For the sake of honey, Bognor investigates a cabal of treasonous monks As the friars of the abbey gather for group prayer, Brother Luke stays in the garden. His tardiness is not due to an overenthusiasm for his potatoes, but to the fact that he is lying face down in the dirt, strangled to death by his own crucifix. For Simon Bognor, this will prove inconvenient. A special investigator attached to the British Board of Trade, Bognor knows that Brother...

To learn who killed a loathsome gossip columnist, Bognor joins the paper
Staggering homeward from a banquet, St. John Derby decides it would be easier to stagger back to work instead. When he reaches his desk, the booze-addled gossip columnist treats himself to a massive tumbler of port and calls for a taxi. By the time the cab arrives, the port is spilled on the carpet, mingling with the blood leaking from Derby's cut throat. No one will...

When a restaurateur dies suspiciously, Bognor is forced to eat his way to the truth Dinner service is over, the staff has left, and Escoffier Savarin Smith is about to tuck into a couple of bottles of champagne. He seals the windows with electrical tape, fiddles with a canister of gas, and begins to drink. When his staff arrives the next morning to open the restaurant, the champagne is drunk, the air has been poisoned, and the greatest chef in England...

Bognor tries to understand how a publishing magnate could have been crushed by smut Before retiring for the night, Vernon Hemlock pours a brandy, lights a cigar, and takes a look at his cache of pornography. Far more than a wad of dirty magazines stashed under a mattress, this is a collection of some of the world's finest erotica, dating back as far as a dirty doodle drawn by da Vinci. The millionaire publisher is perusing the Swedish section when...

On the eve of the Flanagan Fludd Literary Festival, the Reverend Sebastian Fludd is discovered gently swinging from the end of a rope in his own church. While Sebastian's cousin and lord of the manor, Sir Branwell Fludd, is keen to record a verdict of suicide, Branwell's friend and weekend guest, Sir Simon Bognor, is more concerned to get the truth.

Along the canals of Venice, Bognor investigates a mogul's medieval murder Flush with cash from the success of his latest insipid blockbuster, aspiring film mogul Irving Silverburger takes to Venice to soak himself in luxury. Instead, he is quickly soaked in blood. Cruising down the canal in a vaporetto, Silverburger is shot with a crossbow, killed by a Harlequin who disappears into the masquerade of Carnival. Unmasking the disguised assassin falls...