Henry Gamadge Series

A crossword puzzle leads a 1950s antiquarian book dealer to a puzzling family in this mystery by Agatha Christie’s favorite author. Amateur detective Henry Gamadge is summoned to a secluded estate by way of a crossword puzzle, the only means of communication for a widow being held captive by her relatives. They claim she’s lost her mind; she thinks they have shut her away to keep her from spilling on her late husband’s suspicious suicide. Gamadge knows that a woman who can convey her situation in the space of a crossword is most definitely in possession of her mental faculties. But can he sort out the secrets of a clan so hell-bent on avoiding a scandal? “Henry Gamadge is one of the more captivating sleuths in detective fiction.” —New York Herald Tribune

In this mystery novella by Agatha Christie’s favorite American author, a 1940s antiquarian book dealer searches for a missing Manhattanite. Alice Dunbar was a very proper Upper East Side woman with a very boring life. There is, in fact, absolutely no reason why she should go missing, and yet that’s exactly what she does. One hot summer day, shortly after an elderly aunt’s funeral, Alice Dunbar changes into a new outfit, puts on some make-up, and slips into a subway car, not to be seen again. Where was she going? Amateur detective Henry Gamadge, on the case after the police have failed to locate Alice, tracks down her last trip and uncovers a secret life that’s stranger than fiction . . .

A 1940s antiquarian book dealer gets caught up in a Manhattan writer’s murder in this mystery from Agatha Christie’s favorite American author. It should be a fairly routine job for Henry Gamadge: Examining the papers of a dead poet and playwright with some early promise but not much in the way of commercial success. But it’s not so much the life and letters as the death of the author (murdered in Central Park) that interests Gamadge. Add in a dead witness and the odd behavior of the family, and Gamadge decides something criminal is afoot. “Gamadge richly deserves his popularity with readers. Every move he makes and every sentence he speaks prove him to be a likable, intelligent gentleman.” —New York Times

From Agatha Christie’s favorite American author—a 1940s amateur sleuth must save a friend accused of murder in a small New York town. Frazer’s Mills, in Westchester County, New York, is a small, isolated village, where everyone knows everyone else and things haven’t changed much (and the mills have been closed for quite some time). When murder suddenly intrudes upon this sedate rural backwater, antiquarian book dealer Henry Gamadge arrives to solve the mystery and restore order. “One of Daly's best . . . an engrossing tale, both for its problem and for its setting.” —Curt Evans, The Passing Tramp blog

A strange tome and a terrified wife draw a 1950s antiquarian book dealer into a murder case in this mystery by Agatha Christie’s favorite American author. Young Rena Austen, newly wed, is afraid she’s made a terrible mistake. Her husband, once a dashingly romantic figure of a wounded war hero, has become a moody lay-about, and they are sharing a gloomy house on the Upper East Side of New York with his unpleasant, always-there family. When her husband reacts in a frighteningly angry way to Rena pulling a particular volume off the library shelf, she has had enough, and flees her home in fear for her life. Thankfully, Henry Gamadge is on hand to solve the mystery of the book—and the dead body that inevitably turns up. “Henry Gamadge will be well remembered as one of the most civilized detectives in fiction, investigating some of the most subtly conceived of criminal cases.” —New York Times

In this mystery by Agatha Christie’s favorite American author, an amateur sleuth deals with sinister spirits and murder at a New York country mansion. It’s mid-1943, and Henry Gamadge is up to his elbows in war work and longing for a quiet weekend. But when a half-forgotten classmate requests assistance, Gamadge is unable to refuse the tug of an old school tie. Sylvanus Hutter is concerned about his Aunt Florence, a giddy socialite terrified of Nazi bombs. Florence has moved her extensive household of hangers-on to the family mansion in upstate New York. But menace seems to have followed them, in the form of threatening messages inserted into the manuscript of Florence’s painfully bad novel in progress. Several members of the household are convinced the messages are emanating from Another World, but the politely pragmatic Gamadge suspects a culprit rather closer to home. “Deliciously gossipy, back-biting characters, an imposing mansion in upstate New York . . . altogether a pleasure.” —The New Yorker

A copy of Shakespeare’s The Tempest pulls a bookseller into a murder case in this mystery by Agatha Christie’s favorite American author. The hospital sees nothing to question about the death of the reclusive Mr. Crenshaw, and it’s not as though he had any friends to press the issue. He did, though, have one casual acquaintance, who happens to pick up Mr. Crenshaw’s battered old edition of The Tempest—and happens to pass that book on to Henry Gamadge. Gamadge, of course, is not only an expert in solving pesky problems but also an expert in rare books, and his two sets of expertise combine to uncover the extraordinary puzzle of Mr. Crenshaw, which began in California and ended on the other side of the country, at a chilly New England rendezvous. “An absorbing yarn that holds up to the end.” —New York Times “Beautifully plotted, with believable characters and ample thrills” —Saturday Review of Books

From Agatha Christie’s favorite American author—creepy correspondence from a Manhattan mansion puts an amateur sleuth on the trail of a killer. Take one grand house, stuff it with staff, and make it home to several generations. If they send their sons to Oxford and occasionally knock each other off, you’ve got a country-house murder mystery, the delight of classic English crime fiction. But if the boys are at Yale, odds are that you’re reading its American counterpart, the New York mansion mystery—a genre largely invented by Elizabeth Daly. In Arrow Pointing Nowhere, Daly is back on the Upper East Side, where antiquarian book dealer Gamadge has been receiving missives suggesting that all is not right at the elegant Fenway mansion. But first he must find out who the messages are from . . . “Highly recommended.” —New Republic “Told with all the skill that Miss Daly has at her command, and she has plenty.” —New York Times

From Agatha Christie’s favorite American author—an amateur sleuth rescues his wife when her vacation home includes a ghost and murder. In the sticky summer of 1943, a secluded cottage in the Berkshires sounds just the ticket to the newly married Clara Gamadge. The resident ghost, a slender woman in a sunbonnet who died just one year ago in the cottage Clara is now renting, merely adds to the local color. It’s all nothing more than a spooky game, until the woman’s sister is strangled while Clara dozes in a chair by her bed. The only clue: Clara’s panicked memory of a woman in a sunbonnet standing at the door. Happily, Henry Gamadge arrives in time to calm his wife and solve the mystery (though not without some stellar help from Clara!). “Ingenious . . . most readers will be completely fooled.” —New York Times

An amateur sleuth aids a Maine town plagued by poison in this mystery by Agatha Christie’s favorite American author. With talk of war all over the radio waves, antiquarian book dealer Henry Gamadge is back in Maine, this time by invitation of his friend Detective Mitchell. Mitchell has a real puzzler on his hands: three different children have been poisoned with deadly nightshade, and there is no motive that could possibly link all three poisonings, beside the fact that the children all live in the same small community. Could the nearby encampment of Gypsies be involved? And was the death of a state trooper at about the same time a mere coincidence? Gamadge sets out to separate fact from fiction and find the killer before they strike again . . . “An exciting novel and an excellent mystery.” —San Jose News

In this mystery by Agatha Christie’s favorite American author, an amateur sleuth discovers a locked room holds more than a dead woman’s fortune. The Clayborn clan has been waiting 25 years to divvy up Grandmama’s fortune, locked up by her will and in a small room in the Clayborn mansion. Tomorrow the Room is to be opened, and the Clayborns can’t wait to get their fingers on the old lady’s reportedly priceless button collection. Harriet Clayborn, who doesn’t quite trust her family, asks Henry Gamadge to witness the Opening of the Room, to make sure there's no funny business. Gamadge agrees, and it’s a good thing this masterful sleuth is on hand: the Room has been hiding something grislier than buttons. “An exciting novel and an excellent mystery.” —San Jose News

From Agatha Christie’s favorite American author—an amateur sleuth helps a Manhattan widow who fears her husband’s killer is stalking her. Acquitted of murdering her wealthy husband, Mrs. Vina Gregson remains essentially a prisoner, trapped in her elegant New York apartment with occasional furtive forays to her Connecticut estate. A jury may have found her innocent, but Mrs. Gregson remains a murderess in the eyes of the public and of the tabloid journalists who hound her every step. She has recently begun receiving increasingly menacing letters written, she is certain, by the person who killed her husband. Taking the matter to the police would heighten her notoriety, so she calls on antiquarian bookseller and handwriting expert Henry Gamadge, the gentleman-sleuth who is known for both his discretion and his ability to solve problems that baffle the police. “Henry Gamadge is one of the most civilized detectives in fiction . . . you’ll have a hard time finding better reading.” —New York Times

An amateur sleuth with an eye for fakes is on the lookout for a murderer in this mystery by Agatha Christie’s favorite American author. What begins as a courtesy call on his wife’s friend, Miss Julia Paxton, turns into another case for Henry Gamadge, antiquarian book dealer, handwriting expert, and amateur detective. Miss Paxton presents Gamadge with a mystery: a framed etching that had always hung in the hallway of the Ashbury mansion has suddenly sprung an inscription dated 1793. Miss Paxton swears nothing had been written on that portrait before the previous Sunday. Did Iris Vance, a relative and professional medium, made it happen? And how? Henry Gamadge is pretty sure the solution to this mystery has nothing to do with the supernatural, but he can’t quite make out what it all means. Was it a joke? Petty larceny? Or is something much more dangerous going on, and has Gamadge somehow stumbled onto a criminal conspiracy?

An antiquarian book dealer spends his vacation investigating murder in this series opener from Agatha Christie’s favorite American author. New York handwriting and rare book expert—and a gentleman sleuth—Henry Gamadge is vacationing in coastal Maine when the police there need his help. It’s a strange case involving a seemingly natural death, a large inheritance, a mysterious nighttime rendezvous, and a troupe of summer stock actors who start dying off. Something is clearly afoot, but nothing quite seems to fit. With an eye for frauds, Gamadge is just what the local detective needs to throw the book at a killer . . . “Daly offers the reader a challenging case with a believable pair of sleuths, all set in a beautiful and distinctive context.” —Margot Kinberg, author of A Matter of Motive

From Agatha Christie’s favorite American author—a bookish sleuth attempts to solve the murder of a spiritual eccentric at a wealthy estate. Just about any of the guests at Johnny Redfield’s party seems to have a good reason to have killed the guest of honor, Johnny’s Californian aunt who, with her astral name and vague pretensions of mysticism, does not exactly blend in the elegant New York atmosphere that surrounds her. And what’s more, no one has a solid alibi. It will take all of Henry Gamadge’s ingenuity to figure out this closed-room mystery.

From Agatha Christie’s favorite American author—an amateur detective examines the mysterious reappearance of a woman who vanished 100 years ago. One hundred years earlier, a beautiful guest had disappeared from the wealthy Vauregard household, along with the second volume in a set of the collected works of Byron. Improbably enough, both guest and book seem to have reappeared, with neither having aged a day. The elderly Mr. Vauregard is inclined to believe the young woman’s story of having vacationed on an astral plane. But his dubious niece calls in Henry Gamadge, gentleman-sleuth, expert in rare books, and sufficiently well-bred to avoid distressing the Vauregard sensibilities. As Gamadge soon discovers, the household includes an aging actress with ties to a spiritualist sect and a shy beauty with a shady (if crippled) fiancé. As always in this delightful series, Gamadge comes up trumps, but only after careful study of the other players’ cards. “Delightfully original and suavely written.” —New York Times