Jonathan Mansel, one of Dornford Yates' most popular characters, heads a small private organisation dedicated to the detection of serious crime 'by methods sadly unavailable to the regular police'. An aristocratic member of his team is murdered and the avengers set out in pursuit of the killer, in a tale of 'violence and a measure of sublimated sex'. Caricatured villains, a page-turning plot and some good jokes – in short, classic Yates.

A very typical Dornford Yates romantic adventure story, with the action nominally taking place in southern Austria but really in a never-never land Ruritania. There is a beautiful Austrian aristocrat in distress, with two stalwart British chaps and a fast Rolls-Royce, to set things right.

A comic romp featuring the famous 'Berry' Pleydell and based on Yates' own experience of building a house for himself in the Pyrenées – sumptuous, expensive and idyllically located. The house was seized by the Germans during World War II, and this tale, written soon afterwards, gives a hilarious account of its construction and early life. Yates at the peak of his form.