Julian Symons

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  • Bibliography:
    34 Books (1 Series)
  • First Book:
    January 1949
  • Latest Book:
    January 2018
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Full Series List in Order

Sherwood Haynes

1 - A Three-Pipe Problem (1975)
2 - The Kentish Manor Murders (Jun-1989)

Book List in Order: 34 titles

  • Bland Beginning

    It all begins when Tony Shelton is looking for the perfect gift for his fiancée. He finds himself paying an absurdly high price for a rare collection of poems written by her grandfather. A bow to family tradition, perhaps, but it leads Tony into a b...

  • The 31st of February

    Mrs. Anderson, wife of an advertising man, is killed by falling down a dark flight of stairs. Her death is, at first, written off as accidental. Meanwhile, the grieving Mr. Anderson is immersed in the busy advertising world, with its drunken parties,...

  • The Broken Penny

  • The Narrowing Circle

  • Bogue's Fortune

    Having written one successful detective story, Charles Applegate wanted to find a really amusing locale for his next one. He chose Bramley Hall, a progressive school set in the middle of the English countryside and filled with misunderstood children ...

  • Colour of Murder

    'A book to delight every puzzle-suspense enthusiast' -- New York TimesA suspenseful precursor to modern psychological thrillers, this classic work of crime fiction from the archives of the British Library brings the Golden Age of Murder back to life....

  • The Gigantic Shadow // The Pipe Dream

    Bill Hunter, TV personality, made his living by asking the rich and famous difficult and highly personal questions. But when the tables were turned and he found himself being asked about his own rather murky past, he wasn’t quite so sure of himself...

  • The Progress of a Crime

    From the archives of the British Library comes a classic thriller full of mystery, police drama, and simmering tension.The murder, a brutal stabbing, definitely took place on Guy Fawkes Night. It was definitely by the bonfire on the village green. Th...

  • The End of Solomon Grundy

    When a girl turns up dead in a Mayfair mews, the police want to write it off as just another murdered prostitute, but Superintendent Manners isn’t quite so sure. He is convinced that the key to the crime lies in 'The Dell' " an affluent suburban ...



  • The Man Who Killed Himself

    Arthur Brownjohn has never quite got anything right. Whatever he does, it always seems to go more than a little awry. The same could be said for the murder of his wife " a bungled, inferior affair despite his having consulting all the experts in th...

  • The Man Whose Dreams Came True

  • The Man Who Lost His Wife

    Gilbert Welton’s life changed one breakfast time " his wife, Virginia, announced she was leaving him. Perhaps not the expected beginning of a comedy, but Symons employs his customary skill and brilliant wit to reveal the funny side of the tale. T...

  • The Players and the Game

    "It's Dracula and Bonnie who play the Game, and they know they're only playing." The Count and Bonnie played their game of love, lust, and power to the very limits of fantasy. When the fantasy became real, however, and the number of players grew, ...

  • The Plot Against Roger Rider

    Roger Rider and Geoffrey Paradine grew up together. Roger, now a successful businessman, is dashing and self-assured; Geoffrey, his employee, is timid, subservient, rather drab. Why, then, would the beautiful Mrs. Rider choose Geoffrey as a lover? An...

  • A Three-Pipe Problem

    Sherwood Haynes - 1

    The Karate Killings ... Scotland Yard couldn't solve them. Could "Sherlock Holmes"? Sheridan Haynes, small-time actor, has always idolized Sherlock Holmes. When Sheridan finally has a smashing success playing the great sleuth in a television ser...

  • The Blackheath Poisonings

    From the day he moved to Blackheath and built the two eccentric mansions, Charles Mortimer had a run of bad luck. Decades later, in the 1890s, his ancestors in the mansions suffer the same unlucky fate. Roger Vandervent dies suddenly, followed by mat...

  • Sweet Adelaide

    Basing his story on a notorious unsolved nineteenth-century murder, Julian Symons weaves a tale filled with psychological suspense, rich in Victorian atmosphere, and capped by a brilliantly imagined solution. All her life Adelaide craved freedom: ...

  • Verdict of Thirteen

  • The Tigers of Subtopia and Other Stories



  • The Detling Secret // The Detling Murders

    Dark deeds and political intrigues bubble beneath the surface of Sir Arthur Detling's very proper Victorian household. Sir Arthur Detling, a crusty old Tory, is deeply suspicious of his new son-in-law, Bernard Ross, a Liberal member of Parliament....

  • The Name of Annabel Lee

    Annabel Lee is the love of Dudley Potter's life, until he discovers the haunting echoes of her namesake. Unlucky in love and estranged from his family, Professor Dudley Potter's only desire is to withdraw into the secure realm of seventeenth-centu...

  • Tigers of Subtopia

    Eleven tense, polished, and brilliantly conceived tales of passion, deceit, and danger by a contemporary master Julian Symons's vision of our world is witty, ironic, and savage. All these stories have twists in the tail: In the suburbia of the tit...

  • A Criminal Comedy

    Friends of Derek and Sandy Crowley receive word that Derek is having an affair with Gerda Porson, the wife of his older and duller partner at PC Travel, an affair that leads to murder....

  • The Kentish Manor Murders

    Sherwood Haynes - 2

    What the Haynes encounter at Castle Baskerville is, in Val’s words “really screwy.” A tycoon apparently allergic to light surrounded by moats and drawbridges and a permanent staff of guards, doctors, nurses and “companions: who work under the...

  • Holocaust at Mayhem Parva

    in Murder Most Cozy

    A collection of mystery stories culled from the pages of "Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine" and "Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine" features the work of Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, Julian Simons, and Michael Innes...

  • Death's Darkest Face

  • Something Like a Love Affair

    A brilliant and disquieting tale of lust, infidelity, and mysterious murder from the distinguished British author and critic Julian Symons. Judith has the perfect life, with a handsome husband and no financial worries, yet she isn''t happy. Her frien...

  • Playing Happy Families

    Gathering for the thirty-year anniversary festivities of John and Eleanor, the Midway clan is sent into chaos when daughter Jenny Midway suddenly disappears, and Detective Superintendent Hilary Catchpole must seek out the truth. Reprint....

  • A Sort of Virtue

    When prostitute Lily Devon is found slashed to death in south London, prime suspect Derek Allgood confesses to the crime, but Chief Superintendent Hilary Catchpole knows for certain that Allgood is not responsible...



  • Buller's Campaign

    Buller's Campaign is a powerful and invaluable reassessment of the life of General Buller and of the part he played in British military history. Beginning with his struggle for the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Army in 1895, it goes on to por...

  • The General Strike

    In May 1926, Britain was gripped by what became known as the General Strike. This downing of tools lasted for nine days, during which time it divided the people, threatened the survival of the government of the day and brought the country nearer to r...

  • The Detections of Francis Quarles

    Julian Symons (1912-1994) was one of the greatest mystery writers to emerge after World War II. He was recognized with the Crime Writers Associations highest honor, The Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement and the Mystery Writers of Americ...

  • 'Twixt the Cup and the Lip

    • / Cozy Mystery
    • Buy Buy

    A Christmas party is punctuated by a gunshot under a policeman's watchful eye. A jewel heist is planned amidst the glitz and glamour of Oxford Street's Christmas shopping. Lost in a snowstorm, a man finds a motive for murder. this collec...

  • The Man Who Hated Television and Other Stories

    • / Mystery
    • Buy Buy

Award-Winning Books by Julian Symons

The Progress of a Crime
1961 Edgar Allan Poe Award -- Novel


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Julian Symons has published 34 books.

Julian Symons does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, 'Twixt the Cup and the Lip, was published in January 2018.

The first book by Julian Symons, Bland Beginning, was published in January 1949.

Yes. Julian Symons has 1 series.
Author Series
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