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Classic Canning 5
Fly Away Paul
Victor Canning
How far could you go living in another’s shoes?
In a mid-life moment, Paul Morison travels from America to England to discover his mother’s roots. A chance encounter and uncanny resemblance leads him to agree to assume the identity of a famous singer for a while. But it’s not just the unnerving attentions of the adoring public that he must deal with.
Seeking to regain his freedom, Paul flees the length of Britain from Southampton to the Scottish Isles. On the run, he discovers he has let himself in for much more than he bargained.
This gentle comic caper and love story was hugely popular on first publication in the 1930s and retains a timeless appeal today.
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Classic Canning 4
The Improvised Life of Polycarp Jarvis
Victor Canning
An exuberant, life-affirming novel of taking your chances
After a spur-of-the-moment day out with his boss’ daughter in celebration of his 21st birthday, Polycarp Jarvis decides to quit his Bristol-based junior government worker job. Newly emboldened, he embarks on an erratic, engaging and not always strictly legal course through life.
Going from bus driver for the Red Dragon Motor Company to co-owner of a flying company, to seller of quack medicines, and eventually to media tycoon, Polycarp makes much of his luck along the way. Through ups and downs, his exuberance and charm carry him through.
But what kind of person will he be by the end?
This gentle coming-of-age story was hugely popular on first publication in the 1930s and retains a timeless appeal today.
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Classic Canning 3
Mr Finchley Takes the Road
Victor Canning
Mr Finchley takes a fancy to a horse-drawn caravan that he sees for sale, but his new wife does not relish the prospect of a caravan journey so she goes to visit her brother, while he sets out to explore the countryside and go house-hunting.
While learning to handle the horse and the caravan, he encounters a variety of eccentrics and country characters, and several unsuitable houses. It gradually emerges that the caravan contains a secret, and Mr Finchley finds himself in real trouble – until his wife comes to the rescue.
This gentle comedy trilogy was a runaway bestseller on first publication in the 1930s and retains a timeless appeal today. It has been dramatized twice for BBC Radio, with the 1990 series regularly repeated.
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The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency 10
The Cat and the Pendulum
Mandy Morton
When the celebrated crime writer Agatha Crispy engages Hettie and Tilly in the search for a stolen manuscript, our feline detective duo is plunged into a world of Dickensian thieves and murderers.
Does the ghost of Jake the Nipper prowl the London Streets of Kitzrovia? Will Madame Two Paws’s exhibition wax or wane? And will the secrets in the crypt of the church of St Mavis and Cucumber finally be revealed?
Join Hettie and Tilly as they attempt to unravel yet another darkly humorous case for The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency.
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Classic Canning 8
The Minerva Club
Victor Canning
The Minerva Club might look like any other London gentlemen’s club but behind its respectable and discreet façade, some of the most ambitious schemes for heists, money-making and evasion of the law are being worked out. It’s an exclusive club for criminals. Entry qualification: members must have served a prison sentence of two years minimum. Though the club’s criminal ventures don’t always go as planned…
From trying to break into an old prison cell and stealing a stash of jewels hidden during a previous incarceration, love getting in the way during a hideout from the police, a cleverly planned break-in being interrupted by an unexpected guest, to figuring out where to steal a last-minute wedding cake – the club’s amiable criminals somehow always achieve their goal in the most surprising ways.
This collection of five short stories follows the Minerva Club’s (mis)adventures and evokes the very best of humorous classic crime fiction.
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Classic Canning 7
Fountain Inn
Victor Canning
What’s going on behind the doors of Fountain Inn?
When her employer suddenly disappears, young Grace Kirkstall finds herself accepting a new job at a new company in the same building – an oasis of tranquillity off the streets of London.
Ben and Helen Brown’s startup company’s pitch is that, for a small consideration, they will help people out of their major and minor fixes. Their first big commission initiates Ben into the gentle art of house-breaking, and Helen into the mysteries of the Society for Progressive Rehabilitation…
But for Grace, it will plunge her into more danger than she could ever have imagined.
This leisurely, beautifully observed thriller marked Victor Canning’s entrée into crime fiction, and rewards with a thrilling finale – sure to delight fans of Agatha Christie’s Tommy and Tuppence.
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A Follet Valley Mystery 1
Death and Croissants
The most hilarious murder mystery since Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club
Ian Moore
Richard is a middle-aged Englishman who runs a B&B in the fictional Val de Follet in the Loire Valley. Nothing ever happens to Richard, and really that’s the way he likes it.
One day, however, one of his older guests disappears, leaving behind a bloody handprint on the wallpaper. Another guest, the exotic Valérie, persuades a reluctant Richard to join her in investigating the disappearance.
Richard remains a dazed passenger in the case until things become really serious and someone murders Ava Gardner, one of his beloved hens… and you don’t mess with a fellow’s hens!
An unputdownable mystery set in rural France, by TV/radio regular and bestselling author Ian Moore – perfect for readers of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club
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A Follet Valley Mystery 999
Death and Papa Noel
a Christmas murder mystery from the author of Death & Croissants
Ian Moore
Richard Ainsworth is preparing for the Christmas of his dreams: quiet, no guests at his French B&B and his favourite films on the TV. None of which seems on the cards when his rural peace is shattered by the unexpected arrival of a familiar face.
Valérie d’Orçay has hotfooted it from Paris with her chihuahua in tow and an invitation to a Christmas themed murder mystery game. Richard begrudgingly dresses up as Father Christmas, but the costume becomes the least of his worries when he realises this isn’t a game to everyone.
As other guests arrive to join the hunt, can Richard work out who is the victim – and who is murderer?
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The Company of Fools 2
Miss Harris in the New World
Peter Maughan
The Red Lion production of ‘Love and Miss Harris’ is booked to tour America, opening in Manhattan.
On arrival the group finds that it’s not the Manhattan with the Great White Way of Broadway at its glittering heart, but the part between the Bowery and the East River, on the Lower East Side, in a vaudeville venue owned by a local mobster. And when members of a rival gang decide to disrupt the play, the action shifts from the theatre’s state to its auditorium…
Determined to fulfil the rest of their tour dates, the company heads west from New York. Try as they might to shake it off, trouble seems to follow them wherever they go.
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A Flaxborough Mystery 12
Whatever’s Been Going on at Mumblesby?
Colin Watson
In Flaxborough’s posh neighbouring village, Mumblesbury, the local solicitor, Richard Daspard Loughbury, has suddenly died.
Natural causes it appears, but DI Purbright and the ever-helpful Miss Lucy Teatime are taken aback by the quality of Loughbury’s art collection – including a Paul Klee, a Corot, and even a fragment of the “True Cross”.
All seem to have been acquired locally and the question of blackmail hangs in the air. Loughbury’s decidedly un-posh widow, Zoe, is less than grief-stricken, as are a cast of colourful characters from randy farmers to gin-soaked county types. Then, the recent suicide of a local farmer’s wife also begins to look questionable.
Witty and a little wicked, this final tale in Colin Watson’s Flaxborough series offers a mordantly entertaining cast of characters and laugh-out-loud wordplay.
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