Mrs. Bradley Mysteries
12 primary works • 14 total works
Book 1
Alastair Bing's guests gather around his dining table at Chaynings, a charming country manor. But one seat, belonging to the legendary explorer Everard Mountjoy, remains empty. When the other guests search the house, a body is discovered in a bath, drowned. The body is that of a woman, but could the corpse in fact be Mountjoy? A peculiar and sinister sequence of events has only just begun...
This is Gladys Mitchell's first book and it marks the entrance of the inimitable Mrs Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, psychoanalyst and unorthodox amateur sleuth, into the world of detective fiction. But instead of leading the police to the murderer, she begins as their chief suspect.
Book 2
Book 3
Great Aunt Puddequet was reputed to be enormously wealthy. It was also a tradition in the family that she was extraordinarily mean. So when the malicious old bird summons her grand-nephews to perform in a games tournament in order to secure their inheritances, they gloomily oblige. Before long, the country house games are interrupted by murder.
The police are baffled, but fortunately Mrs Bradley, an unusual psychoanalyst with a flair for sleuthing, has begun to take an keen interest in the Puddequet Olympics.
Book 4
Noel Wells, curate in the sleepy village of Saltmarsh, likes to spend his time dancing in the study with the vicar's niece, until one day the vicar's unpleasant wife discovers her unmarried housemaid is pregnant and trouble begins.
It is left to Noel to call for the help of sometime-detective and full-time psychoanalyst Mrs Bradley, who sets out on an unnervingly unorthodox investigation into the mysterious pregnancy, an investigation that also takes in a smuggler, the village lunatic, a missing corpse, a public pillory, an exhumation and, of course, a murderer.
Mrs. Bradley is easily one of the most memorable personalities in crime fiction and in this classic whodunit she proves that some English villages can be murderously peaceful.
Book 5
Hillmaston School has chosen The Mikado for their next school performance and, in recognition of her generous offer to finance the production, their meek and self-effacing arithmetic mistress is offered a key role. But when she disappears mid-way through the opening night performance and is later found dead, unconventional psychoanalyst and sleuth Mrs Bradley is called in to investigate. To her surprise she soon discovers that the hapless teacher had quite a number of enemies - all with a motive for murder...
Book 6
Psychoanalyst and detective Mrs Bradley advises her highly-strung friend, Hannibal Jones, to retreat to a quiet, rustic village to find rest and inspiration for his writing. Saxon Wall seems the perfect rural retreat, and Jones is quickly intrigued by the odd characters among the villagers, their pagan beliefs, and by the mystery surrounding Neot House, where a young couple died soon after the birth of their first child.
But when disagreements between the villagers and their vicar grow more malevolent, and a man is found bludgeoned to death, Jones calls in Mrs Bradley, who proceeds to root out the devil of Saxon Wall by her own unorthodox methods.
Book 7
A dead solicitor, a suspicious pig-farmer and a local ghost disturb Mrs Bradley's holiday to Oxfordshire. Nothing is as it seems however, and the inimitable detective must work fast if she is to protect her nephew's household from a resourceful killer.
Book 8
Sir Rudri Hopkinson, an eccentric amateur archaeologist, is determined to recreate ancient rituals at the temple of Eleusis in Greece in the hope of summoning the goddess Demeter. He gathers together a motley collection of people to assist in the experiment, including a rival scholar, a handsome but cruel photographer and a trio of mischievous children. But when one of the group disappears, and a severed head turns up in a box of snakes, the superlative detective and psychoanalyst Mrs Bradley is called upon to investigate...
Book 9
Mrs Bradley, renowned psychologist and private detective, is summoned to the convent school of St Peter's Finger, where a girl's body has been found in a bathtub - did Ursula kill herself, or, as the nuns fear, is a murderer at large in the school?
Book 10
Book 11
Europe is on the brink of war, but as the quiet village of Willington braces itself for bloodshed overseas, a killer strikes much closer to home. But what connects the murder of an escaped asylum patient, a local councillor and a young volunteer at the village's air raid patrol centre? Only the exceptional Mrs Bradley, psychoanalyst and celebrated detective, can uncover the truth.
Book 12
A friend staying with distinguished psychoanalyst and sometime detective Mrs Bradley is alarmed by a chance meeting with a pale young man who claims his uncle is being poisoned - is there a detective who could help discover the culprit? Mrs Bradley is soon on the case, but upon investigation it seems the uncle is in the best of health. But then the old man does indeed die suddenly, followed by his nephew, and Mrs Bradley finds herself in the murderer's firing line.
A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY
Rediscover Gladys Mitchell - one of the 'Big Three' female crime fiction writers alongside Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers.
Fenella, great-niece to the unorthodox psychoanalyst and sleuth Mrs Bradley, unwittingly stumbles upon a pagan ritual in the sleepy village of Seven Wells. When the village's pub landlord disappears, Fenella calls on her great aunt's expert advice to help her unravel the developing mysteries. Why was the squire of the village stabbed in the back? And what is the secret of the five skeletons in the crypt?
Opinionated, unconventional, unafraid... If you like Poirot and Miss Marple, you'll love Mrs Bradley.