Biggles, Special Air Detective Series

The war is over… What next for Biggles? With the excitement of the war now past, Biggles and the gang cool their heels at headquarters, bored. But then former Air Commodore Raymond, newly returned to his civilian position in Scotland Yard, pays them a visit. There has been a spate of seemingly impossible heists recently, which can only have been pulled off by a gang of highly able pilots, with access to cutting-edge aircraft. Scotland Yard needs their help. Biggles makes a few calls, and learns that some German prototype aircraft rumoured to exist were never discovered when Germany surrendered… Could they be involved, somehow? The gang leaps into action and heads off to investigate, led by the now Detective Sergeant Bigglesworth! You can’t keep Biggles grounded for long! The globetrotting flying adventures continue, perfect for fans of Derek Robinson and Max Hennessy.

The case of the pirate U-boat! Air Commodore Raymond has a thrilling new case for Biggles, Ginger, Algy and Bertie, now the Scotland Yard Air Squad. Instead of surrendering at the end of the war, commander Von Schonbeck of submarine U-517 escaped to the south Indian ocean. From his base on an uncharted island, he has been waging his own personal war, very profitably. Among other booty, he is known to have acquired a sizeable quantity of gold. But there's very little to go on: the submarine sinks all the ships it preys upon, leaving no survivors. And Biggles & Co. have a hunting ground of a million square miles of air and ocean… Will they find the renegade submarine, or will it continue to prowl the depths? Has Biggles met his match in the hunt for the dastardly von Schonbeck?

Biggles is on the trail of a gang of master forgers… When forged stamps and banknotes – of such high quality that even the Bank of England struggles to tell genuine from fake – start appearing in circulation in Britain and across Europe, the government charges Scotland Yard with identifying their source, and fast.  Former Air Commodore Raymond suspects the gang behind the forging may be using aircraft to transport their counterfeit commodities, and brings Biggles & Co. in to investigate. Suspicion quickly falls on Stellar Skyways Incorporated airline. The company only offers a few luxury flights and tours, centring around a place called Kudinga in central Africa; by rights, it should have long since gone to the wall… Sensing something afoot, Biggles orders his team to split up and investigate. But will what they discover be worth the cost…? Another thrilling airborne adventure for Biggles, perfect for fans of Derek Robinson.

A ghost ship full of long-lost gold beckons, and Biggles gets an icy reception... Biggles, Algie, Bertie and Ginger are visited by Grimes, an old pal from the war, whose father, a Merchant Navy captain known as Jumbo, is in a spot of bother. He was recently tricked into skippering a crew of seal poachers to an islet off Antarctica. While there, they spotted an old ship – still rigged for sail – trapped in the pack ice. After an investigation of the ship, Jumbo overheard the words ‘starry’ and ‘crown’ from the jubilant crew. An avid fan of an unsolved mysteries, Biggles immediately recognises the importance of these words. Jumbo and his crew had stumbled upon the long-lost schooner Starry Crown, which went missing seventy years prior with a ton of Australian gold ingots aboard. There have been several sightings and ill-fated recovery expeditions since, but no one has ever retrieved the gold. Grimes reckons that they might be able to beat the poachers to the treasure if they were to go by air, and wonders if Biggles is interested in an adventure. After making a few enquiries, Biggles agrees to the expedition, but there is more than gold in the Starry Crown, and no help for miles across Antarctica’s vast silence… Wrap up warm for a classic Biggles adventure to the frozen continent of Antarctica.

There’s trouble in paradise for Biggles… Biggles is summoned suddenly to the London Hospital for Tropical Diseases, where he hears the deathbed revelations of a man named Linton, who has a message from a mutual friend, Angus Mackail. Linton and Angus, alongside many others, were duped into investing in farmland reclaimed from the jungle in central South America, an area known as Paradise Valley. But this is no second Eden. The ‘investors’ swiftly found themselves as little more than slaves working the land for the owner of the valley, the enigmatic and silver-tongued Dr Leibgarten. Imprisoned by the lethal jungle and desert surrounding the valley, it took a superhuman effort for Linton to escape, and costs him his life to deliver the warning. Determined to rescue Angus and the other captives, Biggles wastes no time in getting Algy, Ginger and Bertie on the case, and takes to the skies. But they swiftly find out there is far more going on in Paradise Valley than Linton could ever have suspected… Biggles is at it again in the fourth daring adventure in the Special Air Detective series.