Jack Haldean Murder Mystery

The new entry in the popular 'Jack Haldean' series, set in the Roaring Twenties - Charles Otterbourne's New Century company should have been the perfect partner for Professor Alan Carrington's radical new gramophone. After all, Charles was not only a leading manufacturer, but also a noted philanthropist. But when murder is the result of their meeting, Jack Haldean takes up the case, in a desperate bid to save a man from the gallows. But what led to the crime? The answer is Off the Record . . .

A missing man leads Jack Haldean straight into danger . . .Mark Helston, the rising star of Hunt Coffee Limited, was successful and popular, with plenty of money and everything to live for. Yet at half past seven on the evening of the ninth of January, 1925, he walked out of his Albemarle Street flat and disappeared. Desperate to know what happened to Mark, his uncle, old Mr. Hunt, appeals to Jack Haldean. Inspector Bill Rackham of Scotland Yard thinks it's a thankless task. Perhaps, says Jack, but why should Mark Helston vanish? And then Jack finds a body . . .

When Mrs. Paxton, related to the aristocratic Leigh family of Sussex, is found poisoned in her bedroom one morning, fingers point towards her artist nephew Terence Napier, seen leaving the house earlier that previous evening after a row over her will. Months later and Napier has never been found, but curiously a dead body is discovered in a train compartment, and scattered at the dead man's feet are the famous Leigh sapphires – a necklace owned by Mrs. Paxton, but destined to go back to the Leighs in the event of her death. Scotland Yard once again call upon the services of author Jack Haldean to help solve this most complicated of cases. Soon there are links to a serial thief and murderer, known as the Vicar, and it seems there is more to this case than a family feud over inheritance.

A church art exhibition turns deadly... 'Art, my dear boy,' said Mr Askern, 'especially sacred art, needs tradition. Tradition is the bedrock of our art...' He broke off, staring at the woman in front of him. Her face seemed to lose all definition and her skin turned an unnatural shade of putty-coloured grey. 'Art,' she said, her voice scarcely more than a whisper. 'Art! Oh my God, art!' She swayed dangerously. Jack leapt forward, catching her as she fell. Jack Haldean expected Lythewell and Askerns' exhibition of church art in Lyon House, London, to be a sedate affair. After all, Lythewell and Askern, Church Artists, were a respectable, old-fashioned firm, the last people to be associated with mystery, violence and sudden death. Or so it seemed – until after the exhibition...

The wickedly entertaining new Jack Haldean mystery. The message consisted of one neatly typewritten line: I am killing you slowly. You are going to die. The Chessman. Isabelle Stanton and Sue Castradon always arranged the flowers in the village church on Fridays. But Sue was glad to escape the church that morning. She had rowed over breakfast with her husband Ned, who bitterly resented her association – however fleeting – with the handsome Simon Vardon. Sue didn't think things could get worse – until she opened the cupboard… When a mutilated corpse is discovered in the sleepy village of Croxton Ferriers, Jack Haldean finds an odd clue at the scene of the crime: a black marble chess knight with crystal eyes. Is murder just a game? It could be – to a killer who calls himself The Chessman.

Jack Haldean's newly-wedded bliss is disrupted by a series of shocking revelations in this gripping historical mystery. When an old schoolfriend of Jack's wife Betty witnesses a disturbing vision in the garden of a smart suburban house, Jack is intrigued. Just what did Jenny Langton see beneath the cedar tree at Saunder's Green that frightened her so much she fainted on the spot? Jack's subsequent enquiries stir up a hornet's nest of repressed emotions and long-buried secrets. What exactly happened at Saunder's Green almost twenty years before – and why will no one talk about it? As he unearths evidence of a possible murder, how is even a seasoned investigator like Jack supposed to solve a crime that took place two decades before with no tangible clues, no reliable witnesses – and at least one person who is determined to stop him discovering the truth … whatever it takes.

Jack and Betty Haldean's weekend in the country is disrupted by sudden, violent death in this intricately-plotted 1920s mystery. "There's something in those woods that shouldn't be there... " Enjoying a weekend in the country with his cousin Isabelle, Jack Haldean is intrigued to learn that the neighbouring estate of Birchen Bower has been bought by wealthy Canadian businessman Tom Jago. Determined to restore the place to its former glory, Jago has invited the local villagers to a fete to celebrate the grand re-opening of the 17th century family chapel. But the afternoon's entertainment is cut short by the discovery of a body, mauled to death as if by a wild animal. Previously owned by the eccentric Cayden family, Birchen Bower has a long and colourful history, and is rumoured to be haunted. Is there any truth to the ancient family legend of the Jaguar Princess... and could she have claimed another victim? And what's happened to Jago's employee, Derek Martin and his wife, who have disappeared without trace... along with Mrs. Jago's diamonds? Refusing to believe the wild tales of man-eating beasts prowling the grounds, Jack sets out to uncover the truth. But then a second badly-ravaged body is discovered... Could the rumours be true after all?