An introduction to one of the most complex subjects of British folklore - the legend of King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot and the Knights of the Round Table. It examines the feasibility of Arthurian myths in relation to famous sites such as Tintagel Castle, Glastonbury and Dozmary Pool.

Arthur and the Grail

Lampo, Hubert

Watson,Colin

Koster, Pieter-Paul

Pan/Macmillan

The appreciation of antique objects is not perhaps Detective Sergeant Sidney Love's forte, yet his critical appraisal of Lot Thirty-Four - comprising two golf balls, an LMS railway tumbler, an old meat mincer, two decanter stoppers, a soap dish and a moulded relief of a cottage entitled 'At the End of Life's Lane' - at an antiques auction which sets events in motion. The sale of Lot Thirty-Four at the handsome price of Â£400, together with further curious developments, leads Inspector Purbright to the heart of a chilling but decidedly genteel murder mystery... First published in 1980, Plaster Sinners is the eleventh novel in the Flaxborough series and displays Watson's characteristic dry wit and striking observation. 'Flaxborough is Colin Watson's quiet English town whose outward respectability masks a seething pottage of greed, crime and vice... Mr Watson wields a delightfully witty pen dripped in acid.' Daily Telegraph 'Arguably the best, and certainly the most consistent of comic crime writers, delicately treading the line between wit and farce... Funny, stylish and good mysteries to boot.' TIME OUT 'One of the best. As always with Watson, the writing is sharp and stylish and wickedly funny!' Literary Review

Plaster sinners

Published for the Crime Club by Doubleday

When Inspector Purbright goes to the funeral of Richard Loughbury, he finds himself caught up in a strange series of events in the peaceful village of Mumblesby, a situation involving both blackmail and murder

Whatever's Been Going on at Mumblesby

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

DOUBLEDAY

Kissing covens (Red mask mystery)

PUTNAM

It Shouldn't Happen To a Dog

G.P.Putnam's Sons

Snobbery With Violence: English Crime Stories and Their Audience

Snobbery with violence: English crime stories and their audience (A Methuen paperback)

METHUEN

'One of the most consistently busy of Britain's home industries during the past fifty years has been the manufacture of crime fiction. Some three hundred writers now contribute, more or less regularly, to the satisfaction of the public's appetite for books about murder, theft, fraud, espionage, arson, blackmail and kindred activities. . . This book is not an attempt to catalogue them . . . Its purpose is to explore some of the crime and mystery fiction of the past half century for clues to the convictions and attitudes of the large section of British society for which it was written.'\nIn Snobbery with English Crime Stories and Their Audience, Colin Watson explores the social attitudes that are reflected in the detective story and the thriller. From Conan Doyle and Edgar Wallace to Agatha Christie and Ian Fleming, Watson takes the reader on an entertaining and informative investigation into the world of crime fiction. First published in 1971 Snobbery with Violence has become a minor classic of literary and social history and should grace the bookshelves of every crime aficionado.

Snobbery with violence: Crime stories and their audience

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Eyre and Spottiswoode

For lovely Julia Hartton, unhappily married to a brutally successful pet food executive, a dramatic death in the fairground seems to provide a deliciously easy means of escape. But for Detective Inspector Purbright, it is the harbinger of a bizarre and increasingly nasty case.

One man's meat

EYRE METHUEN

Plaster Sinners

Naked Nuns

'TWO NAKED NUNS AVAILABLE PHILADELPHIA' is the strangest cable ever to come to Flaxborough. Inspector Purbright, who has coped with a few odd things in his time, finds it opens a rich lode of skullduggery, deceit and sudden death.   Flaxborough is a quiet market town in the east of England, discreetly prosperous, respectable and brimming with provincial virtues. However, beneath the bland surface, strange passions seethe. The little foibles of its citizens afford more than ample scope to the wisdom and pertinacity of Inspector Purbright.  First published in 1975, The Naked Nuns is the eighth novel in the Flaxborough series and displays Watson's characteristic dry wit and striking observation.  'Flaxborough, that olde-worlde town with Dada trimmings.' Sunday Times

The naked nuns

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Books by Watson,Colin