120,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock πŸ‡³πŸ‡Ώ

Kia kaha te reo Māori! πŸ’œ Celebrate Māori Language Week with us!

Sky High

By Michael Gilbert
Series: British Library Crime Classics
0.0 (0 reviews)
4.19 goodreads logo

Ratings/reviews counts are updated frequently.

Check link for latest rating. ( 36 ratings, 6 reviews)
Brief Description
In the village of Brimberley, the worst thing on the horizon seems to be the chance of being outshone by the rival village choir of Bramshott. But that is until Brimberley's lead tenor is blown up in his home by an explosion that rocks the whole... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK Please add to wishlist to be notified when back in stock

Sorry, we're currently out of stock of Sky High. Please add to your Wishlist and we'll send you an email as soon as it's back in stock.

The fourth Michael Gilbert novel to join the series, after the perennial success of Smallbone Deceased, Death in Captivity and Death Has Deep Roots.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

In the village of Brimberley, the worst thing on the horizon seems to be the chance of being outshone by the rival village choir of Bramshott. But that is until Brimberley's lead tenor is blown up in his home by an explosion that rocks the whole community. As an amateur coalition of the motorcycling choir leader Liz, her ex-commando son and a retired general begins to piece together this strange crime, mystery upon mystery compounds in a case involving dark secrets buried in the turmoil of the Second World War, parochial grudges, a burglar whose reputation borders on the mythical, and a volatile killer poised to strike again.

First published in 1955, this classic village mystery with elements of WW2 spy fiction showcases Gilbert's ingenious plotting and ability to blow the reader's assumptions sky high.

Series: British Library Crime Classics

View all
  • Cat and Mouse
    Girls Together magazine agony-aunt 'Mrs Friendly-wise', aka Katinka Jones, finds herself at a loose end in Swansea, and decides to pay a surprise visit to one of the magazine's regular correspondents, 'Amista'. But reaching the addressβ€”a strange house perched atop a mountain which matches all of the descriptions in the lettersβ€”nobody has even heard of 'Amista'. As Katinka begins to...
    By Christianna Brand
    Paperback
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Death in Captivity
    A man is found dead in an escape tunnel in an Italian prisoner-of-war camp. Did he die in an accidental collapse β€” or was this murder? Captain Henry 'Cuckoo' Goyles, master tunneller and amateur detective, takes up the case. This classic locked-room mystery with a closed circle of suspects is woven together with a thrilling story of escape from the...
    By Michael Gilbert
    Paperback
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Green for Danger
    It is 1942, and struggling up the hill to the new military hospital, Heron's Park, Kent, postman Higgins has no idea that the sender of one of the seven letters of application he is delivering will turn out to be a murderer in a year's time. When Higgins is brought in following injuries from a bombing raid in 1943, his...
    By Christianna Brand
    Paperback
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Lake District Murder
    Luke flung the light of his torch full onto the face of the immobile figure. Then he had the shock of his life. The man had no face! Where his face should have been was a sort of inhuman, uniform blank! When a body is found at an isolated garage, Inspector Meredith is drawn into a complex investigation where every...
    By John Bude
    Paperback
    $2299
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Port of London Murders
    When the San Angelo drifts into port in the Pool of London, telephones begin to ring across the capital and an intricate series of events is set in motion. Beset by dreadful storms in the Bay of Biscay, the ship, along with the 'mixed cargo' it carries, is late. Unaware of the machinations of avaricious importers, wayward captains and unscrupulous...
    By Josephine Bell
    Paperback
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Pre-order
    Death in Ambush
    In a tranquil Kentish village, Dr Sandys and his wife are preparing for Christmas with their guest, Liane 'Lee' Crauford. Festivities start badly when their party is spoiled by an enigmatic widow new to the village, and the atmosphere hits rock bottom when the pompous local nobleman and ceramic-collector Sir Henry Metcalfe unexpectedly dies. Sensing potential villains among Metcalfe's circle,...
    By Susan Gilruth
    Paperback
    $2999
    Pre-order
    Out 1 Oct 2026
  • Murder in Vienna
    After all, under its gaiety and brilliance, Vienna has always been a centre of intrigue. The distinguished industrialist, the fair girl, and the aggressive young manβ€”although Superintendent McDonald tried to avoid studying his fellow-passengers, he simply couldn't help it. For him, it was difficult to adjust to being on holiday. He turned away deliberately. These people weren't his problem; he...
    By E.C.R. Lorac
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Antidote to Venom
    Antidote to Venom by Freeman Wills Crofts delivers a captivating puzzle for all mystery enthusiasts, as praised by the Times Literary Supplement: "Mr Wills Crofts is deservedly a first favourite with all who want a real puzzle." Similarly, the Daily Mirror commends, "He always manages to give us something that really keeps us guessing." George Surridge, the director of the...
    By Freeman Wills Crofts
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • A Telegram from Le Touquet
    As he walked away from the phone, there was a puzzled expression on Blampignon's massive countenance. He was thinking: Le Touquet again! With some trepidation, Nigel Derry approaches the country house of his enigmatic and unpredictable aunt Gwenny for an Easter holiday visit. After a tense few days in which her guests' interactions range from awkward dinners to a knife...
    By John Bude
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Before the Fact
    Some women give birth to murderers, some go to bed with them, and some marry them. Lina Aysgarth had lived with her husband for nearly eight years before she realised that she was married to a murderer. Following the success of Malice Aforethought, novelist Anthony Berkeley Cox returned to his Francis Iles pen-name for another experiment in the inverted mystery....
    By Francis Iles
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Big Ben Strikes Eleven
    The discovery of Sir Robert Boniface's body on the floor of his blue limousine was made quite accidentally on a sultry Friday evening towards the end of June. The industrial and financial tycoon, and former stalwart of the British Cabinet, had been shot in the head and left in the quiet Vale of Health alongside London's Hampstead Heath. Nearby, a...
    By David Magarshack
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Calamity in Kent
    In the peaceful seaside town of Broadgate, an impossible crime occurs. The operator of the cliff railway locks the empty carriage one evening; when he returns to work the next morning, a dead body is locked insideβ€”a man who has been stabbed in the back. Jimmy London, a newspaper reporter, is first on the scene. He is quick on the...
    By John Rowland
    Paperback
    Sold Out

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780712355940

Publisher: British Library Publishing

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 10 January 2026

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: British Library Publishing

Illustration: Illustrations

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 130.0mm

Height: 190.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 256

Collections

Classic Crime & Mystery Fiction Classic Fiction Crime & Thriller Fiction General Fiction Michael Gilbert Police Procedural Series: British Library Crime Classics

About the Author

Michael Gilbert (1912-2006) wrote thrillers, police procedurals and espionage novels that rank among the highest and most varied achievements of British crime writing in the second half of the twentieth century. A founding member of the Crime Writers' Association, Gilbert was for many years partner in a London law firm and drew on his knowledge of the law and his service in the Second World War to write with an appealing authenticity.

Also by Michael Gilbert

View all
  • Game Without Rules
    Game Without Rules features two secret agents living in the English countryside who tryβ€”and failβ€”to live a quiet life in these hugely enjoyable crime stories. Behrens and Calder are two secret agents residing in the peaceful English countryside, desperately seeking a quiet life. However, despite their best efforts, they find themselves repeatedly obliged to confront and eliminate a host of...
    By Michael Gilbert
    Paperback
    $2600
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Death in Captivity
    A man is found dead in an escape tunnel in an Italian prisoner-of-war camp. Did he die in an accidental collapse β€” or was this murder? Captain Henry 'Cuckoo' Goyles, master tunneller and amateur detective, takes up the case. This classic locked-room mystery with a closed circle of suspects is woven together with a thrilling story of escape from the...
    By Michael Gilbert
    Paperback
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Death Has Deep Roots
    At the Central Criminal Court, an eager crowd awaits the trial of Victoria Lamartine, an active participant in the Resistance during the war. She is now employed at the Family Hotel in Soho, where Major Eric Thoseby has been found murdered. The cause of death? A stabbing reminiscent of techniques developed by the Maquisards. While the crime is committed in...
    By Michael Gilbert
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Smallbone Deceased
    Horniman, Birley and Craine is a highly respected legal firm with clients reaching to the highest in the land. When a deed box in the office is opened to reveal a corpse, the threat of scandal promises to wreak havoc on the firm's reputationβ€”especially as the murder looks like an inside job. The partners and staff of the firm keep...
    By Michael Gilbert
    Paperback
    Sold Out

More from Crime & Thriller

View all
  • New Release
    Death Row
    With all hope of an appeal fading away, the fate of a condemned murderess takes a shocking turn in a breathtaking short story from the #1Β New York TimesΒ bestselling author ofΒ The Housemaid! A thrilling novella from #1Β New York TimesΒ bestselling author Freida McFadden! Death is coming for her… unless she finds the truth first. Talia Kemper is on death row for murdering...
    By Freida McFadden
    Paperback
    $2299
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Dying Days
    Award-winning writer delivers a pulse-pounding espionage thriller. Missing soldiers, MI6 secrets and European partisans collide in a deadly game where the lines between lies and reality are fast disintegrating. In the dying days of the Second World War, a new conflict is about to ignite. May, 1945: After fighting to liberate Europe from the Nazis, Tito's Yugoslav Army and Allied...
    By Anthony Byrt
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3699
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Fury In Death: An Eve Dallas thriller (In Death 63)
    In the new crime thriller from the bestselling author, Lt. Eve Dallas journeys into the darkness where murder is born… NYSPD homicide detective Eve Dallas has seen a lot in her time but even she is shocked by the savagery of a beating which leaves a wealthy biotech executive dead in his home office. The victim’s corpse is so mangled...
    By J. D. Robb
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Tom Clancy Pressure Depth
    Jack Ryan Jr leads a team of divers in a race to beat the Chinese Navy to a weapon of terrible destructive power in the latest entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling series. Jack Ryan Jr. is on Guam to work on a project for Hendley Associates. It's a perfectly ordinary insurance matter, but trouble finds the Ryans...
    By Jack Stewart
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Country Road Murders
    New Release
    The Country Road Murders
    From the Sunday Times bestselling author comes a pulse-pounding thriller about justice, vengeance and the roads that lead us home. No one gets this big without amazing natural storytelling talent - which is what Jim has, in spades β€” LEE CHILD Cross Rivers is the kind of small town where everyone knows your name – and your secrets. Silas Tucker...
    By James Patterson
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Every Lake
    Scary stories are fun... until your life becomes one. When Alice was fifteen, her father killed Mia Heywood in their lakefront cottage before vanishing into the trees. At least that's what the locals think happened. Over a decade later, Alice has lost her job as a journalist, she's going through an expensive divorce and she desperately needs to sell the...
    By Adam Perry
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Nautilus
    New Release
    Nautilus
    The follow-up to the bestselling novel The Turing Protocol. Nautilus is a machine with the astonishing power to send messages eight weeks back in time. Its users must follow a set of protocols established by its inventor, Alan Turing, including that it can only be used by a descendant of his family, and only to avert global disasters. But what...
    By Nick Croydon
    Paperback
    $2999
    Elsewhere:
    $3699
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Cold River
    New Release
    Cold River
    The sensational new novel from the author of the bestselling thriller, The Creeper, winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction 2025. Deep in the mountains, secrets grow deadly... Detective Constable Sally White knows how easily hikers can go missing in Victoria's high country. But there's something about the disappearance of Louis Taylor, a young man lost up...
    By Margaret Hickey
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    It Could Have Been Her
    PREPARE TO BE HOOKED: The no. 1Β Sunday TimesΒ and MULTI-million-copy bestselling author is back with a brand-new spine tingling thriller. It was the night she almost died. Jane Trevally, newly divorced and feeling a little lost, agrees to accompany a man she doesn't know to his house in the darkest corner of Hampstead Heath. She's offered a drink, goes in, and...
    By Lisa Jewell
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • 26 Beauties
    The twenty-sixth thrilling novel in the globally bestselling Women's Murder Club series. Beautiful young women are disappearing by the dozen. A celebration is cut short when a concerned father crashes Detective Inspector Lindsay Boxer's party. His daughter is missing - and she's not the only one. DI Lindsay Boxer has been tracking a chilling pattern: a Jane Doe washed ashore,...
    By James Patterson
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Lizzy's Pick Lizzy's Pick
    The Secrets We Hide
    The stunning new North Falls thriller by the bestselling author ofΒ We Are All Guilty Here 'Quite simply, Karin Slaughter is the best of us' Dervla McTiernan Welcome back to North Falls -- a small town with big secrets. The house at 1601 Iris Drive looks like any other in the quiet, residential street. But rumours are rife about the Vickery...
    By Karin Slaughter
    Paperback
    $3099
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    The Parkwood Murders
    They came for an escape, but can they escape a killer? Detective Nicola Bridge returns in another gripping and immersive mystery For its loyal guests, Parkwood Holiday Village in west Dorset is a haven- woodland walks, a tranquil lake, service around the clock. Until, just after midsummer, a body is found floating in the swimming pool. Detective Nicola Bridge, exhausted...
    By Chris Chibnall
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    In Stock
    Ships today

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.

Crime & Thriller lists from the team

Explore our curated lists from our heroes to find your next read!

The Latest at Book Hero

View all