Dr Gideon Fell Books in Order

A Starberth heir must spend his twenty-fifth birthday night alone in an abandoned prison under an ancestral will. When he is found with a broken neck, Gideon Fell investigates whether a family curse conceals human malice.

A prankster steals top hats across London, while a lost Edgar Allan Poe manuscript vanishes from a collector's possession. A corpse wearing a stolen hat at the Tower of London gives Gideon Fell a deadly connection to investigate.

A transatlantic liner's rough crossing turns chaotic when secret government film disappears and murder follows. Stolen jewels, drunken passengers, and a troublesome corpse leave amateur investigators floundering, while Gideon Fell must make sense of their account.

A man is shot in an unlocked country-house room with the Eight of Swords tarot card beside him. Gideon Fell investigates contradictory evidence, alleged hauntings, and meddling amateurs as the victim's hidden past complicates the case.

A policeman is murdered in a clockmaker's hallway with an antique clock's minute hand embedded in his neck. Gideon Fell confronts a gun-wielding bystander, a locked attic, and a missing death-watch in a particularly disturbing investigation.

Gideon Fell investigates two apparently impossible shootings: a professor killed inside a watched study and another victim in a snowy street. The unseen killer leaves no escape trail, forcing Fell to reconcile the crimes' contradictory circumstances.

A visitor vanishes after Professor Grimaud is shot in his study, while an illusionist dies in a snowy cul-de-sac without another person's footprints nearby. Gideon Fell investigates the shared weapon and the two seemingly impossible killings.

A corpse tumbles from a carriage displayed in the Wade Museum, sporting false whiskers and clutching a cookbook. Gideon Fell must reconstruct a bewildering night and explain the Persian dagger protruding from the dead man's chest.

Two men claim to be Sir John and demand the same inheritance after a long absence. When one is murdered, Gideon Fell investigates an apparently impossible crime amid witchcraft, disputed identity, and a sinister automaton.

Christopher Kent reaches London penniless after an extravagant travel wager and tries to obtain breakfast at a luxury hotel. Implicated in a guest's murder, he seeks Gideon Fell's help as an adventure becomes a fight against execution.

Marcus Chesney stages a filmed experiment to demonstrate how unreliable eyewitnesses can be. When a masked figure feeds him a green capsule and he actually dies, Gideon Fell must interpret evidence that three observers cannot agree upon.

Frank Dorrance is found strangled at the center of a rain-softened tennis court, with only his own footprints around him. Gideon Fell investigates an impossible killing complicated by an unwanted engagement and another man's love for the fiancée.

A skeptic invites guests to his restored country house to investigate its supposedly haunted history. When disturbing events turn deadly, Gideon Fell must distinguish human agency from the ghostly forces apparently spoiling the housewarming weekend.

Judge Ireton tries to buy off his daughter's unsuitable fiancé, then is found holding a gun beside the man's corpse. Gideon Fell investigates whether the confident judge committed murder or became the victim of an elaborate frame.

Angus Campbell falls from a locked tower room, jeopardizing insurance policies his family hopes to inherit. At their Scottish manor, Gideon Fell investigates the apparent suicide, only for another impossible death to complicate the estate's troubles.

Playwright Dick Markham's engagement is shaken when a visiting fortune teller accuses his beloved of earlier poison murders. New violence and a locked-room death draw Gideon Fell into a case where romantic trust conflicts with disturbing claims.

Miles Hammond hears of an impossible murder atop a watched tower in France, with suspicion cast on a supposedly vampiric woman. When that old story touches his own life, Gideon Fell must confront its lingering menace.

Returning from military service, Donald Holden discovers he has been reported dead and his beloved's sister died mysteriously. Gideon Fell helps investigate sinister party games, disputed sanity, and coffins apparently moving within a sealed mausoleum.

Barrister Patrick Butler's successful defense of an accused poisoner becomes a liability when the woman he loves faces another murder charge. Gideon Fell joins a case where Butler's earlier arguments now threaten to prove the wrong person's guilt.

A woman is found stabbed inside a bedroom locked and bolted from within, making suicide seem unavoidable. Gideon Fell investigates blackmail and malicious pranks at a Virginia college, with an unpublished Wilkie Collins plot complicating the mystery.

Audrey Page ignores warnings against visiting a film star's Swiss chalet and finds herself amid murder and suspicion. Gideon Fell investigates a crime with unsettling similarities to an earlier wartime incident, surrounded by the star's temperamental companions.

A visit to a Hampshire country house brings Garret Anderson into a household troubled by a missing will and an ancestral ghost. When gunfire adds a baffling crime, Gideon Fell must investigate the apparent haunting.

Gideon Fell and writer Philip Knox travel to America, encountering a former actress and her companions aboard ship. At the Connecticut theatre she has endowed, a murder during rehearsal turns theatrical tensions into an investigation.

At Henry Maynard’s Southern mansion, Gideon Fell encounters an uneasy gathering, a cryptic host and strange disturbances. A stolen scarecrow becomes part of a murder puzzle that demands an explanation beyond the household’s frightened suspicions.

Police discover a dead man in Justice Ireton’s bungalow and find the judge holding a gun. Gideon Fell investigates a case complicated by misleading physical evidence, the judge’s denials and the affairs of his daughter.

Gideon Fell confronts locked rooms, a watched tower, a séance and a beach with unmarked sand in this collection of short mysteries. Other crime stories and previously unpublished wartime radio plays broaden the selection beyond Fell’s investigations.