Helen McCloy Books in Order

A young New York debutante is found dead in a snowbank, wearing someone else's clothes and killed by heatstroke in winter. Dr. Basil Willing and Inspector Foyle face a brilliant first puzzle built on contradiction.

Assistant Chief Inspector Foyle finds what looks like a joke set of murder instructions on a university campus, then a scientist dies. As the case darkens, Dr. Basil Willing uncovers wartime secrets, suspicion, and a killer with room to hide.

What should have been a quiet holiday becomes murder when a Long Island hostess serves cocktails laced with truth serum. By morning she is dead, and Dr. Basil Willing has to sort confession, performance, and outright lies.

A man is killed onstage in full view of audience and cast, yet no one can say exactly how it was done. Dr. Basil Willing tackles a dazzling theatrical puzzle with clues as small as a canary and a housefly.

A cruel warning on the telephone begins a run of eerie disturbances around Archie and his nightclub performer fiancee, Frieda. When a murder follows, Dr. Basil Willing must ask whether fear and guilt have hidden the killer in plain sight.

Edith Talbot hears a child whimpering behind a hotel door marked Do Not Disturb and makes the mistake of interfering. That single knock sets off a chain of coincidences and terrors that grows steadily more dangerous.

In wartime Santa Teresa, American expat Philip Stark takes over for a dead local correspondent and quickly doubts the death was accidental. A rival reporter, a wary policeman, and the dead man's mistress all have reasons to lie.

After her uncle dies from a suspected digitalis overdose, Alison retreats to a remote mountain lodge to recover. Strange visitors, nighttime noises, and a clue to an unbreakable cipher soon place her in very real danger.

On a secret mission in the Scottish Highlands at the end of World War II, Lieutenant Peter Dunbar gets caught up with a troubled boy, a young cousin, and an escaped prisoner. A dying man's message turns the whole landscape into a trap.

A woman dies violently aboard the Santa Cristina, and news of another death suggests the crime reaches beyond the ship. With a false suicide note, a jar of blood, and a mysterious package, the voyage turns into a locked-in puzzle.

At an exclusive girls' school in upstate New York, strange incidents and mounting fear seem to circle one vulnerable teacher. Gisela turns to Dr. Basil Willing, who must decide whether the menace is supernatural or chillingly human.

When a stranger uses Basil Willing's name to hail a cab, the real Basil follows out of curiosity. He lands at a psychiatrist's dinner party for patients and finds a gathering built on secrets, unease, and a very ugly motive.

Fifteen years after vanishing under another name, Frank Bly returns to the town where someone once tried to kill him. Facing people who believed he was dead, he sets out to learn who wanted him gone before the past turns lethal again.

A cheap red pendant and a baffling street accident pull Sara Dacre into a mystery that only gets stranger when her friend Gerry goes for coffee and vanishes. Finding him means sorting illusion from fact before someone else disappears.

Sara Dacre buys a gaudy pendant on a whim and soon witnesses an accident no one can agree about. Then her friend Gerry steps away for coffee and never returns, leaving her at the center of a baffling disappearance.

A diplomat's fatal fall is dismissed as an accident until his widow finds a locked drawer and an empty file marked with a woman's name. The search for what is missing leads Dr. Basil Willing into secrecy and danger.

At a Connecticut party for bestselling author Amos Cottle, someone slips cyanide into his drink. Dr. Basil Willing follows the clues through book reviews, correspondence, and literary gossip to uncover who the dead writer really was.

After inheriting a fortune, Harry Vaughan returns to the past and to the woman he once loved. But lost memories, headaches, and a murder make him wonder who is shadowing his life, and why.

Bob falls hard for Kyra, believing she is free, and blows up his settled life in the process. When Kyra's husband is killed during a bitter argument over divorce, Bob's loyal wife must prove he is not a murderer.

This short story collection shows McCloy's range, from neat puzzles to eerie speculative ideas. Its signature tale sends Basil Willing after reports of diamond-shaped objects in the sky and a string of peculiar deaths.

Back in London after years away, Lydia Grey wakes to footsteps in a locked room where no intruder should be able to enter. What begins as one impossible disturbance grows into a taut game of menace and uncertainty.

A séance prank in an old house goes wrong when the eerie knocking starts without the girl who was supposed to make it. Snowbound and cut off, Dr. Basil Willing faces a chilling case of fear, folklore, and murder.

Lisa is told she is the orphaned daughter of an American aristocrat and an Italian princess, and heir to a Boston fortune. The story should explain her life, but the more she tests it, the more she senses that someone wants her destroyed.

After Girzel Graeme's father is struck down and left hovering between life and death, she starts chasing the truth about his past. A fabulous jewel and a mysterious stranger lead her into a maze of family secrets and danger.

Marian Tansey seems to have a decent job, good friends, and a possible new romance. But her car is secretly being taken at night, and her own missing past soon collides with murder.

Journalist Tash Perkins is sent to interview a governor's wife and walks straight into something sinister. A stolen letter, a political campaign, arson, and an attack at a rally turn her new assignment into a dangerous maze.

Sam Joel's young wife Kate is abducted, and paying the ransom only deepens the nightmare. When he finally finds a girl who may be Kate, he has to face a cruel question about identity, loss, and a deadly deception.

After a car crash, Maria Skinner wakes in a psychiatric clinic and is told her memory cannot be trusted. Desperate to escape, she leaves with a man claiming to be her husband, even though she knows he is lying.

Stranded and under arrest in France, Celia McNeill teams up with a card wizard whose casino winnings have made dangerous people curious. The hunt for his secret system pulls her into greed, deception, and murder.

Boston landlady Harriet Sutton finds a note about a murder plot that must have come from one of her tenants. When a tenant dies and her troubled son is suspected, Dr. Basil Willing is asked to dig into the lodging house's secrets.

This collection gathers Dr. Basil Willing's shorter cases, from eerie doubles to impossible-seeming puzzles. It shows McCloy at her most inventive, blending psychological detection with strange events that still point back to human motives.