Ostara Publishing

Current Publications

	Mr Campion's Farthing - Philip Youngman-Carter Inglewood Turrets in the leafy outskirts of North London, a cross between St Pancreas Station and Holloway Gaol, is where the formidable Miss Charlotte Cambric recreates Victorian elegance for foreign culture-vultures. Vassily Kopeck, the half-Russian, half-Polish physicist and an ‘attaché of sorts’, disappears after a visit to The Turrets and becomes a much-wanted man. Leading the hunt on one side is Russian ‘diplomat’ Moryak, on the other, L.C. Corkran of British Security, very ably assisted by Mr Albert Campion and – making his debut – Campion’s son Rupert, determined to support his father in proving that knight errantry is not yet out-of-date…
	Mr Campion's Falcon - Philip Youngman-Carter In The Drover’s Arms, a four-star upmarket country pub in the Cotswolds, a visitor dies of natural causes and is identified as Matthew James Matthew, a retired engineer and enthusiastic amateur archaeologist who seems to have no immediate family or friends and whose background is vague to say the least. Then the pompous and self-important innkeeper of the Drover’s Arms is found dead in very suspicious circumstances miles away, near an archaeological dig in in Suffolk. Can these two deaths be linked to the disappearance of the brilliant but unstable geologist Francis Makepeace? Albert Campion thinks so and Margery Allingham’s famous and much-loved ‘Golden Age’ detective is rarely wrong when it comes to a mystery as he heads a cast of delightful (and not so delightful) characters in the hunt for the missing geologist. There’s L.C. Corkran, formerly of the Security Services but whose retirement “has been greatly exaggerated”; the cool-headed, independent Miss Anthea Peregrine; the love-struck schoolboy Robert Oncer Smith; the rather dubious antique-dealer Morris Jay; known thug and small-time villain Ginger Scott and Inspector Appleyard, a boorish Suffolk policeman; plus the grotesque, repellent and very dangerous Claude Porteous.
	A College Mystery - A P Baker Christ’s College, Cambridge, is the location of this intriguing ghost story which relates to three people: one life was destroyed, another ended, and the happiness of the third ruined. Why did four eminent residents of the Fellows building –who claimed to have witnessed an apparition refuse to have their full names revealed? Why did Christopher Round prohibit publication of his records for at least fifty years after his death?
	The Punt Murder - Aceituna Griffin ‘The punt had been hired for the summer. The Atkins had got one with a frame work on which a cover could be fitted in case of rain. The tarpaulin had been removed from the main part of the boat, and lay in a heap in the stern’
	The May Week Murder - Douglas G Browne Murder was bad enough, and a murder in Cambridge, of all places, and in May Week, too, was worse; but what really put the tin hat on it was the baronetcy and the Bath and the Carlton.
	Trouble in College - F J Whaley A group of undergraduates form a club for the purpose of committing crimes which cause no permanent harm to persons or property; but when an unexplained robbery is followed by a sudden death they feel they are getting more than they bargained for. You are invited to spend a week at St Chad’s, Cambridge, and meet an amusing yet typical group of dons and junior members who become involved in a succession of baffling mysteries.
	The Cambridge Murders - Glyn Daniel Glyn Daniel was born in 1914 and studied at Cardiff University and at St John’s College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a First Class Honours degree with Distinction. He was a Fellow of St John’s and Lecturer in Archaeology in the University from 1948, after holding many other lectureships in archaeology. He was Director of the Cambridge Arts Theatre. In 1941 he was made an F.S.A.. His publications include The Three Ages, A Hundred Years of Archaeology, The Prehistoric Chamber Tombs of England and Wales, The Prehistoric Chamber Tombs of France, The Megalith Builders of Western Europe, and a number of articles in archaeological journals. He also wrote two detective novels. His other recreations were travel, swimming, food, and wine. He died in 1986.
	The Boat Race Murder - R E Swartwout ‘ There was a rush at the door, which gave way with a splintering of wood. Torn from its hinges, the door fell inwards, and the President, Savago, Owen Lloyd, and Tom Scoby were precipitated headlong into the bathroom.’
	Archdeacons Afloat - C A Alington “A ship in which strange ladies addressed unknown archdeacons by night, and fled screaming at the sight of their faces, was something entirely foreign to his experiences, and promised ill for a peaceful holiday .... Never, since a rural dean (subsequently suspected of hydrophobia) had endeavoured to bite him in the leg, had he had so unpleasant an adventure.”
	Crime At Dianas Pool - Victor L Whitechurch “both men uttered a fresh exclamation of horror. The face of the man was not that of the black-bearded bandsman whose jacket he was wearing. The man they had found stabbed in the back and lying in Diana’s pool was their host - Felix Nayland!”
	The Cambridge Murders - Adam Broome “ he’s tight” The two undergraduates had been up to London without the formality of getting “exeats” from their tutor. They were returning to their rooms in Silver Street by way of Trumpington Street and in passing down Brookside kept as far as possible in the shade of the tree opposite the Leys School, so as the more easily to avoid the possible attention of the proctors on their final rounds of the town. “Tight or not, we can’t leave him there to drown” ’
	The Oxford Murders - Adam Broome Anything at all unusual came as a relief to Police Constable Merrilees on his dreary beat.’ He flashed his lantern back down the areas of the surrounding houses, and completed the turn off into Little Clarendon Street to complete his patrol. But it was not yet time for him to report back at the Police Station. He determined to have one more look -at close quarters- at the object which had arrested his attention
	Welcome Death - Glyn Daniel Glyn Daniel was born in 1914 and studied at Cardiff University and at St John’s College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a First Class Honours degree with Distinction. He was a Fellow of St John’s and Lecturer in Archaeology in the University from 1948, after holding many other lectureships in archaeology. He was Director of the Cambridge Arts Theatre. In 1941 he was made an F.S.A.. His publications include The Three Ages, A Hundred Years of Archaeology, The Prehistoric Chamber Tombs of England and Wales, The Prehistoric Chamber Tombs of France, The Megalith Builders of Western Europe, and a number of articles in archaeological journals. He also wrote two detective novels. His other recreations were travel, swimming, food, and wine. He died in 1986.
	Callan Uncovered - James Mitchell A ‘must read’ for all fans of the iconic television series Callan. The first-ever compilation of Callan short stories written by creator James Mitchell between 1967 and 1976, never published in book form before. Callan Uncovered also includes a Mitchell Outline Treatment for a Callan episode and a previously unseen full-length script – Goodbye Mary Lee – which was never filmed. Edited by Mike Ripley, with a special introduction by James Mitchell’s son and literary executor, Peter.
	Callan Uncovered Volume 2 - James Mitchell Following the success of the Callan Uncovered anthology Ostara, working with a network of dedicated Callan fans have uncovered a further 15 short stories written by James Mitchell for the Sunday Express, including the very first one commissioned: File on the Happy Hippy from September, 1970 when the iconic television series was at the height of its popularity. These 15 stories have never been reprinted or collected in book form before and will be augmented in this second collection by the James Mitchell script of an early Callan episode Goodness Burns Too Bright, reconstructed by editor Mike Ripley. Broadcast on 29th July 1967 as part of the first series, no known copy of Goodness Burns Too Bright is thought to exist, making it one of the infamous “lost” episodes.
	I Meant To Be A Lawyer: A Family Memoir - Janet Cohen Janet Cohen actually meant to be a barrister and swank around impounding oil tankers like her mentors at Cambridge, but her plans did not survive the first contact with the twin enemies of a male dominated society and the need to fit her life around love and marriage. This is the story, familiar she hopes, to many capable women, of the zig-zags necessary to find and keep a successful career and a loving husband and family. She tells it like it was, the often desperate and only partially successful efforts to keep a career and a marriage and later a family all going at once. This is a story of a long and unusual working life starting with scenario writing for the US Department of Defence in the Vietnam war and moving through a career in the civil service to a merchant bank and multiple non-executive directorships, including a spell at the Ministry of Defence and a long run at the London Stock Exchange Group, to the House of Lords as Labour Peer and the people she met on the way from Tiny Rowland to Margaret Thatcher and John Major to (Lord) George Robertson. Her career story is interspersed with a deeply personal account of her family of origin, a long and loving marriage and the difficulties and pleasures of rearing three lively talented children all of whom refused to go anywhere near any career favoured by either of their parents.
	Tales on the Off-Beat - Philip Youngman Carter The husband and life-long collaborator of Margery Allingham, one of the truly great British crime writers, Philip (‘Pip’) Youngman Carter was a prolific journalist, artist, book-jacket designer and short-story writer. For the first time, Tales on the Off-Beat collects the best of his short fiction, from rare stories written whilst a serving army officer in the Western Desert in WWII to his best-known tales of the unexpected, the mysterious and the downright spooky, which appeared in Argosy and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine 1959-1963. Edited by Mike Ripley, who completed Youngman Carter’s unfinished Albert Campion novel as Mr Campion’s Farewell in 2014, with an Introduction by Barry Pike, Chairman of the Margery Allingham Society.
	The Striker Portfolio - Adam Hall The Cold War doesn’t get much colder than at 60,000-feet.... The British-built Striker SK-6 swing-wing jet fighter is at the heart of NATO’s front-line defence strategy on the western side of the Iron Curtain; so why have thirty-six crashed inexplicably and with no survivors? The pilots have already nicknamed the aircraft ‘The Widowmaker’ but are the mysterious crashes down to design faults or sabotage? The super-tough, ultra-cool agent Quiller is sent into West Germany – alone and unarmed as usual – to find out and almost loses his life and his sanity in the process. On first publication, the third ‘Quiller’ novel was praised by reviewers as an “urbane, fast-moving, hyper-knowledgeable action story” and for its “sound, sensitive writing” and one of the best car chases ever described in spy fiction.
	A Flock of Ships - Brian Callison “The best war story I have ever read” – Alistair Maclean. It wasn’t difficult for me to pick up at least the basic text of that remote tapping – the last signal from M.V. Cyclops. ...CYCLOPS TO ALL SHIPS...TORPEDOED AND SINKING POSITION P3215-P0330...MASTER AND OFFICERS DEAD... NO HOPE OF SAVING SHIP.....WE ARE ABANDONING... What the hell? We weren’t torpedoed and sinking. Most of the officers were still alive...that position the unknown operator had given – it was several hundred miles to the north-west of this blood-stained circle of rocks. I wrenched the door open and slammed into the cabin fast. Almost fast enough to beat the gun that was snatched from the operator’s table by a very steady hand. ‘You shouldn’t be here, Mate. This boat’s just gone and sunk.’
	Innocent Bystanders - James Mitchell (writing as James Munro) They set Craig up – he shot them down! was the tagline on the poster for the 1972 film version of The Innocent Bystanders, which starred Stanley Baker as tough-as-nails British agent John Craig on the track of a missing Russian scientist. The trail begins in a Soviet gulag in Siberia and the hunt leads Craig to America, Turkey and Cyprus. Very quickly Craig realises that there is no-one on this violence-strewn journey he can trust, except himself. Under the pen name James Munro, James Mitchell created the hard-man secret agent Craig some three years before his more famous fictional spy Callan, but it Craig who was seen for a while as the natural successor to James Bond. The Innocent Bystanders was the fourth and final book to feature John Craig and was first published in 1969, it has been out of print in the UK for 44 years.
	The Man Who Sold Death - James Munro The best-selling thriller which introduced John Craig who, in 1964, was seriously tipped as the logical successor to James Bond following the death of Ian Fleming. Craig is a man hardened by war, as a decorated officer in the elite Special Boat Section and subsequently as a gun-runner along the North African coast. Attempting to go straight he becomes a successful businessman back in England, but his past catches up with him, literally, with a bang as fanatical French soldiers resisting the move for independence for Algeria mark him for death. A crack pistol shot and a karate black belt, Craig is well-equipped to take the fight to the enemy but only with the help of the sinister Loomis, head of British Intelligence’s ruthless ‘Department K’. James Munro was the pen-name of James Mitchell, who went on to even greater success with his novels, short stories and television scripts for his iconic spy Callan.