A Taste for Honey

"One of the ten best mysteries of all time." -Newsweek Horror strikes when killer bees swarm amok in the seemingly idyllic hamlet of Ashton Clearwater. Even more sinister is the discovery that the angry swarms were programmed to kill by a mad, ingenious apiarist named Heregrove. Leave it to one of the village's honey addicts-the hapless, reclusive Sydney Silchester-to stumble unwittingly onto Heregrove's diabolical scheme. Silchester's sweet tooth leads him to the indomitable Mr. Mycroft, a retired beekeeper possessing an encyclopedic knowledge of bees and a Holmesian penchant for sleuthing. By matching wits and strategies, the persnickety Silchester and the determined Mycroft seek to thwart Heregrove and his stinging minions before they strike again. "We may know whodunit, but the question of 'why' is altogether more disturbing," writes Stacy Gillis, Ph.D., who contributes a new foreword to this reissue of the 1941 detective-fiction classic, A Taste for Honey. Listed among the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstones of essential mystery fiction, H. F. Heard's masterpiece became a runaway bestseller, provoking Baker Street Irregulars founder Christopher Morley to declare it "the most original and enchanting crime story of the year." Loosely adapted into the 1967 movie, "The Deadly Bees," A Taste for Honey is required reading for all Sherlockian aficionados. "More than 30 years before Nicholas Meyer's The Seven Percent Solution opened the floodgates of Sherlockian imitation, H. F. Heard's A Taste for Honey was the first significant book-length Sherlock Holmes pastiche, and it remains one of the very best. This new edition should be welcomed by all lovers of classic detective fiction." -Jon L. Breen, noted mystery writer "H. F. Heard's ... Mr. Mycroft tales ... encompass the style of the 'old-fashioned' mystery. A delightful read.!" -Paul D. Herbert, member Baker Street Irregulars MURDERED BY BEES? Until the last few years, there had been quite a lot of bee-keeping in the Ashton Clearwater district. But lately nobody, except the sinister and solitary Heregroves, had managed to make their bees thrive. This was tiresome for Sydney Silchester who had gone to the country to be on his own and undisturbed by friends and garrulous neighbors. It was even more tiresome for him when Mrs. Heregrove was stung to death by her husband's bees. His situation suddenly became fraught with mysterious terror when he met his extraordinary neighbor, Mr. Mycroft, a scientific apiarist who had made discoveries about Heregrove's bees which pointed to murder on wings. Who is Mr. Mycroft? The true identity of this magnificent, inscrutable old gentleman is a deep secret--but there are echoes of Baker Street in his voice, and a familiar gleam in his eyes that miss no clue. In A Taste for Honey, he meets one of the most sinister murderers of all time, and encounters one of the most fiendishly ingenious murder methods ever devised.--from the back cover of the 1964 Lancer Books paperback edition "I thought I knew all the tricks of the horror trade but I never expected to have my hair stand on end when a bee flew in through an open window... A triumph of ingenuity and horrific simplicity." Boris Karloff ..".the most original and enchanting crime story of the year." Christopher Morley "A veritable triumph of modern mystery...packing plenty of horror." Will Cuppy, The New York Herald Tribune "Slow-moving, whimsical, somewhat weightily allusive, this tale is definitely caviar to the general; in a sense, it may be called a bookman's book." New York Times Book Review "Terrifying...perfectly done...The most original contribution in many years." Vincent Starrett