"Yes," said Father Brown, "I always like a dog, so long as he isn't spelt backwards."

Feline-friends, canine-companions and aviary-associates are often the truest reflections of their owners and have played a crucial role in classic crime fiction - be they detectives, or delinquents.

Encompassing all creatures great and small - from tales of commonplace critters like bees and earthworms, to distinctly more exotic incidents involving primates, lions and crocodiles (and the occasional red herring, of course) - sometimes the crime or the explanation goes beyond human comprehension and requires the acute perceptions of our animal counterparts.

In this new anthology, series consultant Martin Edwards gathers the lion's share of animal tales from the Golden Age of Crime Fiction, with stories by Josephine Bell, Anthony Wynne, G. K. Chesterton and Arthur Conan Doyle.