Best Selling Books by Helen McCloy

When Dr Basil Willing rents a small shack for a vacation on Long Island he becomes embroiled with his landlady, Claudia Bethune. Claudia wants to learn the secrets of her relatives and friends, so she steals a truth serum and holds a dinner party for her nearest and dearest. In the early morning hours, as Dr Willing returns to his cottage, he sees what he thinks is a fire and investigates. He finds Claudia near death at the table and hears footsteps fading up the stairs. Someone didn''t want Claudia to learn the truth about them, and soon Dr Willing finds himself a suspect in murder.

Maria Skinner recovers consciousness after a car crash to find herself in a psychiatric clinic. She remembers the crash quite clearly but she is told that she is suffering from delusions - and must not leave hospital. She tries to contact her husband but is informed that he is unavailable. Finally, in a desperate attempt to escape, she reluctantly agrees to accompany a man who insists he is her husband - but whom she knows is an impostor. Moving from one captivity to another, she becomes a pawn in someone else''s sinister game ...

A woman dies by violence aboard the Santa Cristina. A radio flash from the West Indies brings word of an apparently related death. A man''s body turns up, and in his hand is a suicide note written in one woman''s handwriting but signed with another woman''s name. But what part does the jar of blood play - and why is everyone so interested in the contents of a certain package wrapped in cherub-bedecked paper? That''s the puzzle Captain Urizar has to solve in a case with a startling showdown.

Publisher Tony Kane and his wife host a party in honor of best-selling author Amos Cottle at their Connecticut home. But all eyes are on the guests when an unseen hand slips cyanide into Cottle''s drink. Also present at the party is Basil Willing, a psychiatrist-sleuth who soon figures out that Cottle was not the man that his jacket-flap blurb said he was. Willing embarks on a course of literary detection, scouting for clues in book reviews, publisher correspondence, and other documents related to this rather ghostly writer ...

Marian Tansey appears to be living a happy life. She has great friends, a job in a thrift shop, and she has just bought a new car. She may even be falling in love with Dick Lang, who sold it to her. She could be on top of the world, but there are a few clouds in the sky. There is a mystery surrounding the car. It has been ''borrowed'' during the night by someone unknown. But most of all there''s the frightening fact that, although she hasn''t admitted it to any of her friends or colleagues, Marian lost her memory a year or two ago and has no idea who she is. Then, there is a murder ...

Gisela von Hohenems joins the teaching staff of an exclusive girls'' school in upstate New York, where she befriends fellow newcomer Faustina Coyle. But a climate of fear surrounds Faustina, and after several strange incidents that defy rational explanation, she is forced to resign. Gisela asks her fiancé, detective-psychologist Dr Basil Willing, to investigate in this highly acclaimed horror-mystery with shades of M. R. James.

A castle, a deserted village, and murder in the Scottish Highlands When child psychologist and US Naval Intelligence officer Lieutenant Peter Dunbar takes on a secret mission in the Scottish Highlands at the end of World War II, he finds himself drawn into the lives of a troubled boy and his beautiful young cousin. But why does Johnny Stockton refuse to explain why he keeps running away from his comfortable home? And how might the answer be entangled with the mystery of an escaped German prisoner and a dying man''s message?

After 15 years of living elsewhere under an assumed name - one he has made famous by becoming a successful writer - Frank Bly, aka Stephen Longworth, returns to the town where an attempt was made on his life, and from which he escaped leaving no clues behind. He confronts several people who have thought him dead. He thinks one of them is the person who tried to kill him. Before he finds the truth, there is more murder, attempted murder and a suicide ...

Tatiana ''Tash'' Perkins, a brilliant young journalist, is sent by her paper to interview the State Governor''s wife, and a strange interview it is: the woman behaves like a zombie, and when they are alone together she slips a letter to Tash and asks her to post it. But before Tash can do so, her handbag is snatched and the letter with it. Yet the governor charms her, and soon she is accepting a job as his campaign speech-writer. But Tash is soon drawn into a frightening sequence of events, ranging from the killing of a canary to murder by arson, and an assassination at a political rally.

When Sara Dacre comes across a large red pendant at a twenty cent jewellery stall she is tempted to buy it - especially when she bumps into her friend Gerry Hone, who persuades her that it will brighten up her old grey taffeta. But soon she finds herself at the centre of some strange events. On leaving the shop she and Gerry witness the scene of an accident - but nobody can agree what happened. And when Gerry takes her to an automat for coffee he goes to the counter to order - and never comes back ... ''Explosive'' Birmingham Post

Kyra Novacs: Who was she? Where did she come from? Bob knew almost nothing about her, just enough to fall hopelessly in love with her. They were thrown together for business reasons and, believing her to be single, he threw caution to the wind. But Kyra isn''t single. And when her husband is killed in the midst of an argument over divorce, it falls to Bob''s loyal wife of seventeen years, Susan, to prove his innocence ... ''Miss McCloy compels you to read every word'' Observer

Boston landlady Harriet Sutton discovers a note about a conspiracy to murder someone - a note that must have come from one of her tenants. When a tenant is murdered, she asks psychiatrist-sleuth Dr Basil Willing to investigate. Her son, a Vietnam veteran whom the police consider a victim of combat fatigue who may be capable of anything, is under suspicion. And as the mystery unfolds, Harriet Sutton tries desperately to prove them wrong.

They told Lisa she was the daughter of an American aristocrat and an Italian princess both of whom died shortly after Lisa''s birth. They told Lisa she was heiress to a vast Boston fortune, and that her American family cherished her and wanted her to stay with them. At first Lisa tried to believe it all. Then she tried to separate the truth from the lies. Finally, she would know one thing for sure. Somebody or something was out to destroy her ...

A prominent American diplomat falls over a cliff to his death. The death is accepted as an accident, but could it have been suicide - or even murder? His widow finds a locked drawer in his desk and in it a file with a woman''s name on it - but the file is empty. Circumstances lead her to an elderly man bearing the same name, but he has a stroke and can neither speak nor write. And then she sees the car headlights coming at her, fast, at night, through an impenetrable mist ...

When Uncle Felix dies of a suspected overdose of digitalis, his niece Alison accepts the offer of a remote mountain lodge for the summer to get away from the tragedy. But there are strange noises in the night and sinister visitors - and she discovers that the previous tenant was driven insane. What also transpires is that Uncle Felix had devised what he claimed to be an unbreakable cypher. The Pentagon is interested in this claim, and Alison has a fragment of a clue found beside her uncle''s bed. In the mountains she wrestles with the puzzle. But solving it will put her life in grave danger ...

A murder has taken place on stage and it seems that one of three people must be guilty. The crime was committed in full view of the audience and players, but no one can say whom the murderer is. There appear to be no clues, the suspects are all well trained in the art of dissimulation, and all three deny any knowledge of the crime. It looks like the perfect murder, until Dr Basil Willing, psychiatrist-sleuth, begins to investigate the peculiar behaviour of a pet canary and a housefly.

The sign read ''Do Not Disturb'', and at first Edith Talbot ignored the pitiful whimpering that came through the door. The hotel clerk assured her that the room was occupied by a sick boy under the care of a physician. Later in the night, when the cries resumed, she felt something must be done, and she made the fatal mistake of knocking on the door ... From then on things begin to happen, strange things that at first seem like coincidence but crescendo into a series of hair-raising events. ''Continuous action, and extra good writing'' Saturday Review of Literature

Lydia Grey, an American returning to London after many years, is woken by footsteps in the night. There is someone in her room - of that she is sure. But that is also impossible. There is only one door and it is bolted shut. The windows are eight floors up, and are locked against the winter night. As the noise recedes she switches on her bedside lamp. No one is there. Was it a dream? An illusion of a half-awakened state? Or is someone out to get her?

In the second case featuring psychiatrist-sleuth Basil Willing, he is called to a university campus to help investigate the death of a scientist. It looks like suicide, but with local scandal aplenty, more murders in the mix and a dose of Nazi espionage, all may not be as it appears.

Harry Vaughan''s uncle has just passed away, providing the young man with a colossal fortune. Giving up his job, Harry goes back to his roots - and to Celia, the woman he loves. But Harry Vaughan has lost part of his memory. He feels himself ten years older, suffers from headaches, meets people who know him but whom he doesn''t remember. When Celia''s husband is killed it becomes clear that someone is following Vaughan''s life. But who is this shadow and what do they want? ''A real psychiatric shocker'' The Tablet

The engagement of Archie, a young doctor, to night club artiste Frieda evokes ghostly phenomena when Archie takes Frieda to visit his mother near Washington. Untraceable phone calls, vandalism - and a murder - all happen before Dr Basil Willing, psychologist-sleuth, takes over and solves the mystery.

Girzel Graeme looked on her father as the embodiment of all that was wise and good. But now her father lay in a hospital hovering between life and death, and the evil that struck him down reached out to claim his daughter. What terrifying secret did her father''s past conceal? What horrifying act could he have committed? And what nameless danger threatened his daughter as she followed the lure of a fabulous jewel into a labyrinth of deceit, on the trail of a mysterious man who could save her faith in her father - or destroy both it and her.

When a prominent New York socialite is murdered by means of an overdose of medication, it takes Dr Basil Willing, a psychiatrist attached to the police department, to solve the case. But mysterious accidents start occurring during his investigation, and Willing must look deeper to uncover the motive and prevent the murderer from striking again ...

Celia McNeill is under arrest during her vacation to France and, desperate for cash, she makes a deal with card master Sergei Radetzkoy, whom she meets while being detained in Dieppe. He says he''s just lucky at cards, but the crooks who follow him from the casino aren''t interested in his winnings. They demand to know his ''system''. The fashionable folk who rescue him don''t conceal their interest in his extraordinary success at the casino either - an interest that leads to murder ...

To wake the devil, Lucinda summoned the arch fiend with the ancient invocation, and from the secret room where her friend Vanya had agreed to hide came the eerie response. The rapping called up all the terror of the old tales, and the joke was going marvellously. Until Lucinda realised that Vanya had never arrived at the old house ...

It''s 1943, and down-on-his-luck American expat Philip Stark is on the Caribbean island of Santa Teresa. The prewar destination playground is deserted now except for diplomats and oil refinery workers. When a local correspondent dies, Stark sees a chance to make some money. Having worked for the same company in the past, he is hired to replace the dead man. But Stark doesn''t think his predecessor died by accident. As he looks into the mystery, he encounters a rival correspondent, an enigmatic police officer and the mistress of the dead man - all of whom had a stake in seeing him dead.

Adam Endicott did not want Sam Joel as a husband for his young daughter, Kate. His past was sketchy and, as a reporter on a small-town newspaper, his assets were meagre. Yet when Kate is abducted by a terrorist group, Sam is able to produce a large part of the ransom. But paying the terrorists'' demand does not bring back Kate. It only leads to another murder. When Sam decides to look for Kate himself he indeed finds a girl, but is it her? Can her experience have changed her this much? Is this the girl he loves, or a changeling?

In this collection of eight stories by one of America''s most gifted writers, Helen McCloy takes the reader into a world of mystery and imagination. In the signature story - ''The Singing Diamonds'' - Mathilde Verworn enlists the help of Basil Willing, a psychiatrist-sleuth, to answer the question of whether there is such a thing as collective hallucination. Six people from six different locations testify to seeing diamond-shaped objects in the sky, and four of those six have died in peculiar circumstances in the past twelve days ...

From one of the best-loved authors of the Golden Age of detective fiction, this collection of short stories by Helen McCloy features psychiatrist-sleuth Dr Basil Willing. Beginning with her classic, Through a Glass, Darkly, which she later expanded into a full-length novel, McCloy experimented with daringly imaginative concepts within the framework of the formal, fairplay detective story. From doppelgangers to flying saucers each story demonstrates the author''s masterful combination of style, content and technique to produce some of crime fiction''s finest work.

Psychiatrist-sleuth Dr Basil Willing is in a tobacconist''s in Manhattan when another customer follows him into the shop, buys cigarettes, and leaves in a hurry. The man hails a taxi to take him to 51st street with the instruction: ''Come back and call for me; I am Dr Basil Willing.'' Intrigued, the real Basil Willing hails a second taxi and finds himself at a formal dinner party given by a psychiatrist for his patients, who do not really seem at ease there - and later he discovers the horrifying reason why ...

Nueva York, años treinta. Tras su fiesta de presentación en sociedad, el cuerpo de la joven Kitty Jocelyn aparece enterrado bajo la nieve, a unas cuantas manzanas de la mansión de los Jocelyn. La autopsia revela que la muerte se debió a una sobredosis de Sveltis, unas píldoras adelgazantes que Kitty publicitaba, pero que supuestamente nunca tomó. Tras las primeras pesquisas, el inspector Foyle y el doctor Basil Willing, sagaz asesor psiquiátrico del fiscal de Nueva York, creen que la víctima fue envenenada con un cóctel Bronx la tarde antes de la fiesta, y cualquiera de los allí presentes pudo ser el culpable: Rhoda Jocelyn, su elegante y arruinada madrastra; la señora Jowett, popular secretaria social encargada de la fiesta; Philip Leach, el apuesto periodista de cotilleos del momento o incluso Ann Jocelyn, prima de Kitty de asombroso parecido con ella, que enseguida confiesa haber sido forzada a suplantar a su prima la noche del baile.

Bajo el pretexto de «no acabar de encajar con el espíritu de la escuela», la joven profesora de arte Faustina Crayle es despedida a mitad de curso en el idílico internado de Brereton, en plena campiña neoyorquina. La única persona que parece dispuesta a apoyarla es su colega Gisela von Honenems, quien va dándose cuenta poco a poco del terror que su amiga causa en los demás y decide contarle el extraño fenómeno a su prometido, el doctor Basil Willing, psiquiatra asesor de la Fiscalía del Distrito de Nueva York y detective aficionado. Y este no tarda en presentarse en Brereton dispuesto a meter la nariz en este estrambótico puzle fuera de toda razón.

I 1960 besøger den 13-årige Lisa for første gang sin amerikanske fars velhavende familie i Boston. Indtil da har hun boet på et børnehjem i Italien. Allerede den første aften i huset får hun et hysterisk angstanfald ved synet af familiens smukke balsal. Hun kan ikke sige, hvad det er, der skræmmer hende, men familien gætter på et fremtidssyn. Da hun vender tilbage ti år senere og for sjov bliver låst inde i balsalen, bliver hun endnu mere rædselsslagen – og denne gang dør hun. Men ikke af skræk. Hun er i virkeligheden offer for en raffineret og indviklet mordplan. "Et spørgsmål om tid" udkom første gang i 1972. Den amerikanske forfatter Helen McCloy (1904-1994) har skrevet en lang række populære thrillere. Hun er særligt kendt for sine krimier om dr. Basil Willing, der opklarer mysterier, som ved første øjekast kan virke umulige eller overnaturlige. Helen McCloys romaner er blevet oversat til en lang række fremmedsprog, og flere af dem er udkommet på dansk.

Boston, dans les années 1970. En apparence, Marian Tansey est une femme comme les autres. Ses joies et ses peines ne sortent pas de l''ordinaire. Mais Marian a perdu la mémoire deux ans auparavant. Et hormis les visions qui parfois l''assaillent, rien ne transparaît de cette vie d''avant qui affleure pourtant tout près, à la lisière de sa conscience. Qu''a-t-elle vraiment fait et vécu ? Est - elle folle lorsqu''elle sent une menace peser sur elle ? Marian sait que quelque chose rôde... Mais aura-t-elle le courage de l''affronter ? Faux-semblants, coups de théâtre et révélations hissent La Somnambule au rang de chef - d''oeuvre de suspense psychologique.