Allingham, Margery. When Allingham's blue-blooded detective, Albert Campion, began his career in 1928 he seemed cast in the same mold as many English sleuths of that era: whimsical, aristocratically insouciant, with razor-sharp intellect and passionate emotions hidden beneath the debonair exterior. Twenty years and the Second World War made that pre-war era seem as far removed as another world. Campion changed too, shedding his aristocratic flavour and maturing into a more formidable and serious character. Allingham's plots also matured, losing the Ruritanian elements and exploring the darker side of human nature with a subtlety that now suggests P.D. James. Allingham's sense of good and evil was so strong, you can sometimes smell the brimstone. The two books below were originally published, respectively, in 1934 and 1937. For a sample of her later, more psychological work, look for Tiger in the Smoke, published nearly 30 years later. Death of a Ghost.-$3.96US. Dancers in Mourning.-$3.96US.

Amis, Kingsley. The author of Lucky Jim has infused a satiric edge into this horror story based on ancient British myths of Jack in the Green, the woodland spirit that probably predates even the Celtic invasion. The Green Man.-$9.60US.

Carr, John Dickson. Carr was a prolific writer of supernatural suspense stories as well as mysteries. He's especially known for his gargantuan detective, Dr. Gideon Fell (who remarkably resembled G.K. Chesterton). The Burning Court is an example of the first genre, Hag's Nook of the second. In both forms Carr was especially skilled at devising seemingly impossible locked-room puzzles. And he could create an atmosphere of psychic peril, evoking creeping terror in the description of a sunset, that keeps you gripping the book to the last page. The Burning Court.- $4.95US+$2.35US surcharge. Hag's Nook (A Dr. Fell mystery).- $15.37US hardcover.

Chesterton, Gilbert Keith. Reading too many Father Brown stories at a sitting can be dizzying: Chesterton loved paradox and almost every story contains some twist of thought. Of course the main paradox, at first glance, is the innocent little English priest with a face "as round and dull as a Norfolk dumpling" and a shabby umbrella, which he keeps dropping. He is in fact a first-class detective who relies on his understanding of the human mind and heart, his knowledge of criminal methods (often learned in the confessional) and a habit of clear-headed logic, to solve the cases into which he stumbles. Chesterton wrote the 51 Father Brown stories between 1911 and 1935, and they are still vividly entertaining. The Penguin Complete Father Brown.-$11.96US.

Conan Doyle, Arthur. This needs no introduction. The Complete Sherlock Holmes.- $9.52US. Includes the four novels and 56 short stories.

Cox, Michael and R.A. Gilbert. This anthology of the best English ghost stories, 42 in all, ranges from Sir Walter Scott's The Tapestried Chamber (1829) to stories written 130 years later, and includes classics by Sheridan Le Fanu, Bram Stoker, M.R. James, Somerset Maugham, John Buchan, Edith Wharton (a few non-English writers are included, because their works fall into the English tradition), Elizabeth Bowen, T.H. White, and many others. The book begins with an interesting essay on the history of the genre. The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories.- $11.16US.

Eco, Umberto. The Name of the Rose is a big, scholarly, scabrous, entertaining, rambling book, rich with historical detail, plots within plots, and equally labyrinthine characters. A series of murders in a Franciscan abbey in 14th-century Italy is ultimately solved by a somewhat Holmesian English monk with an interestingly skeptical approach. But the book is really about books, knowledge, imagination, and truth, and all their ramifications. The Name of the Rose.- $10.40US.

Engel, Howard. Getting Away With Murder is Engel's ninth novel featuring private investigator Benny Cooperman, who lives in Grantham (a.k.a Engel's home town of St. Catherines).

Anyone who thinks small Ontario cities lack a sufficiently gritty ambience should read this series, starting with the 1980 opener, The Suicide Murders. All the same, Benny is the antithesis of the hard-drinking, wise-cracking P.I. of the American hard-boiled school. He doesn't carry a gun or even know how to use one. He drinks only moderately, he is faithful to his girlfriend, and he regularly checks on his elderly parents, though they hardly seem to need checking on. He does crack wise from time to time, though. "That's what my job is," Benny says, "picking up crumbs and trying to get them to say something." And he manages to keep his wits and a kind of tattered dignity even when cornered and out muscled.

What makes the Benny Cooperman books such a pleasure to read, however, is not the plot twists, the suspense or the gallery of suspects, but the way Engel humanizes the rigid form of the whodunit. Benny especially is a well-rounded character who changes and grows from book to book. Getting Away With Murder.-$22.95US Hardcover. A City Called July.-$12.57US Hardcover. Murder on Location.-$9.95US+$0.85US special surcharge. Murder Sees the Light.-$25.99US Large Print Edition. The Ransom Game.-$17.95US Large Print Edition. The Suicide Murders.-This title is out of print, but Amazon.com may be able to find you a used copy. Dead and Buried.-This title is out of print, but Amazon.com may be able to find you a used copy. There Was an Old Woman.-This title is out of print, but Amazon.com may be able to find you a used copy. A Victim Must be found.-This title is out of print, but Amazon.com may be able to find you a used copy.

Hammett, Dashiell. The Maltese Falcon first appeared in 1929 as a serial and a year later as a book. One of a handful of mystery novels that are also mainstream masterpieces, it captures the American heart of darkness, with Sam Spade as the disillusioned hero. The Thin Man (published in 1933, and featuring the elegant sleuthing couple Nick and Nora Charles) captured a different side of Depression-era America -- the hunger for glamour. Apart from neat plots and subtly drawn characters, the pared-to-the-bone language makes Hammett's books a pleasure to read. The Maltese Falcon.- $8.00US. The Thin Man.- $7.20US.

Jackson, Shirley. This famous novel sets the standard for the terror genre. (Terror rather than horror: the spirit is under attack here, not the stomach.) I have never since thought of the lovely line, "Journeys end in lovers meeting," without a chill. For sheer breath-stopping fear, few fictional moments match Elinor's "Whose hand was I holding?" For those who do not understand why people enjoy being vicariously terrified, the answer may be that it is good to experience fear as something that may be captured (secured) in words. The Haunting of Hill House.- $9.56US.

Langton, Jane. This literate New England writer usually links her plots to cultural themes, often set at Harvard University. Far from being tedious or highbrow, they are delightful confections with characters you enjoy liking or loathing, an unpretentious home-style detective in Homer Kelly, and plots that move relentlessly to often ghastly conclusions. The author's line drawings are a nice bonus. For devotees of Handel's Messiah, The Memorial Hall Murder is a special treat. Emily Dickinson is Dead.- $4.76US. The Memorial Hall Murder.- $4.76US.

Marsh, NgaioArtists in Crime.-$4.40US. This book wears very well after nearly 60 years in print. In fact, the whole Inspector Alleyn series of 30 novels (the last published in 1982) remains satisfying reading, not only because of the solid mystery plots but because of the sympathetic characters. Artists in Crime brings together the aristocratic Roderick Alleyn and the artist Agatha Troy -- a woman of style, intelligence and integrity. Also a murder suspect...

McCormack, Eric. Hardcover This Scottish-born Canadian writer creates a dark grey world, surreally grim, overlaid with an atmosphere of incomprehensible menace, of the world being increasingly out of kilter. The Mysterium may be about a natural mystery, or it may not; in the end, our world comes close enough to hell to make the question moot. But there is redemption, too, if you look hard. The Mysterium.-$20.95US Hardcover. The Paradise Motel.- $17.95US.

Michaels, Barbara. The Crying Child.- $5.59US. and Be Buried in the Rain.- $4.79US. Michaels published a long list of historical and contemporary gothic thrillers, many of which surpassed the genre. These two are a good sampling of her power to chill, especially The Crying Child, in which one particular moment made me go cold all over. Worth reading and re-reading.

Peters, Ellis. The Brother Cadfael mysteries are a popular series of now more than 20 books, featuring the 12th-century Benedictine monk, Cadfael: herbalist, former Crusader, champion of the oppressed and thorn in the side of pretentious prelates. The historical details are colourful and authentic, the mysteries well devised, characters are realistically complex, and Cadfael quickly becomes an old friend. The 14th book is a sample: The Hermit of Eyton Forest.- $4.79US.

Sayers, Dorothy. Lord Peter Wimsey is one of the immortal sleuths of the golden age of detective fiction. Only a handful of Wimsey novels were written, but each is a gem of style, plotting, and atmosphere. He remained the complete aristocrat, complemented by Harriet Vane: a strong, cultivated and passionate woman, less fragile than the high-strung Wimsey. Gaudy Night, set in a women's college, is carried mostly by Harriet. But The Nine Tailors, which is all Wimsey, may be the best of the bunch. Rich with the lore of bells and bell-ringing, it's also a terrifying story of the power of the elements and the inevitability of justice. Gaudy Night.- $3.99US. The Nine Tailors.- $7.20US.

Stoker, Bram. A late-Victorian gothic novel (1897), Dracula is often classed with Frankenstein in the popular imagination, but in fact the two books are quite different. Frankenstein is a moral fable about perverted science. Dracula is in the tradition of all the fear-tales that have come down to us across the centuries: stories that draw their power from our instinctive fear of the dark, where all sorts of perils and evils may lurk. It is because we feel horror and revulsion in the face of evil (Harker's reaction when he sees the Count crawling down the castle wall head-downward) that we have externalized it in these monsters. The recent fictional trend to sympathetic vampires misses the point, in my opinion. Dracula puts vampires where they belong, in the enemy camp. Dracula.- $7.96US.

Stout, Rex. Published in 1934, Fer-de-Lance introduced Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin to the world. Thirty-three novels and 39 short stories followed, during which the main characters never aged, though they changed somewhat. Wolfe is a detective in the cerebral mold of Sherlock Holmes, a general in the war between order (justice, civilization) and chaos, though very different in other ways. But I always felt the main delight of these books was in the details and characters of Wolfe's New York household: Fritz with his gourmet meals, the orchid room, the beer, and especially Archie. Jacques Barzun called Archie "the lineal descendant of Huck Finn." Independent-minded to a fault, enterprising, quick-witted, intolerant of pretentiousness in any form, and stiff-necked in the presence of authority, Archie is also amazingly sexy. Fer-de-Lance.- $3.99US.

Tey, Josephine. Here is a stand-alone classic: a piece of historical detective work conducted from a hospital bed. Driven by extreme boredom, an incapacitated detective turns his sleuthing skills to the question: Did Richard III have his two little nephews murdered, or has the hated hunchback been slandered all these centuries? (The daughter of time, of course, is truth.) Whether you agree with the conclusion or not, the story is a gem. The Daughter of Time.- $7.20US.

Wynne-Jones, Tim. A Canadian writer with a talent for weaving creepily twisted plots, often with viewpoints that come from way out in left field. In the case of Fastyngange, the story is partly narrated by an oubliette (a deep hole where unwanted persons were dropped down and literally left to be forgotten) in an old castle. Time and accumulated horrors have given this oubliette a sinister consciousness, and you follow its relationship with an emotionally vulnerable young woman with acute anxiety. The ending is both strange and satisfying. Odd's End is a story of what may be a haunted house. Discovering what's going on is a tense trip. Both books are tightly and effectively written, neither is a line longer than it should be. Fastyngange.- This title is out of print, but Amazon.com may be able to find you a used copy. Odd's End.- This title is out of print, but Amazon.com may be able to find you a used copy.