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This page lists novels and short story collections that feature the psychiatrist and investigator Dr. Basil Willing.

Dance of Death

Helen McCloy

1938

A Dr. Basil Willing novel.

"When a prominent New York socialite is murdered by means of an overdose of medication, it takes Dr Basil Willing, a psychiatrist attached to the police department, to solve the case. But mysterious accidents start occurring during his investigation, and Willing must look deeper to uncover the motive and prevent the murderer from striking again."

The Man in the Moonlight

Helen McCloy

1940

A Dr. Basil Willing novel.

"Basil Willing is called to a university campus to help investigate the death of a scientist. It looks like suicide, but with local scandal aplenty, more murders in the mix and a dose of Nazi espionage, all may not be as it appears."

The Deadly Truth

Helen McCloy

1941

A Dr. Basil Willing novel.

"When Dr Basil Willing rents a small shack for a vacation on Long Island he becomes embroiled with his landlady, Claudia Bethune. Claudia wants to learn the secrets of her relatives and friends, so she steals a truth serum and holds a dinner party for her nearest and dearest. In the early morning hours, as Dr Willing returns to his cottage, he sees what he thinks is a fire and investigates. He finds Claudia near death at the table and hears footsteps fading up the stairs. Someone didn't want Claudia to learn the truth about them, and soon Dr Willing finds himself a suspect in murder."

Who's Calling

Helen McCloy

1942

A Dr. Basil Willing novel.

"The engagement of Archie, a young doctor, to night club artiste Frieda evokes ghostly phenomena when Archie takes Frieda to visit his mother near Washington. Untraceable phone calls, vandalism - and a murder - all happen before Dr Basil Willing, psychologist-sleuth, takes over and solves the mystery."

Cue for Murder

Helen McCloy

1942

A Dr. Basil Willing novel.

"A murder has taken place on stage and it seems that one of three people must be guilty. The crime was committed in full view of the audience and players, but no one can say whom the murderer is. There appear to be no clues, the suspects are all well trained in the art of dissimulation, and all three deny any knowledge of the crime. It looks like the perfect murder, until Dr Basil Willing, psychiatrist-sleuth, begins to investigate the peculiar behaviour of a pet canary and a housefly."

The Goblin Market

Helen McCloy

1943

A Dr. Basil Willing novel.

"It's 1943, and down-on-his-luck American expat Philip Stark is on the Caribbean island of Santa Teresa. The prewar destination playground is deserted now except for diplomats and oil refinery workers. When a local correspondent dies, Stark sees a chance to make some money. Having worked for the same company in the past, he is hired to replace the dead man. But Stark doesn't think his predecessor died by accident. As he looks into the mystery, he encounters a rival correspondent, an enigmatic police officer and the mistress of the dead man - all of whom had a stake in seeing him dead."

The One That Got Away

Helen McCloy

1945

A Dr. Basil Willing novel.

"When child psychologist and US Naval Intelligence officer Lieutenant Peter Dunbar takes on a secret mission in the Scottish Highlands at the end of World War II, he finds himself drawn into the lives of a troubled boy and his beautiful young cousin. But why does Johnny Stockton refuse to explain why he keeps running away from his comfortable home? And how might the answer be entangled with the mystery of an escaped German prisoner and a dying man's message?"

Through a Glass, Darkly

Helen McCloy

1950

A Dr. Basil Willing novel.

"Gisela von Hohenems joins the teaching staff of an exclusive girls' school in upstate New York, where she befriends fellow newcomer Faustina Coyle. But a climate of fear surrounds Faustina, and after several strange incidents that defy rational explanation, she is forced to resign. Gisela asks her fiancé, detective-psychologist Dr Basil Willing, to investigate."

Alias Basil Willing

Helen McCloy

1951

A Dr. Basil Willing novel.

"Psychiatrist-sleuth Dr Basil Willing is in a tobacconist's in Manhattan when another customer follows him into the shop, buys cigarettes, and leaves in a hurry. The man hails a taxi to take him to 51st Street with the instruction: 'Come back and call for me; I am Dr Basil Willing.' Intrigued, the real Basil Willing hails a second taxi and finds himself at a formal dinner party given by a psychiatrist for his patients, who do not really seem at ease there - and later he discovers the horrifying reason why."

The Long Body

Helen McCloy

1955

A Dr. Basil Willing novel.

"A prominent American diplomat falls over a cliff to his death. The death is accepted as an accident, but could it have been suicide - or even murder? His widow finds a locked drawer in his desk and in it a file with a woman's name on it - but the file is empty. Circumstances lead her to an elderly man bearing the same name, but he has a stroke and can neither speak nor write. And then she sees the car headlights coming at her, fast, at night, through an impenetrable mist."

Two-Thirds of a Ghost

Helen McCloy

1956

A Dr. Basil Willing novel.

"Publisher Tony Kane and his wife host a party in honor of best-selling author Amos Cottle at their Connecticut home. But all eyes are on the guests when an unseen hand slips cyanide into Cottle's drink. Also present at the party is Basil Willing, a psychiatrist-sleuth who soon figures out that Cottle was not the man that his jacket-flap blurb said he was. Willing embarks on a course of literary detection, scouting for clues in book reviews, publisher correspondence, and other documents related to this rather ghostly writer."

The Singing Diamonds And Other Stories

Helen McCloy

1965

Dr. Basil Willing short stories.

"In this collection of eight stories by one of America's most gifted writers, Helen McCloy takes the reader into a world of mystery and imagination. In the signature story, The Singing Diamonds, Mathilde Verworn enlists the help of Basil Willing, a psychiatrist-sleuth, to answer the question of whether there is such a thing as collective hallucination. Six people from six different locations testify to seeing diamond-shaped objects in the sky, and four of those six have died in peculiar circumstances in the past twelve days."

• Chinoiserie
• Number Ten Q Street
• Silence Burning
• The Other Side of the Curtain
• Surprise, Surprise!
• Through a Glass, Darkly
• The Singing Diamonds
• Windless

Mr. Splitfoot

Helen McCloy

1968

A Dr. Basil Willing novel.

"To wake the devil, Lucinda summoned the arch fiend with the ancient invocation, and from the secret room where her friend Vanya had agreed to hide came the eerie response. The rapping called up all the terror of the old tales, and the joke was going marvellously. Until Lucinda realised that Vanya had never arrived at the old house."

Early McCloy

Helen McCloy

1973

A Dr. Basil Willing omnibus.

An omnibus edition that brings together the three early Helen McCloy novels Dance of Death, Deadly Truth and Who's Calling?

Burn This

Helen McCloy

1980

A Dr. Basil Willing novel.

"Boston landlady Harriet Sutton discovers a note about a conspiracy to murder someone - a note that must have come from one of her tenants. When a tenant is murdered, she asks psychiatrist-sleuth Dr Basil Willing to investigate. Her son, a Vietnam veteran whom the police consider a victim of combat fatigue who may be capable of anything, is under suspicion. And as the mystery unfolds, Harriet Sutton tries desperately to prove them wrong."

The Pleasant Assassin and Other Cases of Dr. Basil Willing

Helen McCloy

2003

Dr. Basil Willing short stories.

"Beginning with her classic, Through a Glass, Darkly, which she later expanded into a full-length novel, McCloy experimented with daringly imaginative concepts within the framework of the formal, fairplay detective story. From doppelgangers to flying saucers each story demonstrates the author's masterful combination of style, content and technique to produce some of crime fiction's finest work."

• Through A Glass, Darkly
• The Singing Diamonds
• The Case Of The Duplicate Door
• Thy Brother Death
• Murder Stops The Music
• The Pleasant Assassin
• Murder Ad Lib
• A Case Of Innocent Eavesdropping
• Murphy's Law
• That Bug That's Going Around