1. Lestrade and the Sawdust Ring
Walk up! Walk up! This way for the greatest show on earth! It is 1879. Disraeli is at Number Ten. The Zulu are being perfectly beastly to Lord Chelmsford. And Captain Boycott is having his old trouble again. What has this to do with the young…
2. Lestrade and the Sign of Nine
It was a puzzle that faced Scotland Yard from its very beginning – whose was the limbless body found among the foundations? And in the murderous world of Sholto Lestrade, one question is invariably followed by another – what do a lecherous rector, a devious speculator…
3. Lestrade and the Ripper
In the year 1888, London was horrified by a series of brutal killings. All the victims were discovered in the same district, Whitechapel, and they were all prostitutes. But they weren’t the only murders to perplex the brains of Scotland Yard. In Brighton, the body of…
4. The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade
It is 1891 and London is still reeling from the horror of the unsolved Ripper murders when Inspector Lestrade (that ‘ferret-like’ anti-hero so often out-detected by the legendary Sherlock Holmes) is sent to the Isle of Wight to investigate a strange corpse found walled up in…
5. Lestrade and the Brigade
There is a new broom at Scotland Yard; Nimrod Frost. His first ‘little’ job for Lestrade is to investigate the reported appearance of a lion in Cornwall, a supposed savager of sheep and frightener of men. Hardly a task for an Inspector of the Criminal Investigations…
6. Lestrade and the Dead Man’s Hand
The London Underground Railway, in 1895, was described as ‘dark, deadly and halfway to Hell’. Only too true, for as the last train rattled into Liverpool Street, the one remaining passenger did not get off. How could she, when her eyes stared sightless and her heart…
7. Lestrade and the Guardian Angel
He was in his forty-third year and knee-deep in murder. Well, what was new? Sholto Lestrade wouldn’t really have it any other way. The first fatality in a series of killings which was to become the most bizarre in the celebrated Inspector’s career, was a captain…
8. Lestrade and the Hallowed House
Britain has entered the twentieth century. Queen Victoria is dead and the Boer War rages on. Inspector Lestrade is called upon to investigate the brutal death of Ralph Childers, MP. It is but the first in a series of bizarre and perplexing murders that lead Lestrade…
9. Lestrade and the Gift of the Prince
Sholto Lestrade had never smelt the tangle o’ the Isles before Arthur, Duke of Connaught put him on the trail to the Highlands. Murder is afoot among the footmen on the Royal Household; a servant girl, Amy Macpherson, has been brutally murdered. Ineptly disguised as a…
10. Lestrade and the Mirror of Murder
Beyond the mountains of the moon … ‘Right, gentlemen. Recapping by numbers.’ Superintendent Lestrade, in martinet mood, was driving his minions. ‘Murder One. Four victims, Captain Orange, late of the merchant service and his three nieces, when the harness of their trap broke on a downhill…
11. Lestrade and the Deadly Game
The Papers call it suicide. The deceased’s father doesn’t. But when Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard investigates the death by duelling pistol of Anstruther Fitzgibbon, 27, son of the Marquess of Bolsover, his suspicions of foul play are immediately aroused. One of Britain’s leading athletes, ‘nimbler…
12. Lestrade and the Leviathan
‘You’re promising me a peaceful one, eh? This Year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Ten? Let’s hope you’re right.’ Unfortunately, his men can’t fulfil Superintendent Lestrade’s wish. Nor can his daughter Emma, who moments later brings him news of a tragic boating accident involving members…
13. Lestrade and the Brother of Death
‘I cannot sing the old songs I sang long years ago, For heart and voice would fail me And foolish tears would flow.’ Claribel Recovering from a broken leg after his ignominious fall from the Titanic, Superintendent Lestrade goes to convalesce at the home of his…
14. Lestrade and the Devil’s Own
‘From his brimstone bed at the break of day, A-walking the Devil is gone, To visit his snug little farm, the earth, And see how his stock goes on.’ Coleridge and Southey ‘Sholto Joseph Lestrade, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Mrs…
15. Lestrade and the Magpie
England in 1920 is a land fit for heroes. So why is one of those heroes found dead in a dingy London hotel? And why does his war record show that he has been missing, presumed killed in action, for three years? The deceased is none…
16. Lestrade and the Kiss of Horus
The wings that retired Chief Superintendent Lestrade came on were those of a de Havilland Hercules, named Olivia. The archaeologist, Howard Carter, had made the discovery of the century in the Valley of the Kings, but all around him, men were dying: Lord Carnarvon, careless with…
17. Lestrade and the Giant Rat of Sumatra
Everybody, they say, has a book in them. Retired Chief Inspector Walter Dew certainly did. And it took him back to the good old days, when coppers lived in station houses, that nice Mr Campbell-Bannerman was at Number Ten and Britain had the biggest empire in…
18. The World of Inspector Lestrade
Many readers of the Lestrade books wonder what is fact and what is fiction – and the author is delighted that they can’t always tell! So, for all the readers out there who have ever asked that question, here is the World of Inspector Lestrade. In…