Dr Beatrice Bradley is elderly, ugly, has darkly sharp insights and an extremely wicked tongue. 1929 genteel country house guests are shocked by the death of their famous guest, world traveler Mountjoy, in a bathtub. Suspects include his quiet (but extremely competent) fiancée Eleanor, pompous Alastair and forceful son Garde, engaged to lovely Dorothy, plus curious naturalist Carstairs.

When Rupert Sethleigh's body is found one morning, minus its head, laid out in the village butcher shop, the inhabitants of Wandles Parva aren't particularly upset. Sethleigh was a blackmailing money lender and when the unconventional detective Mrs Bradley begins her investigation she finds no shortage of suspects. It soon transpires that most of the village seem to have been wandering about Manor Woods, home of the mysterious druidic stone on which Sethleigh's blood is found splashed, on the night he was murdered but can she eliminate the red herrings and catch the real killer?

At ninety, the screeching, still lively Great Aunt Puddequet devises a novel means to determine which of her young nephews stands worthy of her inheritance: she will award her fortune to the relative who shows the greatest promise on her homemade Olympics field. Assisted—and occasionally bullied—by the trainer, Kost, the five men of the family take up the sports of the discus throw, the long jump, and the shot put with competitive and varied results. Although no one is publicly pursuing the javelin toss, that sharp instrument nevertheless has a way of turning up on the field, the blade's tip stained with blood each time. Mrs. Puddequet watches her relations' training with great interest, though the old lady's constant companion—a nervous young woman once promised her share of the inheritance—and only grandson (now surrounded by rivals to the estate) survey the scene with considerably less amusement. The tournament gets thrown off-track once the body of a tenant and Little Longer villager is found on the training grounds. Specifically, the luckless man is tied (with gymnasium rope) to a mermaid statue and submerged in the small mere. Inspector Bloxham tries to make sense of the tableau, and soon has a second death to investigate. Irritated at these mortal intrusions, Mrs. Puddequet tries to chase the police away from her Olympics, but finds a psychiatrist named Bradley (who has taken an interest in the Longer bodies) less easy to deter. While the inspector jumps from one suspect to another, Mrs. Bradley uses logic and psychology to identify the murderer from among the hopeful athletes and inheritors.

When the vicar's wife discovers that her unmarried housemaid is pregnant, sometime detective and full-time Freudian, Mrs. Bradley, undertakes an unnervingly unorthodox investigation into the mysterious pregnancy.

Hillmaston School has chosen The Mikado for their next school performance and, in recognition of her generous offer to finance the production, their meek and self-effacing arithmetic mistress is offered a key role. But when she disappears mid-way through the opening night performance and is later found dead, unconventional psychoanalyst Mrs Bradley is called in to investigate. To her surprise she soon discovers that the hapless teacher had quite a number of enemies - all with a motive for murder...

The quaint, cozy village of Saxon Wall is hiding a dark, sinister reality. When fiction author Hannibal Jones retires to Saxon Wall in hopes of reinvigorating his writing career, he instead finds himself in the midst of an increasingly puzzling and dangerous situation. Eccentric villagers and stories of curses, demons, and blood sacrifices abound. A devastating drought and imposing vicar escalate the pervasive fear until Hannibal Jones feels compelled to call in his good friend and detective, Mrs. Beatrice Lestrange Bradley. An alarming tale of a missing baby and suspicious deaths comes to light. And soon Bradley and Jones are at the center of a mystery wrought with conspiracy, murder…and witchcraft. This classic caper promises to entertain, frighten, and intrigue as you revel in the antics of the gloriously unorthodox sleuth Mrs. Bradley.

Amateur sleuth Mrs Bradley investigates a puzzling Christmas crime in this classic mystery, first published in 1936 as Dead Men’s Morris

When an eccentric Brit proposes a "Fearful rag" to stir up the Mysteries at Eleusis by recreating the ceremony on the original site in Greece, he stirs up something else, something very deadly, and it's up to Dame Bradley to figure out whodunit. First published in 1937.

Mrs. Beatrice Lestrange Bradley receives a visit from her barrister son, Ferdinand Lestrange, who brings with him a plea for help. The coastal convent and girls' school of Saint Peter's Finger reports that student Ursula Doyle has died under inexplicable circumstances. The poor girl was found in the filled tub of a guesthouse bathroom but the coroner discovers that she had died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Fearing public outcry at the suspicious death, the nuns ask the Home Office psychoanalyst to look into matters. Mrs. Bradley dutifully attends. Arriving at the convent, the detective quickly learns that the flow of information runs differently here. Though the nuns don't withhold facts, neither do they extend them. Part of the difficulty lay in the circumstances: although none can believe little Ursula capable of committing the cardinal sin of suicide, the possibility of murder occurring at St. Peter's is particularly disagreeable. As facts continue to find against a ruling of accidental drowning, Mrs. Bradley is forced to start looking for a murderer. A couple of outsiders fit nicely: the dead girl's aunt, Mrs. Maslin, moved one step closer to seeing Ursula's large inheritance bestowed to her own stepdaughter; Miss Bonnet, a visiting physical training mistress, certainly had the strength—and possibly a motive—for murder; and cousin Ulrica, an enigmatic girl with signs of religious mania, was the last person to see Ursula alive. Even simple-minded Sister Bridget, with affinities for a pet mouse and for starting fires, cannot be immediately ruled out. As a solution begins to form, Mrs. Bradley grows increasingly uneasy with the situation and warns the Mother Superior to take steps to avoid another crime. In so doing, the old sleuth will also have to act fast to preserve her own life.

The imminent publication in a limited edition of a scandalously anti-Semitic book—The Open Bellied Mountain—by the printing house of Saxant and Senss, finds the author of the inflammatory work—Fortinbras Carn—and his closest relatives receiving disturbing threatening letters; threats that soon have to be taken deadly seriously when the author's wife is killed in mysterious circumstances. Mrs. Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley is soon drawn into a mystery as bizarre and as baffling as any that she has ever encountered during her long and illustrious career. Ably assisted by her resolute and energetic nephew Carey, and by the young and enterprising solicitor to the author's family, she finds herself battling Nazis, nudists and gun-toting motorcyclists in equal numbers; unmasking the reason behind a sudden craze for wearing false beards; and the origin of several dismembered human body parts, which begin to appear in a variety of increasingly peculiar locations. All before eventually arriving at the case's unexpected and surreal climax.

It is the early months of the Second World War, and the inhabitants of the provincial town of Willington are just coming to terms with the idea of petrol shortages, rationing, occasional air raid warnings, and the blackout. The last thing they expect is for three mysterious corpses to appear in their midst on the same gloomy night.

Mrs. Bradley's niece-by-courtesy, Gillian, is instructed to embark upon a walking holiday, as rehabilitation after a failed romance. Once alone, amidst the border castle, colourful heather, and wild moors of Northumberland, Gillian not only succeeds in forgetting all about her past love, but also manages to stumble across an intriguing mystery. Mrs. Bradley finds herself drawn into the puzzle—but by chance or design, she cannot decide—and is forced to pit her considerable wits against as ruthless and unscrupulous an adversary as she has ever encountered. Church ghosts; music hall mayhem; a repeated and perplexing case of strychnine poisoning; and—not forgetting—hidden treasure, are just some of the things with which Mrs. Bradley must contend, before a murderer can be finally brought to a long awaited justice.

Mrs. Bradley has dealt with murderers before, but she has always dealt with them as a professional psychologist—coolly, scientifically, almost flippantly. Now, however, the brilliant old lady is fiercely determined to bring a cruel and ruthless murderer to bay. Various members of the Bradley household play significant roles in a case involving a special school where youthful offenders are sent in hopes of reforming them. First published in 1941.

Mrs. Bradley, celebrated psychoanalyst, arrives at Cartaret women's training college intending to fill a vacancy left by a house warden from the previous semester. The missing staff member, Miss Murchan, disappeared during the end-of-term dance and failed to surface again. Add to that the possibility that Miss Murchan may have witnessed, or even been involved in, the death of a young student earlier that year, and the warden's abrupt absence from college begins to look very sinister indeed. Mrs. Bradley's arrival is met with a rash of busy—and sometimes menacing—practical jokes: bathrooms are flooded, snakes are let loose in a classroom, clothing is savagely slashed, and one girl's hair is cut off while she sleeps. Fortunately, the energetic new warden takes into her confidence the sub-warden, an intelligent young woman named Deborah Cloud, and a trio of colorful students: outgoing, outspoken Laura Menzies, future hairstylist Kitty Trevelyan, and shy but physically strong Alice Boorman. Together, the group combats the increasingly mischievous pranks, but even Mrs. Bradley is unable to anticipate the murder of the house cook: the woman's body is found downstream in the nearby river, with her corsets floating separately among the weeds. It soon becomes clear that the Cartaret grounds contain a fugitive, but is this person the missing Miss Murchan? And if so, then whose bones were boiled in the abandoned quarry? And what of the rather suspiciously named Miss Cornflake, a new student who possesses the commanding presence of an experienced teacher? Mrs. Bradley keeps admirable track of all these details and more, disarming pistol-wielding mental patients and dodging murderous attackers while moving determinedly towards the mystery's conclusion.

Mrs. Bradley is not unaccustomed to receiving fan mail, but the anonymous letter that she opens one morning at breakfast has not been sent by a well-wisher. The letter evokes memories for Mrs. Bradley of a past criminal investigation, in which she had played a minor role in convicting a particularly unpleasant murderer and Satanist. The letter, too, provides a link to a sudden spate of gruesome and ritualistic murders occurring in the normally tranquil surroundings of the Norfolk Broads and not for the first time, Mrs. Bradley finds herself drawn into a race to track down a killer. Aided by her nephew Jonathan, and only occasionally hampered by her three former pupils—Laura, Kitty and Alice—Mrs. Bradley takes to the myriad waterways where she is pitted against a dark occultist sect, a deadly line in knitwear and a plot to dismantle an ancient monument, and where she finds herself the object of a long-harboured plan for revenge.

It's the height of the Second World War, and Mrs. Bradley is working overtime as a doctor at a rest shelter for air raid casualties and displaced persons. With all the present mortality around them, the staff hardly needs another dead body, yet they find one in the form of a two-year old corpse, packed into a makeshift coffin and clothed in a now tattered dressing gown. The dead man's identity and appearance in the shelter are a mystery; the coffin/crate wasn't noticed in the basement room on the previous day. Mrs. Bradley realizes that the story really begins in the days before the war, and confides her tale to Detective Inspector Pirberry. David Harben, a young novelist and acquaintance of Mrs. Bradley, spends his summers writing and boating off England's coast. One dark night a tap at the porthole window reveals a visitor to David's tub: a beautiful woman whose first words to David are "I've killed him." The boat is moored off the beach near some houses, and upon the woman's request that David investigate, the writer enters the house and discovers the dead man on the floor. David returns to the boat, hours pass, and when they next visit the house, the body has disappeared. The mysterious woman then leaves David by taking his boat, and when David reclaims it down river, the woman is nowhere to be found. That's when the attempts on David's life begin. While David ponders these events, two Dominican nuns and their collection of five orphaned boys enter his life. Mrs. Bradley takes this extended family into her beach house, but during another investigation of the dead man's house, David disappears. The sea recurs throughout this story, and Mrs. Bradley collects such clues as a secretive sailing flag, a talkative parrot, a water-filled cellar, sinister Spaniards, and stories of naval heroics and alluring water-nymphs, clues which help her (and perhaps only her) make sense of this tangled plot.

Touring Scotland’s western Highlands is meant to be a romantic holiday for Ian and Catherine Menzies. But the winds shift when the limping, haunted figure of Hector Loudoun appears. The man begs for an audience and then regales them with a marvelous tale: after Hector refused another man’s offer to purchase his property, he was cursed by a terrible fall and tormented by a ghostly voice calling out for justice. The story seems unfounded, until Hector’s housekeeper suddenly goes missing...and the body of a stranger—stabbed in the back—is discovered by Ian’s sister and her traveling companion Mrs. Beatrice Lestrange Bradley. The psychoanalyst detective Mrs. Bradley is no stranger to murder. She sets out to interview Hector, but instead unearths a whole new set of mysteries...and motives. In this peculiar tale of clan lore and buried secrets, the indomitable Mrs. Bradley unravels a multifaceted mystery—piece by satisfying piece.

Every full moon, a Ripper runs amok on the streets of Brentford. Masters Simon and Keith Innes set out to catch the killer under the disturbing guidance of the repellently delightful sleuth, Mrs. Bradley. Full of the very British eccentric goings-on that mark the popular tales of Gladys Mitchell, this shows her at her mordant and morbid best.

Roger Hoskyn and Dorothy Woodcote are spending their Easter weekend holiday on a walking tour of the English countryside. Toward day's end, the pair find themselves still a long distance from a train station and decide to stop at Whiteledge, a country manor house, to ask directions. To their surprise, the butler ushers them in and leads them to bedrooms and baths, where the travellers are to wash and then join the house for dinner. Arriving at table, Roger and Dorothy are soon in the company of some interesting persons: they recognize Claudia Denbies, a striking redhead and a celebrated violinist, and master George Merrow, whose birthday the party is celebrating, as two of three horse riders who passed them that afternoon. Dorothy notices that the third rider, a tall, handsome man, is absent from the group, and an enquiry reveals that Mr. Harry Lingfield went out riding and has not yet returned. Dorothy also learns that her and Roger's invitations were given by the superstitious and eccentric Lady Catherine Leith, who didn't want Lingfield's appearance to create thirteen at table. To Roger's right sits an unsettling old lady named Mrs. Bradley, whose black eyes take in the details of all her dining companions. Mr. Lingfield still hasn't returned to Whiteledge by the following day, and Mrs. Bradley and the travellers, under the auspices of taking the dog for a walk, retrace the trail on which Dorothy and Roger saw the horse riders. The dog disappears into a copse, and its pursuers come across the naked and headless body of a man. It appears to be the body of the missing Mr. Lingfield, but there is some opposition to this theory, notably from Claudia Denbies, Lingfield's lover. The corpse's head is not found at the scene, and an inquest only seems to raise more questions. Mrs. Bradley has been acting as a consulting psychiatrist for someone in the house, but will not reveal her patient's identity to the police. A Scottish train conductor testifies to seeing a decapitated body laying across the tracks. The inspector's suspicion falls on Mrs. Denbies, but then who is responsible for three attempts on Roger's life, and why? When a second beheading occurs, Mrs. Bradley steps in and offers a solution which incorporates archery, sculpture, second sight, seven and sixpence, the "mount of Venus," tripwire, barbed wire, and a burned-out car in high-spirited—if not entirely believable—fashion

Miss Prissie Carmody has a full house. She was living quietly and happily with her ward, nineteen-year old Connie, in her South-west London flat when Prissie's second cousin appeared, his young wife in tow. Edris Tidson spent the war years as a banana grower on the Canary Islands, but now he and wife Crete are staying—perhaps permanently—with their frustrated but polite aunt. Connie, however, is quick to show her dislike of the invasion. One day, Edris reads in the newspaper a letter proclaiming the sighting of a naiad, or water-nymph, in the River Itchen. Excited by this whimsical account, Edris organizes a family excursion to Winchester (which Miss Carmody is to sponsor) in search of the nymph, even though no one shares his enthusiasm on this subject.

The nine rocks known as The Dancing Druids had become objects of mystery and suspicion in their locality, and were linked in people's minds with the disappearances at nine-yearly intervals of three apparently harmless local men. There was also the smuggling mystery: it was known that valuable paintings and clever fakes were being smuggled abroad, but it was not until Mrs. Bradley, with her unerring acumen and the help of her attractive young secretary, Laura, deduced a connection between this trade and the disappearances, that the two mysteries were finally solved.

When an unpopular teacher at a private boy’s school is found murdered, only Mrs. Bradley can solve the mystery in this classic crime caper from the redoubtable Gladys Mitchell.

‘A delight… An amateur sleuth to rival Miss Marple’ Guardian (Please note that this book was previously published as Groaning Spinney.) Mrs Bradley, sharp-eyed detective and celebrated psychiatrist, has decided to spend Christmas with her nephew at his beautiful house in the Cotswolds. It isn’t long before a mystery unfolds. There are strange events occurring in the nearby wood and local villagers are receiving anonymous threatening letters. Then the snow begins to fall – and a body is discovered. Mrs Bradley is on the case, but she’ll have to hatch an ingenious plan to reveal the truth and find the culprit…

Dan Jeffries' job, as courier on a coach taking holiday-makers on a tour of Scotland, was fairly uneventful until, with the tour nearly over, one of the party was murdered. It was fortunate that the important facts preceding the crime had been faithfully recorded by Jeffries in letters to his fiancée, and even more fortunate that she should have been working for Mrs. Bradley. Mrs. Bradley, as befits "the best woman detective in fiction", was quickly on the scene, questioning and deducing, ferreting out the real facts behind this apparently motiveless crime. There was the question of the boat-trip undertaken by some members of the coach party, the nylons found in a caravan mattress, the jewels smuggled in a barrel of fish, and other seemingly irrelevant discoveries. But relevant they were, and Mrs. Bradley was soon well on the way to solving one of her most brilliant cases.

Most people overlooked the sullen deaf-mute teenager Francis Caux…until he led police to the scene of a murder. It was psychoanalyst and detective Mrs. Beatrice Lestrange Bradley who found a clever way to communicate with Francis, thus learning that his recent fear of water stemmed from a body chained to the underside of a boathouse dinghy. But how did Francis know the location of the body? Even more puzzling is the discovery of a second murder linked to another Caux teen, Derek, in a nearby village. Mrs. Bradley suspects that the teenage Caux boys are somehow related, and soon must consider the possibility that they are coconspirators…in murder. The beloved eccentric detective Mrs. Bradley pieces together details from a tragic past and a troubling present in this delightfully deceptive classic mystery.

At Merlin's Furlong lived Mr. Aumbry, a wealthy, elderly art collector; and at Merlin's Furlong, just when he had changed his will, Mr. Aumbry died—violently... Not far away, at Merlin's Castle lived Professor Havers, of Carford University, a man with an unsavoury reputation and a taste for witchcraft; and soon, at Merlin's Castle, long before his appointed time, Professor Havers died—violently... And at Carford, not long before, an unfortunate undergraduate, a pupil of Professor Havers, had died—violently also, since he appeared to have cut his own throat... It was fortunate indeed that three other undergraduates, involved innocently enough in these bloody affairs, had as a friend a nephew of Mrs. Lestrange Bradley. Fortunate for them, for they certainly needed help; fortunately for Mrs. Bradley, since the case, with its flavour of witchcraft and the Black Mass, was one after her own heart; and most fortunate of all for the countless admirers of 'the best woman detective in fiction' who will find in Merlin's Furlong all the ingredients of a vintage Gladys Mitchell crime story.

On a rainy, miserable night, down-on-his-luck author George Mandsell ducks into a public telephone box, intending to call his publisher and ask for an advance. As soon as he is inside, the phone begins to ring. Answering it, he discovers that the caller is a Miss Faintley, and in no uncertain terms she tells him to pick up a parcel from a neighboring station and to deliver it to a shady shopowner in the village. Before Mandsell can explain that she has mistaken him for another errand-runner, she rings off. Spotting the chance to make a little money while also perhaps finding inspiration for a story idea in the adventure, the penniless author sets out to retrieve the package. A short while later, thirteen-year-old Mark Street is dismayed to find his least favorite school teacher staying at the same hotel where he and his family are passing their summer holiday. Worse luck, Miss Faintley (referred to by Mark as "old Semi-Conscious") has uncharacteristically asked him to accompany her to a nearby town. With a schoolboy's resourcefulness, Mark slips away from his teacher at Torbury and returns to the hotel for an unsupervised swim. He begins to worry, however, when Miss Faintley doesn't return to the hotel by the following day, and confides as much to Laura Menzies, a fellow guest and newfound companion in athletic activities. Out for an early morning hike, Mark and Laura discover a deserted house surrounded by woods on one side and coastline on the other. Ignoring "no trespassing" signs, they investigate and eventually come upon a woman's body lying among the gorse. Laura alerts her employer, Mrs. Beatrice Bradley, and the old detective soon picks up the scent. If the body is that of Miss Faintley, who killed her, and why? After a visit to the caves at Lascaux, the consultation of some botany books, a little seafaring surveillance, and the befriending of both Mr. Mandsell and a Latin-speaking parrot, Mrs. Bradley is ready to deliver a solution.

Mitchell, Gladys

John Mapstead kept twelve horses at his riding-stables. Eight were for hire, three came and went mysteriously in connection with race meetings and one was for his own use. It was in the loose-box of the latter that they found his battered body, and the horse was squealing mad and had blood on its hoof. The verdict of the inquest was Death by Misadventure, but Dame Beatrice Bradley, Gladys Mitchell's unique detective, began to make inquiries which uncovered one strange feature of the case after another, until by a cold process of deduction she and her secretary were in a position to prove just what had been going on in the Hampshire countryside.

Renowned criminologist, psychoanalyst and sardonic widow Mrs Bradley is enjoying a relaxing holiday on the beautiful island of Hombres Muertos. Then a cave high up in the mountains, containing the mummified bodies of twenty three dead kings, acquires an extra corpse overnight and Mrs Bradley is delighted to be called into action. As her investigations begin it quickly becomes clear that almost everyone on the island has a motive for murder, and a dark secret they are desperate to conceal. But who is the real killer?

When two male students execute a rag against the nearby Calladale women's agricultural college—a prank involving rhubarb and dead rats—the ladies decide to give the men back some of their own. They collect the litter and sneak it over to a pub which happens to be a favorite with the men. Their plans of storing the collection are not successful, however, as the ornamental horse carriage beside the pub where they were going to store the contents is already occupied—with the unrecognizable body of a woman clothed in a Calladale blazer. Inquiries at the college reveal that one student, Norah Palliser, has been missing for several days. When Dame Beatrice enters the investigation (at the request of nephew Carey Lestrange, who is teaching pig farming at Calladale) another incident comes to light: days ago, a student returning late to the campus encountered the spectral vision of a cloaked, larger-than-life horseman galloping down the college's moonlit path. Dame Beatrice finds the story most interesting, and other facts soon emerge: Norah Palliser was secretly married to a penniless painter named Coles; she may have been connected with Carey's predecessor, a man with questionable morals nicknamed by the students as "Piggy" Basil; and petty thefts have been occuring within the college. The coroner reports death by coniine poisoning, probably extracted from the root of spotted hemlock; there's also the puzzling fact that the victim is physically older than Norah Palliser's twenty-three years. But if the body isn't Norah Palliser-Coles, who is it? And where is Norah? Dame Beatrice travels to Northern Ireland, upper Scotland and southern Italy on her rounds of alibi-breaking, until she is ready to place her cards on the table and reveal the solution.

Mr. Hugh Camber, claiming the family estate as his own following an inheritance, does not receive quite the warm welcome that he has expected. Housestaff members give their notice, the chauffeur is released following a wave of insubordination, and the villagers seem reluctant to account for the tension that accompanies the house. Slowly, Hugh gathers up enough information to draw some conclusions. It appears that upon Paul Camber's death, the household fears the inevitable arrival of a widowed aunt, Mrs. Hal Camber, to claim the estate for herself and her rather insufferable young son. There are rumours of unpleasantness between a dismissed Camber tutor and a local farm girl. Added to that, much speculation is given to the demise of Paul Camber: he was found drowned in a Scotland stream. Paul's son, master Stephen, had also drowned in a local river a few months earlier, and an eyewitness noted that the boy appeared to be drunk as he made his way along the bank. As prophesied by the Camber housemaids, Mrs. Hal arrives at the estate with her son in tow, and with the intention of settling in. Sympathetic but resolute, Hugh locks horns with this domineering relation and eventually sends her back to her home. Shortly thereafter, villagers start receiving anonymous letters which accuse Hugh of the murder of his relatives. When Hugh and his fiancée, the vicar's sister, are sent similar notes, Hugh asks Dame Beatrice to travel to the Norfolk estate and venture an opinion as to the writer's identity. Hugh already suspects the exiled aunt, but, as Dame Beatrice points out, it is curious that the letters specifically refer to murder when accusations of other ill behaviours would blacken a name equally well. After all, both Paul and Stephen Camber were accorded rulings of accidental death. And then there are the tomatoes. Parlourmaid Ethel lifted three from Paul Camber's dining room table and became quite sick after eating them. Master Stephen's final lunch was said to contain tomatoes. But from where did these intoxicating fruits originate? And how did they find their way into the Camber house? Dame Beatrice uses her knowledge of poisons, salmon fishing, agriculture, pig farming, and the deviousness of human nature to solve this agreeable countryside mystery.

Two leading characters in this detective novel are Phlox and Marigold Carmichael, a pair of dilettante Bohemians who wish to find a Romano-British treasure trove. While digging in Hampshire, they unearth a skeleton which they show as a Romano-British exhibit. However, Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley is so doubtful of its origin that she has tests made and discovers the bones to be those of a person killed within the present decade. And so Miss Mitchell's famous woman detective takes on a new and exciting case.

Dame Beatrice is summoned by schoolmistress Alice Boorman, who has found herself in a bit of a predicament. While hosting two candidates for a rival teaching position, the group visits the mine shafts of Pigmy's Ladder, where the two visitors explore under ground while Alice, subject to claustrophobia, stays above. Out of sight much longer than expected, Alice begins to worry about her charges; a search finds the teachers unconscious from the heavy presence of butane (or calor) gas within the shafts. Concerned that she may be accused of trying to do in her job rivals, Alice appeals to Dame Beatrice, who is quick to assure her that the gas was meant for someone else. She proves this by conducting the police to the body of Oliver Breydon-Waters, walled up in an underground alcove at the prehistoric site. The elderly detective focuses on the Nodding archaeological society, and soon learns that Breydon-Waters was not well-liked. The victim's mother is in questionable contact with her son from the spirit world, and she shows Dame Beatrice his collection of earthly possessions which seem to include several artefacts and relics lifted from various digs. While gas canisters were found beside Breydon-Waters' body, death was assuredly caused by a severe blow to the head. Had the man known something which led to his demise? Or had his illicit activities caught up with him? If Breydon-Waters' mother was indeed in celestial communication with him, that avenue of investigation reaches an end when the lady is poisoned by salts of lemon. As Dame Beatrice digs deeper, she uncovers a murderer whose motive may be sincere but whose actions are disturbingly deadly.

Laura's trip to her native Scotland—accompanying Dame Beatrice for a conference, the secretary finds the venture more pleasure than business—begins ominously when she witnesses at Inverness a man thrown into the path of a speeding lorry. A little later, Laura is caught in heavy rain, which cuts short her exploration of Highland scenery. Fate deposits her on the strange island of Tannasgan—Island of Ghosts—and she shares dinner with an even stranger companion, a red-bearded Scot who calls himself Malcom Donalbain Macbeth. Sent to a bedroom after her host requests her company for a week, Laura's increasing unease with the situation causes her to flee. Making her way to the rowboat that carried her to the island, she is surprised to find another stranger hiding in the boathouse. The pair escape to shore as the sound of bagpipes builds from a dirge to a frenzied reel, then violently, abruptly cuts off. Laura's nighttime adventures interest Dame Beatrice strangely, as they learn that the Laird of Tannasgan was stabbed with a skian-dhu, his body chained to a rum barrel and placed in the loch. A young journalist named Grant—the man in the boathouse—dogs the ladies during their investigation, pleading with Laura to offer him an alibi for the murder. It becomes clear that Laura's host was not the cruel Laird known to many as Cu Dubh—Black Dog—but then what part did he play in the proceedings? The trail leads to a menagerie of carvings on a neighbouring island, but the arresting figures of the werewolf, gryphon, and basilisk there remain silent with their secrets.

Dame Beatrice receives a letter from her grandnephew, Denis Bradley, and relates its contents thusly to Laura over breakfast: "Denis has joined a friend named Tom Richardson for a fortnight's holiday. He was late getting to the hotel and the friend slept in a small tent until Denis arrived. A dead man was found in the tent one night. Richardson recognised him, but did not tell the police so. However, by the time the police arrived at the tent, the body had been exchanged for another which Richardson did not recognise. Now he and Denis have discovered the first body. They want us to go along and look into the matter." Look into the matter they do, and it's soon discovered that Tom Richardson, a track runner, not only knew one of the dead men but had quarreled with him on one blackmail-tinged occasion. How and why the rival athlete's body had gotten into Tom's tent, and why it was then exchanged for a second dead man, are indeed mysteries best left to the elderly sleuth. What she discovers involves an improbable mix of athletics clubs, absentee landowners, New Forest ponies, and some vague form of national/international intrigue, the undertaking of which perhaps only Dame Beatrice truly understands.

While attending a conference in Holland, Dame Beatrice Bradley makes the acquaintance of a chatty but spirited girl named Binnie Colwyn-Welch. Acting on an invitation to meet the rest of Binnie's relations, Dame Beatrice and secretary Laura Gavin are soon surrounded by the eccentric fruit of three comingled family trees. Binnie is set to marry cousin Bernardo Rose, much to the chagrin of Binnie's brother Florian and Bernardo's outspoken grandmother Rebekah. The match does please patriarch Bernard van Zestien, however, an elderly man worth a fortune from his business dealings in diamonds. Combining duty with holiday pleasure, Dame Beatrice and Laura enjoy exploring the Netherlandic towns while keeping an eye on the potentially volatile group of natives. Shortly after Aunt Opal commissions a portrait of the beautiful-yet-cruel features of Florian (including a second study of the young man's hand holding a "delft blue" hyacinth flower), the subject goes missing. An earlier accident involving polish left on the stairs—coupled with a street barrel-organ playing an unusual Scottish lament for the dead—puts the wind up, and Dame Beatrice decides to look into the matter. The trail brings her back to Britain, where Florian might have met his fate while exploring the mines and caves outside Derbyshire. But Laura is spared from rappelling into the cavernous Eldon Hole (much to her adventure-loving dismay): Florian is discovered alive, but not out of trouble. Shortly thereafter, two barmaids die from eating poisoned chocolates, and the pretty young man may have been the intended victim—or a deliberate murderer.

The dull but important little town of Brayne, situated somewhere between London and Windsor, is celebrating its new status as a borough. Among other festivities, the Council have decided to stage an historical pageant. Along with other celebrities are figured Shakespeare's Falstaff and two English Kings—Henry VIII and Edward III. The persons taking these parts are apparently innocent and harmless, and yet, in turn, all three are murdered, not, it seems, so much for their own sins as for the long-ago short-comings of the characters they represent in the pageant. Dame Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley and her secretary, Laura Gavin, succeed in unravelling the mystery, Laura by making a somewhat gruesome discovery in the little river on which Brayne stands, and Dame Beatrice by applying to the case what the immortal Jeeves would call "the psychology of the individual."

Under pressure from a small boy who wants to spend his summer holiday there, Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley is persuaded to rent the estate, only to find that an unexplained violent death occurred there some two years previously and that the murderer has never been found. The police have a suspicion that they know his identity, but there is no proof. The dead man was Thomas Dysey, a previous owner of the estate, but it is so impoverished that there seems no reason for supposing that the murder was committed by one of his relatives for gain, although, in the absence of all other conceivable motives, there seems no other cause for his death. It turns out that he has an illegitimate son named Henry and a legitimate son, Bonamy. The former is debarred by his illegitimacy from inheriting, and the latter who got into disgrace in England, is said to have died abroad. This leaves Thomas Dysey's wife and his twin brothers, one of whom has adopted the illegitimate son, and these have become the main suspects. During the early part of Dame Beatrice's tenancy, the castle appears to be haunted by a singing ghost, but his spectral nature is soon in doubt, as, twice a week, on Wednesday nights and Sundays, he steals food from the manor house pantry. The situation is further complicated by the fact that on Wednesdays and Saturdays the house and castle are thrown open to the customary half-crown visitors, one of whom may be the murderer. The singing ghost appears to be exorcised when one of the dead man's twin brothers is also murdered, and in precisely the same way. This presupposes that the murders are dynastic and that possession of the almost worthless property is the murderer's ultimate aim. This is the police theory. There is also a strong local rumour that the manor house once sheltered Jesuit priests during the time when the Catholic faith was proscribed, and that these left behind a treasure known as the Dysey Hoard. Nobody seems to know whether the treasure is still in existence or, if so, what form it takes, and Dame Beatrice tries to trace its history in the hope that this will shed some light on the two murders. Two other possible suspects exist in the form of a woman whom one of the brothers has married, and her sister, who is Henry's mother, but although these women could have murdered Thomas as an act of revenge for begetting Henry, there seems no reason why they should have killed the second brother. All appears to turn upon whether the legitimate son, Bonamy, is alive or dead. When he turns up, not only alive but married with a son of his own, the mystery of the two murders seems insoluble until Dame Beatrice tracks down the truth.

When Colin Spalding agreed to stay with his father in the old lighthouse he had rented for the summer, he did so reluctantly—and only because his father's second wife would be there. For Colin believed himself to be in love with the beautiful Fiona. His attentions were diverted, however, by the arrival of Laura Gavin, acting as temporary matron with the small prep school which had rented a local hotel—and it took little persuasion for him to take up the post of junior master at the school. There he met a former acquaintance, Ronald Ferrars, with whom his step-mother had once had a ship-board romance. But when Ferrars' body was found at the old lighthouse, Colin was a suspect for murder... Fortunately, Laura was at hand to persuade her employer, Dame Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, to visit the scene and uncover the unsavoury truth...

Laura Gavin's walking companion along a country road situated at the edge of the New Forest isn't her employer, Dame Beatrice Bradley, but a newly acquired Irish wolfhound named Fergus. The young dog belongs to Laura's son Hamish, who's away at school, so Fergus has been staying at the Stone House and has become especially devoted to Dame Beatrice. On the walk, Fergus behaves strangely, then bolts into the woods. An early morning search uncovers dog and something unexpected: the wolfhound is guarding the body of a young woman, Karen Schumann, who has been strangled, and pinned to her chest with a knitting-needle is a piece of paper reading: In Memoriam 325. With the investigation still ongoing, another woman's body is discovered in the woods, also strangled, another cryptic note attached (In Memoriam 380). With Dame Beatrice's input, the police concentrate on three suspects: Edward James, a theology and divinity student engaged to the first victim; Mrs. Schumann, Karen's mother and, briefly, landlady to Maria Machrado, the second victim; and Otto Schumann, Karen's quick-tempered sailor brother and Maria's ex-boyfriend. When a third woman's body is discovered, her death occurring under similar circumstances, Scotland Yard's Inspector Maisry works to prevent another tragedy, but he is unable to disrupt the pattern: there is a fourth murder, then a fifth. Dame Beatrice works with Gavin and Maisry to make sense of the facts. For one thing, each victim, while sometimes not a foreigner, had a different national association: Karen Schumann was German, Maria Machrado, Spanish; other victims were an Italian maid, a French-language schoolmistress, and an Irish nanny. Then there are the notes attached to the bodies, whose numbers may have a historical significance, either as a year date (a.d. 325?) or as day, month and year (3 February, 1905?). Dame Beatrice, who has deduced the murderer's identity but lacks proof, explains her theory to the police, and the group begins to strengthen its case. Ultimately, it is Dame B. and George who apprehend the killer, thanks to the old lady's forethought and her chauffeur's proven reliability in matters of life and death.

Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley is typically consulted for her astute detective skills, but her most recent invitation is anything but typical. She has been summoned to the home of an unknown relative, Romilly Lestrange, who asks not for her assistance in solving a crime, but for her psychiatric opinion of his wife. The young woman, according to Romilly, has developed a troubling habit of tossing items and pets off a cliff top! But Romilly’s wife, Rosamund, tells a different story—one of repression and deceit at the hands of her captor. As Dame Beatrice attempts to discern the eccentric from the criminally insane, the news of a family inheritance arises, followed by the discovery of another relative’s dead body floating in the sea. Dame Beatrice must use skills both psychoanalytic and sleuthing to uncover the truth…for never has a case been closer to home, and never has her life been in such peril. Legendary crime fiction author Gladys Mitchell sends her most notorious detective into her most perplexing case: the mystery of the Lestrange family itself.

In this story, Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley finds herself in the unusual position of being involved with a shady professional boxing establishment run by a gang whose activities are a cover for something which Damon Runyon would call, "by no means a high-class business, and even considered somewhat illegal." Toby Sparowe, the nephew of one of the Dame's friends, has bought a derelict railway station opposite the public house where the gang have established their training quarters, and where a callow youth is being coached for a non-existent fight. In fact, the boy is being used as a cloak for the gang's profitable but nefarious enterprises. Toby befriends him and offers to help with his training but this does not suit the gang's plans and they rudely brush off Toby's offer. When a murder is committed and the youth charged, Toby's suspicions are aroused. He invokes the help of Dame Beatrice who uses her formidable wits to bring about a happy but not a highly ethical ending.

Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley, taking shelter from the rain in the British Museum, encounters a middle-aged archaeologist named Ronald Dick whom she last met in Greece many years previously. He persuades her to join another expedition in that country to visit various shrines and temples dedicated in the Golden Age to Apollo, who was the son of Leto by Zeus. The party turns out to be an ill-assorted one and, of the ten people who form it, only the leader is seriously interested in its object. Six of the members are young and, on the whole, frivolous; and, in any case, harmonious relationships are jeopardized by a selfish woman novelist whom almost all the others would soon like to see dead. In the end one of them kills her and it takes Dame Beatrice to work out the identity of the murderer.

Fenella Lestrange is motoring from her great-aunt Beatrice's house in Wandles Parva to her cousins' manor in Douston, and she is running late. Looking for a place to eat, Fenella stops at the village of Seven Wells and tries her luck at the local inn, called the More to Come. There she learns that the inn was built upon the foundations of an ancient church, and that the village is busy with secret preparations for tonight's Mayering Eve ceremonies. Unable to get more information about this apparently unique pagan holiday (the date being April 30th), Fenella finishes her dinner and returns to her car only to find that the vehicle, working fine moments ago, now won't start. Frustrated by the delay, she has the car towed to the only garage around, then secures a room for the night at the More to Come. Villagers and the staff at the inn continue to allude to the strange activities that will happen soon. After being told by the landlord, Mr. Shurrock, to bolt her bedroom door for the night, Mrs. Shurrock adds, "Whatever happens, don't you open that door to nobody." Fenella's curiosity soon overtakes the unease she feels, and she slips out of her room to do some investigating. She first encounters the bizarre scene of costumed villagers dressed as the signs of the Zodiac, reading cards at the inn. Scorpio recognizes Fenella as an intruder, and the group turns hostile. Escaping the group, Fenella also becomes spectator to a strange ritual taking place within the crypt of the old church. Inside, a sacrificial skeleton is sprinkled with rooster's blood while the gatherers chant a pagan fertility poem. The anointed bones are then carried to their resting place in a hillside grave. Dame Beatrice is quite interested in Fenella's adventures, for the psychiatrist is looking into the murder of the squire of Seven Wells, Sir Bathy Bitton-Bittadon. The man was found with a knife in his back, and it appears the murderer then threw Sir Bathy over a wall that surrounds his land. When Fenella makes a later visit to the More to Come, she is surprised to find that the landlord and staff have been replaced by a group of strangers. Enquiries on the Shurrocks' sudden absence produce sinister warnings from the villagers. And another unpleasant discovery is in store: within the crypt beneath the inn, Fenella comes across five freshly laid out human skeletons.

Marius Lovelaine has decided to extend the olive-branch and visit his estranged sister at her island-set hotel. He rallies his family together, but wife Clothilde wants nothing to do with sister or island, and opts to visit her cousin instead. Reluctantly, Marius travels to the island of Great Skua with only his grown children in tow: son Sebastian and daughter Margaret are determined to make the most of their holiday. Eliza Lovelaine (now Dashleigh) has invited them to her hotel, though rather dubiously mentioning the guest fees as she did so. Marius and family disembark from the boat, having arrived with a reptilian older lady and her Amazon-sized companion, only to be told that sister Lizzie has not returned from a trip to the mainland. Frustrated, Marius waits for her arrival, but the days pass and the tiny boat never brings the missing woman to the island. Marius does make the acquaintance of Eliza's business partner, a dour woman named Miss Crimp, who promptly annoys her guest by situating Marius at the hotel while booking his offspring into a separate chalet. An infestation of ornithologists to the island proves the last straw, but before the Lovelaines can make an exit, a birdwatcher spots the body of a woman being tossed against the rocks by a turbulent sea. Identification shows that the unfortunate woman is Eliza Dashliegh. Marius, who had hoped to reconcile with his sister partly to bolster any potential inheritance she might leave, becomes a suspect in the suspicious death, as does the money-minded Miss Crimp and Lizzie's illegitimate son, an island farmer named Ransome Lovelaine. Sebastian and Margaret find that the family headstones in the churchyard have been defaced in a curious manner, and unsettling actions and signs point to the presence of witchcraft on Great Skua. Dame Beatrice keeps an eye on events, but she and Laura have come to the island on their own mission. Dead pigs, locked lighthouses, midnight rituals and pirates' caves provide enough intrigue for the elderly detective to postpone the writing of her memoirs and investigate the mysteries provided by this wind-swept, rocky Atlantic island.

Hamish Gavin has accepted a teaching position at a unique institution, Joynings, where almost all of the students—and most of the faculty—have dark deeds and secrets in their past that led them there. Equal parts safe house, college, and minimum confinement prison, Joynings warden Gascoigne "Gassie" Medlar places the emphasis on school sports programs, with academic classes arriving a distant second. Hamish soon meets the other teacher/coaches, including a disagreeable man named Jones, who is unpopular with students and staff, and for several good reasons. David Jones is a careless womaniser, targeting a number of female students and work staff; his actions and oversights have caused sports injuries to some promising athletes, including a stunt that sent a long distance jumper to the hospital; he's unreliable and drinks heavily; and complaints to Medlar about him don't produce a result, as Jones is the warden's brother-in-law. When Jones disappears from campus, no one is overly concerned, though Hamish finds the behaviour of some of the students odd. Days later, Jones' body is discovered buried in the long jump pit, and Hamish contacts his mother and her employer, Dame Beatrice, who takes up the case. Dame B.'s investigations uncover several motives of people who would prefer to see the unlikeable Jonah out of the picture, including Medlar, who may have been his blackmail victim. A trophy javelin is found in a changing room, covered in red paint, but the real murder weapon is soon found among the practice javelins: one of them was fitted with a lethal steel dagger tip. As Dame Beatrice gathers more clues, a student's body is found in the woods, bludgeoned by a metal shot. An off-campus meeting of suspects at the village police station gives Dame Beatrice the opportunity to unmask the school's sports-minded killer.

Sir Ferdinand Lestrange's daughter Sally gets invited to join a monster-hunting expedition. The group—led by publisher and folklore enthusiast Sir Humphrey Calshott—plans to monitor the waters of Loch Tannasg in western Scotland for any signs of a Loch Ness-like creature, and the group members approach their task with varying degrees of seriousness. A pair of twin spinsters hope to indulge their artistic side, while a retired army major and his meek wife simply want a holiday. The Calshott's daughter Phyllis, Sally well remembers from girlhood experience, has a tendency to prattle, and the unlikeable Angela Barton seems to enjoy spreading nasty insinuations about and among the other party members. Reluctant to be tied down to a caravan containing such aggravating personalities, Sally offers to drive her car up and act as liaison to the three camps. Sally is quite grateful for the freedom her vehicle offers, and between Angela's gossip and her own observations concludes that some dalliances are taking place. The tranquil loch is also cause for close attention: first Sally, then the twins, briefly encounter the fleeting lake creature. Their news is overshadowed by the discovery of Angela Barton's wet body in an abandoned house, a suicide note nearby, a wound on her throat, and a thermos of poisoned coffee near at hand. But if the woman tried to kill herself, reasons Sally, why was the note still dry if she attempted first to drown herself in the loch? And why is there no residue of poison in the thermos' cup? For answers, Sally consults her grandmother, Dame Beatrice, who has an impressive track record for just this sort of problem. Together, Sally, Dame Beatrice, and secretary Laura Gavin interview and investigate until they find a solution, and one which calls upon a final appearance of the Loch Tannasg creature.

For the second time in her career, Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley is called upon to solve the mystery of murder in a convent. After a series of anonymous letters have been received by the Sisters and also by members of the staff at a school run by the nuns, the supposed writer of the letters is found drowned in the school pond, together with her own Family Bible. At the inquest a verdict of accidental death is returned, but Dame Beatrice regards this as unsatisfactory for reasons which she passes on to the local Inspector of Police. With some help from him and some evidence supplied by two of the schoolchildren, she unmasks a heartless and cowardly murderer.

Margaret and Kenneth Clifton pass their childhood summers with their two sets of aunts and uncles in the sleepy village of Hill. They spend their days playing in the town's sheepwash, avoiding Sunday school, investigating the old hermit's shack, and deciding which sweets to purchase at Old Mother Honour's shop. The pair has befriended Our Sarah, a matronly girl who supervises the village children like a hen with her chicks. Margaret and Kenneth also make the acquaintance of Lionel Kempson-Conyers, an inquisitive lad staying with his aunt at her manor house. The siblings' Aunt Kirstie has for years housed a boarder named Mr. Ward, an eccentric and solitary man whose behavior has become increasingly erratic. He has been digging up the grounds with a spade in places like the chicken run, the garden, and the hermit's shack. Margaret is unsettled when she finds a hole shaped like a grave within the run-down shack; a later visit reveals that the hole has been filled in again. During a fancy dress (costume) party held at the manor house, tragedy strikes: a girl from London is found dead by the sheepwash, still wearing a dinosaur costume from the party. Mrs. Bradley, in communication with Mrs. Kempson, decides to visit Hill, and some interesting facts surface. The murder victim and young Lionel, heir to the estate, were wearing the same costume; Doctor Tassall, who absented himself from the party at an early hour, was once engaged to the girl, but is now in love with Amabel Kempson-Conyers, Lionel's sister; and Mr. Ward's spade, the apparent murder weapon, is found in the sheepwash. Also, Mr. Ward hasn't been to his room for two days. The psycho-analyst must then decide whether one or two murderers are living in Hill village.

Called upon to probe the mysterious disappearance of two touring motorcoach drivers, Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley uncovers a racket which involves stolen antiques, smuggling and murder. Later, a third driver is missing, but reappears to tell a tale which Dame Beatrice suspects is only partly true. But one slender clue leads to another until the drama is played out . . .

Depending on how one looks at it, Mr. Theddeus E. Lawrence manages to incur either terrible misfortune or celebrated windfalls. Relatives and family members have a habit of dying, but Lawrence is often compensated for his loss. His father perished in a car crash while his son was at the wheel; a sympathetic school benefactor failed to get medical attention in time and died of an aneurysm; and now it appears that Mr. Lawrence's first wife has turned up, only to go missing again. When a body is discovered, though, it belongs to the man's second wife, a college secretary who is found buried on the school grounds. Dame Beatrice first hears of the case from her son, who is investigating an embezzlement charge against the busy Mr. Lawrence. Ultimately, Lawrence is jailed—for drunken driving and resisting arrest. The years pass, and one night Dame Beatrice's secretary Laura Gavin attends a meeting of the local dramatic society. The question before the group: what to present at the Caxton festival, an affair celebrating printing-press innovator William Caxton. After much deliberation and theatrical argument, the society decides to mount a production of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera. Dame Beatrice is interested to hear Laura's news that a headstrong society member is determined to recruit a reluctant villager, a young printer sharing the name of William Caxton, to take part in the pageant. Remembering her acquaintance with the man named T.E. Lawrence and A.C. Swinburne, Dame Beatrice decides to watch over the festival activities, which is just as well: during The Beggar's Opera's final performance, the actor playing Macheath is fatally strangled by (what should have been) a prop noose. Laura and Dame B. talk reach a conclusion by assigning identities to the luckless roles of victim and murderer.

An evening of exchanged ghost stories on a windy Hallowe'en night leads Dee Crieff-Tweedle to an inspired idea: she'll organize a ghost hunt. She and her complacent husband (affectionately called "Dum") soon organize a group of thrill seekers, including a curiously muscular clergyman, a male medium calling himself Madame Arcati, and Eiladh Gavin, Laura's daughter and Dame B.'s goddaughter. Dee has planned out the itinerary with a thoroughness that would make a sergeant-major proud. Among the sites to investigate: a ghostly mass in a Salhouse churchyard, a body thrown over a Roman Fort wall in Burgh Castle, and a benevolent ghost monk (with dutiful ghost dog) in a ghost boat in the waters of Ranworth Broad. In Eiladh's letters to Dame Beatrice, she reports that there's trouble from the start, due to ill will between hostess and just about everyone else in the party. Eiladh records an escalating series of practical jokes to re-enact the ghostly scenarios, culminating in the strangling murders of two group members. Dame B. steps in and, after a round of interviews, clears Eiladh's name whilst collaring the murderer(s?).

Nearing 70, matriarch Romula Leydon finds much at fault with her varied and colorfully-named family. An illegitimacy here, a touring stage actor there, and the lady finds herself disapproving of her flesh and blood kin more often than not. Romula has made a steady habit of bankrolling people in whom she sees potential: efficient secretary Fiona Bute was the first outsider to benefit from her employer's whims. Then came kitchenmaid Ruby Pabbay, an opinionated young lass who enjoys singing while doing the washing up; Mrs. Leydon thought the girl's voice had merit, and Ruby has been treated to singing lessons and trips to London ever since. Now milady's restless eye has fallen on her (adopted) grandson Gamaliel, a handsome black teen with aspirations to become a world-class boxer. Such attention given to this comparative outsider does not sit well with several of the family members who are still living in the shadow of the rich relative's scorn. Gamaliel also arrests the attention of Dame Beatrice Bradley, who is staying at a nearby hotel. It is from the future boxer that the Home Office consultant learns of an outbreak of shoving—one targeting Romula Leydon, a second directed at her daughter Diana—that, if successful, would have dispatched its recipients over a cliff. This is soon eclipsed by a fateful Sunday luncheon wherein a pot of horseradish sauce mixed with the root of wolfsbane (or monkshood) makes its way to the table. The only casualty is Romula Leydon, most likely by design: it was known that only the matriarch ever used the sauce, and that a pot was made fresh each week by her faithful cook, Mrs. Plack. A recently dismissed kitchenmaid is arrested, charged with substituting the lethal sauce as a means of revenge. But no one—Dame Beatrice and the not-quite-grieving family included—can believe the simple girl capable of such an act. So Dame B. sets out to clear a kitchenmaid's name and, in so doing, shake the murderer from the family tree.

Chelion Piper has been arrested under suspicion of murder. One of the tenants of his country apartment house, an unsocial and secretive old lady named Miss Minnie, was found by Chelion and two other men in her bungalow, dead in her bed. Suicide or accidental death is quickly ruled out: the woman was drowned in sea water (her clothes and bed were wet), and her face was bludgeoned in. The police discover that Piper inherited the house from a relative of Miss Minnie's, and she was there to find evidence of a new will that would give her claim to the property. Motive thus provided, the police begins building the case against Chelion. The accused man writes to Dame Beatrice, and she agrees to pay a visit to Weston Pipers on his behalf (while there, she uses the alias of "Mrs. Farintosh" to allay suspicion). At the house, Dame B. meets Niobe, the quick-to-tears caretaker who was once engaged to Chelion, and the remaining tenants, all of whom are writers—true crime reporters, advice columnists, romance writers and spy novelists among them. The detective soon learns about a wave of sordid anonymous letters addressed to several individuals, as well as a prank that changed the printing of stationery bearing the estates name from "Weston Pipers" to "Nest of Vipers." The trail of Miss Minnie leads Dame Beatrice and Laura to a run-down junk shop in the village, where they find a duplicitous shop owner, a set of steel fire-irons (which may include a murder weapon), and a cryptic picture with occult origins. When the shopkeeper is found dead in his office, stabbed in the chest, an investigation of the junk shop reveals a private room containing black curtains and carpet, satanic symbols traced upon the floor, and a sacrificial altar. Dame Beatrice must now decide just how many murderers she's looking for: one, two or an entire coven.

Young schoolmaster-turned-author Colin Palgrave seeks inspiration for his second novel among the dunes and beaches of Saltacres, where he plans to spend his holiday. He encounters one rather forthright character straight away, and that in the form of 20-year old Camilla Hoveton St. John, a vacationing art student. After some undisguised flirting, Camilla invites Palgrave to stay with her and two others at a beachfront rental, and Palgrave warily accepts. All goes well until the early arrival of the next week's tenants: Colin is surprised to find Morag Lowson, to whom he was once engaged, with her doctor husband and luggage in tow. The house becomes uncomfortably crowded and, growing weary of Camilla's amorous advances, Palgrave opts to sleep in his car. Unable to settle into his cramped quarters, he is persuaded by Camilla to join her in an evening swim. A little later, he leaves the young woman in the sea and returns to the house and his makeshift bed. The morning yields an unpleasant discovery: Camilla's body has washed up on the beach. An inquest determines that the death was accidental, and that the woman had probably been caught in the undertow of an outgoing tide. But what has happened to the unlucky art student's suitcase? It has disappeared from the rental house, and in reality it must have been removed during the night by one of the occupants. A sightless "mumper" (here, a derelict beachcomber) named the Old Mole provides the answer when he finds the hastily buried case of clothes among the dunes. And who was the figure in white that Palgrave saw on the night of Camilla's drowning? All of this activity gives the novelist the inspiration he had hoped for; but when the manuscript turns out to contain more truth than fiction, an unamused murderer makes plans to deposit another body among the mudflats.

Between-books novelist Michael Lockerbie pays a welcome visit to his brother Innes and Innes' wife Mary in the quiet Dorset village of Strode Hillary. The quiet does not last, however: Michael interrupts a burglary at his brother's house, and historical items—including a doll and a metal man-trap—are stolen from the local museum. The criminal activity appears to continue when a wealthy sheikh who has taken up residence in Strode Hillary is shot at while talking outside with a land agent. Before long one of the sheikh's sons gets his leg caught in the man-trap, and the land agent, an unlikeable man named Winters, disappears. Innes appeals to Dame Beatrice to look into these matters, and the psychiatrist begins her investigation by interviewing those suspected of the museum robbery. When the missing Mr. Winters resurfaces—he was buried under a half-submerged punt in a trout-stream, the museum doll pinned to his frozen body—Dame Beatrice deduces that the land agent, and not the sheikh, was the intended target of the potshot. But what of the other goings-on? The detective finds the answers, the novelist finds inspiration for his next book, and Strode Hillary returns to its quiet existence.

Ten people, seven women and three men, visit sites in Cumbria, Argyll, Inverness and the islands of Arran and Lewis. In Cumbria Sister Veronica asserts that she has seen the flitting figure, but only one other person in the group also claims to have seen it. After an unusual version of the Truth Game is played to pass a wet evening at one of the hotels, the party begins to break up. Later on, a body is discovered in the stone circle at Callanish on Lewis and another is found in Oxfordshire, the second one a former member of the group. Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley is present when each body is discovered, and it needs all her expertise to solve both mysteries.

While en route to visit relatives, Hermione Lestrange falls into company with three agreeable women who are spending their autumn holiday in a forest cabin. Out for a drive, the group discovers a battered bicycle by the side of the road, and closer inspection reveals the unfortunate owner, seemingly dead from head wounds, her body found in a nearby ravine. The police are contacted, but Hermione becomes concerned that suspicion may fall on herself and her new acquaintances, as the scene resembles a hastily covered-up automobile accident. Fearing the worst, she rings up her great-aunt and voices her fears. The young women are ultimately exonerated, but in a quite unforseen way: there is a second murder, and an attempted third, and each of the victims or near-victims (including the roadside casualty) is a member of a touring folk-dancing troupe staying at a local hostel. The newest attacks occured after a performance of hornpipe- and morris-dancing which Hermione and her friends had attended. One dancer was set upon and her body pushed into a broom closet; another troupe member—a man still wearing a lady's wig to replace the absent cyclist in dances—was knocked unconscious and left for dead in the bushes outside. While Inspector Ribble concentrates his investigation on the movements of the folk-dance group, Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley considers a longer list of suspects. The Home Office psychoanalyst also imagines a wider range of scenarios than her more dogmatic police counterpart, some of which put Hermione and her friends in danger. Sending her great-niece (and her group) back to her father's pig farm in Stanton St. John, Dame Beatrice builds the case study of a very disturbed individual—someone who takes pleasure in pushing the death-cap mushroom into a victim's wounds.

Jonathan and Deborah Bradley come to the rescue when relations wish to enjoy a cruise: not only does the couple agree to tend to a handsome country house, they also temporarily inherit two young charges, Rosamund and Edmund. Knowing that they can always press into service Jonathan's ageless aunt should he and Deborah require a holiday of their own, arrangements are soon put into place. The suggestion to use the picturesque Bradley grounds to stage a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream is met with enthusiasm, and soon rehearsals are underway. The role of Pyramus is given to a difficult young man who soon manages to have nearly the entire cast against him, as his lack of tact and dubious criminal background hardly prove endearing. For this character's play-acting death scene, the producer acquires a realistic-looking dagger with a retractable blade (introduced in the chapter entitled "Retractable Blade") and all goes well for the first two performances, but decidedly less so for the third. Hinckley, the actor who wielded the dagger so convincingly in that role, suddenly falls ill—mussels are suspected—and another actor is hastily costumed for the role. It is only after the fatal weapon's plunge that it is discovered the prop dagger has been switched for a real one. Accident? If not, who was the intended victim? Dame Beatrice looks into the matter and answers these questions—but only after the dagger has claimed another life.

Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley is drawn into an uncanny case involving murder and a bizarre, hypnotic young woman suspected of being a witch

Two undergraduates decide to spend the long vacation searching for treasure which local legend indicates was buried in a castle well during the Civil War. When the youths get to the site, they are dismayed to find that other parties have also obtained permission to work there. Some archaeologists are hoping to excavate a Bronze Age barrow and two architects, with their helpers, intend to attempt a partial reconstruction of the walls and flanking-towers of the castle. One of the archaeologists is also an amateur astronomer. One night, while studying the stars, he falls from the top of the keep...to his death. The fall is regarded with suspicion when the police discover that all fingerprints have been cleared off the dead man's telescope. Then two brutal murders are committed on the site and it falls to Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley and the local police to solve the mystery of the deaths. The treasure? Well, the castle is easily identifiable, so no metal detectors please!

The Greenstone Griffins is the story of Jessica Denefield, a country girl who, as a child, becomes obsessed by a pair of candle-holders in the shape of the fabulous creatures called griffins. Because of two fatal accidents—or what appear to be accidents—she believes that the griffins have the power to work evil and her fascination with them increases. Jessica rationalises this feeling as she grows older, but the griffins continue to haunt her. In an apparent coincidence, she sees them next in a shop which shortly afterwards is burnt out in puzzling circumstances. But the griffins are not destroyed: subsequently they appear in the window of a flat belonging to a mysterious French woman who once figured in the second of the deaths that occurred during Jessica's childhood. Still obsessed by the greenstone figures, Jessica calls at the flat, only to find the murdered body of the tenant. It is chillingly clear that one of the griffins has been used as the murder weapon. When Jessica falls under police suspicion, her cause is taken up by Mrs. Beatrice Lestrange Bradley, who brings the true culprits to book by a mixture of deduction, common sense and applied psychiatry.

Comrie Melrose, in his business life an easy-tempered literary agent, has planned a holiday that will double as a compatibility he will traverse the highlands of Scotland with his fiancée, the striking beauty Hera, to ensure that the couple can weather the ups-and-downs of both countryside and relationship. While walking The Way, Comrie and Hera encounter a number of fellow travelers including the garrulous mate’s mate Carbridge and the handsome Mr. Todd. Both men notice Hera’s presence—too much so. Soon Comrie and Hera continue on the trail to Fort William, hoping to leave the party far behind. But fate is not so easily seeking shelter from a sudden rainstorm, the pair ducks into an abandoned stone farmhouse. In a dark passageway, Comrie stumbles literally upon a man’s body, a dagger protruding from the lifeless form. Convinced that it is Carbridge (and not wishing to draw suspicion), the couple agrees to give no alarm, but to leave the murder site as soon as possible. Their shock is rather justified then when, some days later, an incontestably alive Carbridge saunters into their hotel, the rest of the hiking party trailing after him. The identity of the farmhouse body soon comes to light, but Comrie worries that his discovery that night is a portent of graver things to come. And that is just how matters manage to play out. Reluctantly accepting an invitation for a reunion with the motley band of hikers, Comrie finds himself in a building on the campus of a polytechnic school. Anxious for some air, a helpful hangman-turned-housemaster suggests Comrie try a shadowy corridor for a bit of a stroll. At the end of the passage, Comrie finds the body of Carbridge, a Scottish sgian dubh dagger stuck into him. It suddenly appears that the hiker’s party houses a murderer after all.

The headmaster of the Sir George Etherege school for boys becomes understandably concerned when one of his senior staff, a geography teacher named Mr. Pythias, does not appear at school following a weekend break. In the days leading up to Christmas vacation, no one at the school or at his boarding house hears from the missing man. The unexplained absence is doubly frustrating as Pythias had collected several hundred pounds from dozens of students and faculty to fund a school trip to Greece, and the money never made it to the bank on that fateful Friday. The headmaster refuses to believe that a staff member could have absconded with the money, but then where has Pythias disappeared to? A couple mysterious break-ins happen on campus and the groundskeeper spots two figures causing mischief, but they escape apprehension. They seemed to be digging near a large plot in the quad that was used as a rubbish hole when building construction was taking place. Plans of transforming the area into a large lily pond come to an abrupt halt when a man's body is found buried among the debris. When two boys who may have witnessed one of the break-ins go missing, the inspector requests Dame Beatrice to take up the case. Accompanied by Laura Gavin, the psychiatrist to the Home Office questions co-workers, students, landlord, housemates, bank officials, and even a Southampton art gallery owner until she is able to provide the beleaguered headmaster with answers to the puzzle.

Trouble starts in the quiet coastal village of Abbots Crozier when Bryony and Morpeth, the eccentric Rant sisters of Crozier Lodge, decide to breed Pharaoh hounds, the oldest domesticated dogs in the world. The sisters reluctantly take on a kennel-maid to care for the Pharaohs but, some time after her arrival, their Labrador, Sekhmet, is stolen. The theft leads to the discovery of a dead body in the river. Is the unidentified corpse connected with the night prowler who has been tapping on the windows of Crozier Lodge? Before the mystery can be solved, a second body is found on the moor. When suspicion falls on the Rants’ kennel-maid, Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley and Laura Gavin are called in to retrace the steps of the dead men and find out how and why they died.

Short story collection, some stories featuring Mrs. Bradley.