Leo Bruce

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  • Bibliography:
    27 Books (2 Series)
  • First Book:
    October 1980
  • Latest Book:
    March 2019
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Full Series List in Order

Carolus Deene Mysteries

Jack on the Gallows Tree (May-1983)
Death in Albert Park (Jun-1983)
Furious Old Women (Nov-1983)
Death at St. Asprey's School (Apr-1984)
Nothing Like Blood (Jul-1985)
Such Is Death (May-1986)
Our Jubilee Is Death (Nov-1986)
Die All, Die Merrily (Apr-1987)
Dead Man's Shoes (Nov-1987)
Death on Allhallowe'En (Mar-1988)
Death of a Commuter (Nov-1988)
Death With Blue Ribbon (Jun-1994)
Death at Hallow's End (Mar-2003)
Death by the Lake (Oct-2003)

Sergeant Beef Detective Novels

Neck and Neck (Oct-1980)
Case with 4 Clowns (Mar-2011)

Book List in Order: 27 titles

  • Case for 3 Detectives

    Possibly the most unusual mystery ever written. A murder is committed, behind closed doors, in bizarre circumstances. Three amateur detectives take the case: Lord Simon Plimsoll, Monsieur Amer Picon, and Monsignor Smith (in whom discerning readers wi...

  • Case for Sergeant Beef

    In the cleverly plotted Case for Sergeant Beef, Mr. Wellington Chickle, a retired watchmaker, plans the perfect murder, but he chooses the wrong victim. The dead man's sister refuses to accept the idea that her brother committed suicide and calls in ...

  • Neck and Neck

    Sergeant Beef Detective Novels

    Lionel Townsend is Sergeant Beef's priggish biographer, most often found exasperated by Beef’s boorish manners. But now Townsend’s aunt has been poisoned. Townsend must turn to Beef for assistance -- he has surprisingly found himself the prime su...

  • Jack on the Gallows Tree

    Carolus Deene Mysteries

    The dead bodies of two elderly ladies are discovered; both had been strangled. Each is found lying full-length, clasping in her hand the stem of a Madonna lily....

  • Death in Albert Park

    Carolus Deene Mysteries

    In a gloomy London suburb, a modern Jack the Ripper stalks at night, killing at random with brutal knife thrusts from behind. Three women fall victim, and the terrorized residents wait to see who will be next....

  • Furious Old Women

    Carolus Deene Mysteries

    Carolous Deene, Schoolmaster and sometime detective is called to the village of Gladhurst, some 40 miles from the school, by Mrs Bobbin, who asks him to unmask the murderer of her sister. Here he meets a succession of colourful characters, inclu...

  • Death at St. Asprey's School

    Carolus Deene Mysteries

    There are strange goings-on at St. Asprey's, an expensive boys' preparatory school: footsteps in passages at night . . . strange lights . . . rabbits with battered skulls. Carolus Deene has some spine-tingling experiences before he solves the mystery...

  • Case With No Conclusion

    Once again Lionel Townsend, Beef's Dr. Watson, faithfully records the redoubtable Sergeant's escapades. Beef has left the Braxham police and gone into business for himself. Beef gets a client: Stewart Ferrars, who has been arrested for the Sydenham M...

  • Nothing Like Blood

    Carolus Deene Mysteries

    His old friend Helena Gort calls on Carolus Deene to come to Cat's Cradle, a seaside guest house and find out about two deaths judged respectively "natural causes" and "suicide." There is no doubt in Helena's mind that something sinister has happened...



  • A Bone and a Hank of Hair

    Carolus Deene, history master at Queen's School, Newminster, manages on the side to dabble in the art of gentlemanly detective work. In Leo Bruce's beloved A Bone and a Hank of Hair, Deene is approached by Mrs. Chalk, who is convinced her heiress cou...

  • Such Is Death

    Carolus Deene Mysteries

    Someone very, very clever planned this murder: the place, a remote shelter on the promenade at Selby-on-Sea; the occasion, a blustery evening in late November; the victim, somebody ready-made for a crack-of-doom from a coal hammer. Diary notes indica...

  • Our Jubilee Is Death

    Carolus Deene Mysteries

    Walking on the sand before breakfast, Carolus Deen's cousin Fay, who was staying on the Suffolk coast, has come upon the head of Lilliane Bomberger, the celebrated and universally detested novelist. The body was buried in the sand with only the head ...

  • Die All, Die Merrily

    Carolus Deene Mysteries

    Richard Hoysden's body is discovered in his country flat, a revolver beside him, and a bullet through the head, apparently a suicide. Missing from the room is a tape of Hoysden's last moments on which he confesses ti the murder of a young woman. Lady...

  • Dead Man's Shoes

    Carolus Deene Mysteries

    Everyone knew there'd been a murder, everyone knew who the murderer was, and when this murderer committed suicide by jumping overboard from the cargo boat Saragossa, they thought "Good riddance." Everyone, that is, except Carolus Deene....

  • Death on Allhallowe'En

    Carolus Deene Mysteries

    Carolus Deene is summoned to a small Kentish village where the presence of a possible coven of witches lends an eerie aura to the presumed "accidental" death of a young local boy a year ago on Hallowe'en. Before his work is completed, Carolus Deene h...

  • Death of a Commuter

    Carolus Deene Mysteries

    "Five men occupied their usual places in a first-class carriage, but the sixth place was empty..." It is most unusual for the sixth man, Mr. Parador, to be late. The five commuters are wondering what happened to him, when a strange-looking man enters...

  • Case Without a Corpse

    This is one of Sgt. Beef's most interesting and perplexing cases. It involves a murder, but one in which no body can be found. Young Rogers announces to Beef and others assembled in a local pub that he has committed a murder -- then takes his own lif...

  • Murder in Miniature

    As an exponent of the classic detective novel in its pure form, Leo Bruce is unquestionably in the front rank. These stories complete the oeuvre of a major detective novelist. Here Bruce's gift for entertaining dialogue is at its peak, and so is his ...

  • Death With Blue Ribbon

    Carolus Deene Mysteries

    Carolus Deene becomes involved in his latest adventure when a famous restaurateur is threatened by a protection racketeer and a well-known writer of cookbooks is murdered under extraordinary circumstances....



  • Death at Hallow's End

    Carolus Deene Mysteries

    Gentleman Detective Carolus Deene, the schoolmaster created by Bruce and featured in so many of his other books, has his work cut out for him this time. A respectable solicitor has vanished into thin air in the remote village of Hallows End. Deene se...

  • Death by the Lake

    Carolus Deene Mysteries

  • Death in the Middle Watch

    Carolus Deene is enjoying himself on a holiday cruise. On the first night aboard the Summer Queen, he hears a shout of "Man Overboard!" From that point on to the moment of Deene's unexpected revelations, the reader will find that unique mixture of ar...

  • Murder in Miniature and Other Stories

    Of the 28 stories that comprise this book, only two were previously collected. Ten stories feature the popular sleuth Sgt Beef, eight stories feature Sgt Grebe, and ten stories have no series character. The stories were written in the 1950s for newsp...

  • Case with 4 Clowns

    Sergeant Beef Detective Novels

    A murder is yet to be committed -- that much is certain -- but who will be the victim? And who will be the murderer? It is Sgt. Beef's job to discover these facts, if he can, in time to prevent the deed from being done. But when he reaches the small ...

  • Death of a Bovver Boy

    Billed as “the ugliest case that Carolus Deene ever chose to investigate,” Leo Bruce’s Death of a Bovver Boy finds the redoubtable schoolmaster-turned-detective involved in yet another mystery murder -- this time among teenage outcasts and skin...

  • Case with Ropes and Rings

    The coroner’s jury found that the boy hanged in the school gymnasium had killed himself, but Sergeant Beef disagrees. He takes a job as a temporary school caretaker, abetted by the reluctant Townsend, Beef’s biographer, whose brother is a master ...

  • Cold Blood

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy

    Cosmo Ducrow was a wealthy heir known to friends and family for his friendly though reclusive nature. When he is found dead on his grounds, bludgeoned by a croquet mallet, the evidence damningly points to his nephew. The deceased's closest confi...

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Leo Bruce has published 27 books.

Leo Bruce does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, Case with Ropes and Rings, was published in March 2019.

The first book by Leo Bruce, Case for 3 Detectives, was published in October 1980.

Yes. Leo Bruce has 2 series.
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