Step into the world of Albert Campion, the brilliant and unassuming sleuth whose adventures are filled with intrigue, wit, and unexpected twists. The Best Stories of Margery Allingham brings together some of her finest short mysteries, showcasing the timeless charm and cleverness of one of the Golden Age's most beloved detectives. This collection features thrilling tales such as Safe as Houses, The Meaning of the Act, The Definite Article, The Hat Trick, and many more.

November 1866: The grisly murder site in London's East End is thronged with onlookers. None of them expect the calmly efficient young woman among them to be a medical doctor, arrived to examine the corpse. Inspector Richard Tennant, overseeing the investigation, at first makes no effort to disguise his skepticism. But Dr. Julia Lewis is accustomed to such condescension . . .

The Piccadilly Murder is a 1929 mystery detective novel by the British writer Anthony Berkeley. Ambrose Chitterwick is a witness to the death of a lady in the lounge at the Piccadilly Palace Hotel, shortly after her companion dropped something into her coffee. Chief Inspector Moresby is convinced she was murdered by him her nephew and sole heir, Major Sinclair, using prussic acid. He arrests Sinclair and plans to use Chitterwick as starwitness for the prosecution. However, nagging doubts in Chitterwick's mind lead him to turn amateur detective and find the real truth.

London, 1851. With the opening of the Great Exhibition at hand, interest in mounting in the engineering triumphs of the railways, but not everyone feels like celebrating. In an audacious attack, the London to Birmingham mail train is robbed and derailed, causing many casualties. Planned with military precision, this crime proves a challenge to Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck who fights to untangle a web of murder, blackmail and destruction.

Charles Lenox, Victorian gentleman and armchair explorer, likes nothing more than to relax in his private study with a cup of tea, a roaring fire and a good book. But when his lifelong friend Lady Jane asks for his help, Lenox cannot resist the chance to unravel a mystery. Prudence Smith, one of Jane's former servants, is dead of an apparent suicide. But Lenox suspects something far more sinister: murder, by a rare and deadly poison.

If one more person gives Rosemary Lillywhite unwanted advice on when to stop mourning the loss of her beloved husband, she fears she will lose control of her sensibilities. All she wants is to be left alone to drown her misery in a glass of gin and tonic, but when Grace Barton knocks on the door of her dead husband’s investigative office, Rosemary faces a choice: come out of hiding, or turn away someone in need of help.

May 1915. As zeppelin bombs fall on London and with the sinking of the Lusitania, anti-German hysteria reaches fever pitch and attacks on German immigrants surge. Not even the West End of London is immune. Jacob Stein's bespoke tailoring business comes under brutal attack, leaving his safe ransacked, his daughter, Ruth, raped and Jacob dead.

September 1907. George Dillman sets sail from Liverpool to New York on the Lusitania's maiden voyage. Posing as a passenger, Dillman is in fact an undercover detective hired by the Cunard Line to keep an eye out for petty crimes. But after some uneventful days aboard, the ship’s blueprints are stolen and then a body is found. As Dillman works to get to the bottom of the crimes, he makes an unusual friend, first-class passenger Genevieve Masefield, and the two uncover secrets aboard the ship that prove explosive.

His name was Will Fowler, an actor in the esteemed theatrical company called Lord Westfield’s Men, a vibrant young man flushed from the success of a recent performance at the Queen’s Head theatre. So exuberant was he that he persuaded the resourceful manager of the company, Nicholas Bracewell, to quaff a pint or two at a nearby pub.

December 1940. With the Luftwaffe pounding the city nightly, Londoners seek refuge in underground stations. Aldwych has been taken out of service to provide shelter for the British Museum's priceless Elgin Marbles, as well as civilians escaping the bombing. When the body of a young man is discovered on the tracks, wearing evening dress but barefoot, Detective Chief Inspector Coburg and Sergeant Lampson are on the case. Before long, more bodies are discovered, and Coburg's wife Rosa becomes a target for the brutal killer.

1915, London: Working in the dusty bookshop that her Aunt Violet mysteriously inherited, Hannah Merrill is accustomed to finding twists in every tale. But discovering her beloved best friend Lily-Anne – with a paperknife through her heart – in the middle of the bookshop, is not a plotline she saw coming. The case is anything but textbook. With the discovery of a coded German message, and Hannah’s instinct that Lily-Anne’s husband is keeping secrets, she determines to get to the bottom of it. She can’t do it alone though.

It's the 1930s, and a mysterious illness is spreading over Scotland. But the noble and ancient family of Inverkillen, residents of Loch Down Abbey, are much more concerned with dwindling toilet roll supplies and who will look after the children now that Nanny has regretfully (and most inconveniently) departed this life. Then Lord Inverkillen, earl and head of the family, is found dead in mysterious circumstances. The inspector declares it an accident but Mrs MacBain, the head housekeeper, isn't so convinced.

The young man with the shock of white-blond hair lay spread-eagled on the floor, surrounded by fallen books. His hand reached out to the scattered pages, as though he was trying to tell her something. But who is he? How did he come to be killed in Flora’s ordinary little bookshop? Flora finds out he was staying at the Priory Hotel, and when the gardener suddenly dies in its beautiful grounds only a few days later, she is certain that something untoward is happening in her quiet village by the sea.

Northumberland, 1809: A beautiful young heiress disappears from her locked bedchamber at Linn Hagh. The local constables are baffled and the townsfolk cry "witchcraft". The heiress' uncle summons help from Detective Lavender and his assistant, Constable Woods, who face one of their most challenging cases.

Hours later, the man’s cold body lies in the city mortuary, alongside the woman he couldn’t save. And his sister, unconventional nurse Gemma Tate, tracks down troubled police inspector Sebastian Bell to unravel the truth. Sebastian has enough pressure to solve the murder of an aristocratic heiress without Gemma meddling in his case. But the cryptic sentences she brings him from her brother’s notebook could be a crucial lead. If only they knew what “milky way” meant.