Mrs Bradley Series by Gladys Mitchell
Mrs Bradley #2
The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop mb-2
Gladys Mitchell
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?
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Mrs Bradley #4
Mrs Bradley #5
Mrs Bradley #9
Mrs Bradley #9
Mrs Bradley #10
Mrs Bradley #14
Laurels Are Poison
Gladys Mitchell
Mrs Beatrice Lestrange Bradley, psychologist and detective, has become the warden of a house in a girls' training college in order to investigate the disappearance of a previous warden. Only her intelligence and perspicacity can coax the skeletons out of their cupboards.
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Mrs Bradley #14
Mrs Bradley #20
Death and the Maiden mb-20
Gladys Mitchell
When former banana-grower Edris Tidson hears of a possible sighting of a water-naid he insists that his wife, her aunt Prissie and Prissie's young ward Connie, travel with him to Winchester in search of the nymph. As tensions rise between Connie and Edris, Prissie invites part-timwe Freudian Mrs Bradley to join them and unofficially observe Edris and his growing obsession. Then two young boys are found drowned and speculation mounts that the naid is luring them to her deaths. Can Mrs Bradley unravel the mysteries hidden within the river?
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Mrs Bradley #21
The Dancing Druids
Gladys Mitchell
Mrs. Bradley is at her devastating best, saurian perhaps but very human.
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Mrs Bradley #21
The Dancing Druids mb-21
Gladys Mitchell
Mrs. Bradley is at her devastating best, saurian perhaps but very human. _____________
Mike O'Hara is a young, handsome distance runner, working with his fellow athletes to catch his cousin, Gerry Gascoyne, in a cross-country game of hare and hounds. Playing a hunch, Mike separates from the group and soon encounters a man who tells him his quarry travelled down a lonely footpath. Instinct tells him otherwise, but Mike follows the path and is soon in unfamiliar territory. As night falls and it begins to rain, Mike stops at a solitary cottage to ask for directions. The woman at the house tells Mike she's with a very sick man who has to be taken to hospital. Mike offers to help, and is soon working with a tall stranger to move the sick man--who is bundled from head to toe in blankets--onto a makeshift stretcher and into a car. Told to hold their bundled passenger upright, Mike grows more and more uneasy of the situation and increasingly alarmed at the deathly stillness of the sick man. Uncertain of what lay ahead, Mike jumps out of the moving car and tumbles out, escaping from the strange scene. O'Hara and Gascoyne decide to tell Mike's story to Ferdinand Lestrange. The lawyer is not available, but much to the boys' luck, Ferdinand's mother is quite interested in Mike's tale. Mrs. Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley is on the case, and what criminal activity she uncovers--with the help of Mike and Gerry, secretary Laura Menzies, chauffeur George, nephew Denis Bradley, and a troupe of hired film extras--centers around a circle of nine prehistoric stones called the Dancing Druids.
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Mrs Bradley #22
Tom Brown's Body mb-22
Gladys Mitchell
Mrs Bradley is visiting the picturesque village of Spey in search of a local witch when Gerald Conway, a junior master at Spey College, is found murdered. Despised by both pupils and peers, there is no shortage of suspects but can the redoubtable Mrs Bradley use tact, wit and just a touch of black magic to make the boys and their masters divulge the truth?
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Mrs Bradley #27
Faintley Speaking
Gladys Mitchell
Not long after the telephone call, Miss Faintley was murdered. It seemed at first unlikely that she, a prim, quiet schoolmistress, could have anything to do with crime. Yet Mrs Bradley's investigations led to some exciting discoveries.From Publishers WeeklyBeatrice Lestrange Bradley, psychiatrist and consultant for Britain's Home Office, is vacationing with her assistant Laura when the latter, out on a hike with a young boy, discovers the body of Miss Faintley, one of his teachers, tucked under a bush. From the police Mrs. Bradley learns that the woman was involved in an odd, slightly illegal transfer of packages containing different specimens of fern. Following her instincts to such settings as the caves of Lascaux in France and the Isle of Wight, Mrs. B. uncovers a complex currency-smuggling scheme. Although the style of the late author (she died in 1983) is breezy and light, plotting in the latest Lestrange Bradley adventure (following Spotted Hemlock, is flimsy, far-fetched and hard to follow. Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Mrs Bradley #27
Mrs Bradley #29
Mrs Bradley #31
Mrs Bradley #31
Mrs Bradley #34
Mrs Bradley #35
Mrs Bradley #35
Mrs Bradley #36
Mrs Bradley #36
Mrs Bradley #37
Mrs Bradley #37
Mrs Bradley #38
Mrs Bradley #38
Mrs Bradley #39
Mrs Bradley #40
Mrs Bradley #42
Mrs Bradley #42
Mrs Bradley #46
Mrs Bradley #46
The Murder of Busy Lizzie mb-46
Gladys Mitchell
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.
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Mrs Bradley #47
Mrs Bradley #47
Mrs Bradley #48
Mrs Bradley #50
Late, Late in the Evening
Gladys Mitchell
In the small Oxfordshire village where Ken and Meg Clifton spend their school holidays, the Fair is the most exciting thing that ever happens - that is, until a double murder is committed. The general opinion is that the village contains a homicidal maniac. Mrs. Bradley, called in by her friend Mrs. Kempson, thinks otherwise.About the AuthorCalled "the great Gladys" by reviewers during the Golden Age of Detection, she was considered, along with Christie and Sayers, to be on eof the "big three" of English female mystery writers.
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Mrs Bradley #50
Mrs Bradley #51
Noonday and Night
Gladys Mitchell
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 . . .Review"Mrs. Lestrange Bradley . . . is by far the best and most vital English female detective." -- The Observer (The Observer and Eccentric )
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Mrs Bradley #51
Mrs Bradley #52
Fault in the Structure
Gladys Mitchell
The body of a woman is found in the cloister of Abbesses College.
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Mrs Bradley #52
Mrs Bradley #53
Mrs Bradley #54
Mrs Bradley #54
Mrs Bradley #55
Nest of Vipers
Gladys Mitchell
A young man who is superintendent of a public swimming pool is unexpectedly left a fortune and a huge, neglected house. Influenced by his ex-fiancee, who looks after his business arrangements, he allows the mansion to be turned into flats to let. When Miss Minnie is found dead in her bed, the murder is followed by the arrest of the young landlord and then another murder. Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley sets out to discover how many murderers there are and works tirelessly to solve these mysteries.
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Mrs Bradley #55
Mrs Bradley #56
Mrs Bradley #56
The Mudflats of the Dead mb-56
Gladys Mitchell
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.
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Mrs Bradley #57
Mrs Bradley #58
Mrs Bradley #59
Mrs Bradley #59
The Death-Cap Dancers mb-59
Gladys Mitchell
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.
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Mrs Bradley #60
Mrs Bradley #60
Mrs Bradley #61
Here Lies Gloria Mundy
Gladys Mitchell
Here Lies Gloria Mundy. When Anthony Wotton and his wife, Celia, hold a weekend gathering of friends and relatives at their home in the Cotswolds, they little suspect that Gloria Mundy will show up. Unheralded and uninvited, Gloria Mundy is a strange woman from the host's past whose appearance is followed by a series of domestic disagreements and peculiar accidents, culminating in the discovery of a charred corpse in the burnt-out dower house on the grounds of the mansion. Is Gloria Mundy a witch, as one of her ancestors is claimed to have been?
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Mrs Bradley #61
Mrs Bradley #62
Mrs Bradley #62
Mrs Bradley #64
Cold, Lone and Still
Gladys Mitchell
Comrie and Hera are planning to marry but, before taking the risk of setting up as legal life-partners, they decide on an unusual test of compatibility: they embark on a long, sometimes arduous pilgrimage along part of Scotland's West Highland Way. The fact that such a project is thought necessary indicates that doubts exist--and matters are not helped when, lost on the moors in a heavy mist they come upon the corpse of a murdered man.
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Mrs Bradley #64
Mrs Bradley #65
Mrs Bradley #65
Mrs Bradley #66
Mrs Bradley #66
