Aylwin Hundrych is a diplomat with political aspirations, who was once involved with a French girl, Antoinette, with whom he unwittingly shared details about a royal visit to Paris - details which put the King's life in danger. Antoinette's brother holds the former lovers' letters, and is threatening to use them. Hundrych makes a first payment, but the demands continue. Hundrych enlists his old friend Sir Vane Tabbard's son, an ex-commando called Gray Tabbard, who is not too scrupulous about what he does. Gray searches the blackmailer's apartment, but reports back that he cannot find a particularly compromising note. And Gray is in love with the girl Hundrych plans to marry . . .

Includes Part 1A: Books and Part 1B: Pamphlets, Serials and Contributions to Periodicals

A baker's dozen of stories from the Golden Age master of the police procedural: seven from the casebook of Detective Inspector John Poole, whose brilliant work in the The Duke of York's Steps and No Friendly Drop will be remembered by readers of Wade novels; and six miscellaneous narratives of crime and detection, all of them displaying the scientific ingenuity which distinguishes Wade's work.

At a meeting of Quenborough Borough Council, the Mayor, Sir John Assington, is accused by Alderman Trant of wasting money and turning a blind eye to speculators on the make. Then Trant is stabbed with his own knife, and while dying, manages to scratch the initials 'MA' on a piece of paper. Local Chief Constable Race is on the case. He is new to the force, so Superintendent Vorley comes to his aid. With the help of Scotland Yard, in the shape of Inspector Lott, they each bring a different approach to the investigation. For the truth is rarely straightforward . . .

Detective Constable Henry Campion turns lone avenger when his childhood friend and colleague DC Fred Jordan is shot dead by a gangster who is spared the death sentence. And Campion is convinced there were two killers. To try to catch the second, Campion goes undercover as a spiv in a King's Cross nightclub, the Full Moon. But Campion's adventures at the Full Moon draw him deeper into gangland, and closer to the woman of his dreams - his dead friend's widow . . . But is it love, or is Anne Jordan using Campion for her own ends?

Sir Robert D'Arcy, High Sheriff of Brackenshire, harbours a painful memory of what he considers his shameful surrender to the Germans in 1916. Gradually he realises nothing is known of the incident and his confidence returns, and he gains in honour and responsibility in the county. Then, out of the blue, a man appears who threatens to reveal the incident - or to keep it hidden, at a price. D'Arcy resists this new enemy, but is handicapped by his own view of his position, his past deed, his family pride. A tragedy occurs, and the Brackenshire police investigate, but are themselves hampered by reluctance to muddy distinguished waters. How is the ageing Chief Constable to face the problem?