crime in France years before; the murder of a man on a tower with only one staircase, under watch at the time at which the murder took place. With theories of levitating vampires abounding, the story comes home to Miles when he realises that the librarian he has just hired for his home is none other than Fay Seton, a woman at the heart of this bizarre and unsolved past murder.

Four full-cast stories of suspense from the creator of Dr Gideon Fell The master of the ‘impossible crime’ novel, American author John Dickson Carr was renowned for his Golden Age detective stories featuring the eccentric genius Dr Gideon Fell. This collection brings together four of his...

In the smoke-wreathed gloom of a Parisian salon, Detective Bencolin has summoned his allies to discuss a peculiar case. A would-be murderer, imprisoned for his attempt to kill his wife, has escaped and is known to have visited a plastic surgeon. His whereabouts remain a mystery, though with his former wife poised to marry another, Bencolin predicts his return. Sure enough, the detective's worst suspicions are realised when the beheaded body of the new suitor is discovered in a locked room of the salon, with no apparent exit.

Crime author Dick Markham is in love again; his fiancée, Lesley Grant, the mysterious newcomer to the village. When Grant accidentally shoots a fortune teller through the side of his tent at the local fair - following a very strange reaction to his predictions - Markham is reluctantly brought into a scheme to expose his betrothed as a suspected serial husband-poisoner. That night the enigmatic fortune teller - and chief accuser - is found dead in an impossible locked-room setup, casting suspicion onto Grant and striking doubt into the heart of her lover.

A dark shadow looms over the Rhineland, where Inspector Henri Bencolin and his accomplice Jeff Marle have arrived from Paris. Entreated by the Belgian financier D'Aunay to investigate the gruesome and grimly theatrical death of actor Myron Alison, the pair find themselves at the imposing hilltop fortress Schloss Schädel, in which a small group of suspects are still assembled. As thunder rolls in the distance, Bencolin and Marle enter a world steeped in macabre legends of murder and magic to catch the killer still walking the maze-like passages and towers of the keep.

Last night, Mademoiselle Duchêne was seen heading into the Gallery of Horrors at the Musée Augustin waxworks, alive. Today she was found in the Seine, murdered. The museum's proprietor, long perturbed by the unnatural vitality of his figures, claims that he saw one of them following the victim into the dark; a lead that Henri Bencolin, head of the Paris police and expert of impossible crimes, cannot resist.

Horniman, Birley and Craine is a highly respected legal firm with clients reaching to the highest in the land. When a deed box in the office is opened to reveal a corpse, the threat of scandal promises to wreak havoc on the firm's reputation - especially as the murder looks like an inside job. The partners and staff of the firm keep a watchful and suspicious eye on their colleagues, as Inspector Hazlerigg sets out to solve the mystery of who Mr Smallbone was - and why he had to die.

When the police arrive at the holiday bungalow of the haughty Justice Ireton to find a man killed by gunshot and the high court judge brandishing a pistol, the case seems as straightforward as it is scandalous. Yet, with the incongruous assemblage of physical evidence, the judge's denial of any participation in the crime and the recent events of his daughter's love life combined, the deceptively simple case is soon steeped in complexity. At a loss in the bizarre circumstances, the local force calls in the larger-than-life sleuth Dr Gideon Fell.

As the thick, autumnal fog chokes the capital, within the fire-lit lounge of London's notorious Brimstone Club a bizarre tale is being spun for Inspector Bencolin and his friend Jeff Marle. A member of the club has been sent a model of a tiny gallows, and the word is that the folkloric hangman Jack Ketch has been stalking the streets for victims by night. The threat of this supposed bogeyman becomes thrillingly real when that same night Bencolin and Marle are almost run down by a limousine with a corpse behind the wheel.

The Mystery of the Yellow Room is Gaston Leroux's masterpiece, and it turned out to be his most successful book during his lifetime. It is one of the classics of early twentieth century detective fiction.

From the very beginning of its two-decade run on radio, Suspense was tops in thriller entertainment! Its first year on the air brought together stories from such outstanding masters of the genre as John Dickson Carr, Dashiell Hammett, and Edgar Allan Poe! Tune in to 20 tense classics from Radio's Outstanding Theatre of Thrills - starring Peter Lorre, Mary Astor, Susan Hayward, Richard Dix, Lou Merrill, Agnes Moorehead, Frank Readick, Alice Frost, and more.

Jeremy Bremen has a secret. All his life he's been cursed with the ability to read minds. He knows the secret thoughts, fears, and desires of others as if they were his own. For years, his wife, Gail, has served as a shield between Jeremy and the burden of this terrible knowledge. But Gail is dying, her mind ebbing slowly away, leaving him vulnerable to the chaotic flood of thought that threatens to sweep away his sanity. Now Jeremy is on the run - from his mind, from his past, from himself - hoping to find peace in isolation.

James Bennett, nephew of Sir Henry Merrivale (the cantankerous yet genius sleuth), has been invited to stay at White Priory for Christmas, among the retinue of the glamorous Hollywood actress Marcia Tait. Her producer, her lover, her playwright and her agent are all here along with the haughty master of the estate, Canifes and his daughter. So many suspects they become when Marcia Tait is found dead on Christmas morning in the lakeside pavilion, having been left there alone the night before and with a distinct lack of footprints in the snow to reveal any possible killer.

It's 1757. The fate of North America is in the hands of the French, the British, and the Native Americans. Each party weaves its warlike path in this tapestry of adventure. Meet Hawkeye, Uncas, and Chingatchgook - each a stealthy iron-browed warrior of the mystifying forest. Discover the unscrupulous and sinister Magua, banished and determined to become the leader of his people.

STOP. You should not have touched this flyer with your bare hands. NO, don't put it down. It's too late. They're watching you. My name is David Wong. My best friend is John. Those names are fake. You might want to change yours. You may not want to know about the things you'll read on these pages, about the sauce, about Korrok, about the invasion, and the future. But it's too late. You touched the book. You're in the game. You're under the eye. The only defense is knowledge. You need to read this book, to the end. Even the part with the bratwurst. Why?

Suspense was a radio series of epic proportion. It aired on CBS from 1942 to 1962 and is considered by many to be the best mystery/drama series of the golden age. Known as Radio’s Outstanding Theater of Thrills it focused on suspenseful stories starring the biggest names in Hollywood. Early in the run, the episodes were hosted by the “Man in Black” who, from an omniscient perch, narrated stories of people thrown into dangerous or bizarre situations with plots that, at the very end, usually had an unseen twist or two.

When a famous theatre actor is found dead in his changing room, it is initially labelled a suicide. But Inspector Alleyn believes there is more to it, and soon the cast of the production find themselves under suspicion.

While hot on the heels of serial coupon-racketeer Gordon Ginner, Chief Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard receives word of an intriguing incident up in Lancashire – the summer cottage of local farmer Giles Hoggett has been broken into, with an assortment of seemingly random items missing which include a complete reel of salmon line, a large sack, and two iron dogs from his fireplace. What first appears as a simple break-in quickly spirals into a mystery of contested land grabs for fishing between farmers, made all the more enticing to MacDonald when a body is then found in the river.