Fontana Paperbacks-William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd

PROLOGUE Threats - Old, New, and Timeless They called him the Archer. It was an honorable title, though his countrymen had cast aside their reflex bows over a century before, as soon as they had learned about firearms. In part, the name reflected the timeless nature of the struggle. The first...

The vicar's wife came round the corner of the vicarage with her arms full of chrysanthemums. A good deal of rich garden soil was attached to her strong brogue shoes and a few fragments of earth were adhering to her nose, but of that fact she was perfectly unconscious. She had a slight struggle...

chapter I The Mistress of Littlegreen House Miss Arundell died on May ist. Though her illness was short her death did not occasion much surprise in the litde country town of Market Basing where she had lived since she was a girl of sixteen. For Emily Arundell was well over seventy, the last of...

George Bernard Shaw once quipped, 'All professions are conspiracies against the laity.' Now, 1 don't know how seriously Shaw meant his remark to be taken. I do know, however, that it comes pretty close to summarizing the feeling that many people — maybe most people — have about the men and...

Part OneCHAPTER ONETo be an accountant is to suffer a social disease. Take parties for instance. Tell someone you're an airline pilot or an actor and there's immediate interest. People ask questions or tell anecdotes about someone else in that line and inevitably end up with: 'and he was a...

The saloon bar of Reese City's grandiosely-named Imperial Hotel had about it an air of defeat, of uncaring dilapidation, of the hauntingly sad nostalgia for the half-forgotten glories of days long gone by, of days that would never come again. The occasionally plastered walls were cracked and...

CHAPTER 1 A Murder is Announced Between 7.30 and 8.30 every morning except Sundays, Johnnie Butt made the round of the village of Chipping Cleghom on his bicycle, whistling vociferously through his teeth, and alighting at each house or cottage to shove through the letterbox such morning papers...

Foreward There are two methods, it seems to me, of approaching this strange business of the Pale Horse. In spite of the dictum of the White King, it is difficult to achieve simplicity. One cannot, that is to say, "begin at the beginning, go on to the end, and then stop." For where is the...