Classic Crime & Mystery Fiction

Samuel Whitehead, landlord of the Rose and Crown, is a stranger in the lonely East Anglian village of High Eldersham. When the newcomer is stabbed to death in his pub, and Scotland Yard are called to the scene, it seems that the veil dividing High Eldersham from the outside world is about to be lifted. Detective-Inspector Young forms a theory...

Over a long career in the courts, Justice Horace Ireton has garnered a reputation for merciless rulings and his dedication to meting out strict, impartial justice. Taking a break from his duty after a session of assizes, Ireton retreats to his seaside bungalow in Devon and turns his attention to family, specifically in attempting to bribe his daughter's lover, Morrell,...

Aunt Mildred declared that no good could come of the Melbury family Christmas gatherings at their country residence, Flaxmere. So when Sir Osmond Melbury, the family patriarch, is discovered—by a guest dressed as Santa Klaus—with a bullet in his head on Christmas Day, the festivities are plunged into chaos. Nearly every member of the party stands to reap some sort...

They say that Lord Mantling's mansion is haunted—at least, one room of it is. Known as the Red Widow's Chamber, the now-sealed quarters once housed the wife of a guillotine operator in the French Revolution. Since her passing, the chamber has been host to a century of unsolved horrors, including the death of a man in 1802, the death of...

The murder, a brutal stabbing, definitely took place on Guy Fawkes' night. It was definitely by the bonfire on the village green. There were definitely a number of witnesses. And yet, was it definitely clear to anybody exactly what they had seen? In the writhing, violent shadows, it seems as if the truth may have gone up in smoke. The...

'All his stories are amusing, intriguing, and he is a master of the final twist' - Agatha Christie 'One of the most stunning trick stories in the history of detective fiction' - Julian Symons Graham and Joan Bendix have apparently succeeded in making that eighth wonder of the modern world, a happy marriage. And into the middle of it, there...

For the third graders at Jefferson School, a field trip is always a treat. But one day at the New York Aquarium, they get much more excitement than they bargained for. A pickpocket sprints past, stolen purse in hand, and is making his way to the exit when their teacher, the prim Hildegarde Withers, knocks him down with her umbrella....

For the third graders at Jefferson School, a field trip is always a treat. But one day at the New York Aquarium, they get much more excitement than they bargained for. A pickpocket sprints past, stolen purse in hand, and is making his way to the exit when their teacher, the prim Hildegarde Withers, knocks him down with her umbrella....

Meet Captain Duncan Maclain. Blinded during his service in the first World War, Maclain made up for his lack of vision by sharpening his other senses, achieving a mastery of the subtle unseen clues often missed by those who see only with their eyes. Aided by his dogs Schnucke and Driest, the Captain puts the intelligence-gathering techniques he learned in...

The Notting Hill Mystery has been widely described as the first detective novel. The story is told by the insurance investigator Ralph Henderson, who is building a case against the sinister Baron R___, suspected of murdering his wife to claim her life insurance. Henderson descends into a maze of intrigue, including a diabolical mesmerist, kidnapping by gypsies, slow-poisoners, a rich...

When his sexton finds a corpse in the wrong grave, the rector of Fenchurch St Paul asks Lord Peter Wimsey to find out who the dead man was and how he came to be there. The lore of bell-ringing and a brilliantly-evoked village in the remote fens of East Anglia are the unforgettable background to a story of an old...

Taking a break from his holiday visiting his nephew, Jim, Athelstan Digby agrees to look after the old bookshop of Keldstone so that his hosts, the Lavenders, can attend their cousin's funeral. On the first day of his tenure, three suspicious characters enquire after a copy of The Life and Times of Mr Badman by John Bunyan. When a copy...

I should be very much happier if she were dead. Edward Powell lives with his Aunt Mildred in the Welsh town of Lywll. His aunt thinks Lywll is an idyllic place to live, but Edward loathes the countryside — and thinks the company even worse. In fact, Edward has decided to murder his aunt. A darkly humorous depiction of fraught...

After battling for justice, at great personal risk, in his first recorded case, Sergeant Caleb Cluff made a swift return to duty in The Methods of Sergeant Cluff. The story opens one wet and windy night, with the discovery of a young woman's corpse, lying face down on the cobblestones of a passageway in the Yorkshire town of Gunnarshaw. The...

The detective's role is simple: to catch the culprit. Yet behind each casual observation lies a learned mind, trained on finding the key to the mystery. Crimes, whatever their form, are often best solved through deliberations of logic—preferably amid complicated gadgetry and a pile of hefty scientific volumes. The detectives in this collection are masters of scientific deduction, whether they...

Four men were due to fly to Dublin. When disaster struck and the plane went down over the Irish Sea, only three of them were on board. With the identities of the flyers scattered to the winds, the police turn to the patchy account of the Wade family, whose memory of their past few days must hold the key to...

Sam Spade is hired by the fragrant Miss Wonderley to track down her sister, who has eloped with a louse called Floyd Thursby. But Miss Wonderley is in fact the beautiful and treacherous Brigid O'Shaughnessy, and when Spade's partner Miles Archer is shot while on Thursby's trail, Spade finds himself both hunter and hunted: can he track down the jewel-encrusted...

As the thick, autumnal fog chokes the capital, within the fire-lit lounge of London's notorious Brimstone Club a bizarre tale is being spun for Inspector Bencolin and his friend Jeff Marle. A member of the club has been sent a model of a tiny gallows, and the word is that the folkloric hangman Jack Ketch has been stalking the streets...

Gathering Tremblay's two classic noirs, The Little Sleep and No Sleep Till Wonderland, watch Genevich unravel the mystery of missing people when the questions are, when did he fall asleep and who hired him in the first place? The Little Sleep is Paul Tremblay's nod to Raymond Chandler starring a PI who nods off. Mark Genevich is a South Boston...

In the fourth Harith Athreya mystery, a murderer strikes at a luxury resort - can detective Athreya prevent them from capsizing his holiday? The Last Resort finds Detective Harith Athreya recuperating from an illness in the beautiful backwaters of Kerala when he stumbles into a new form of intrigue: a family of vacationing Bollywood royalty, who want his help making...

Love at first sight turns into newlywed bliss for former librarian Aurora Teagarden - until violence cuts the honeymoon short... Roe has never been happier than she's been since she met her fiancé, wealthy businessman Martin Bartell. Despite their differences in age and background, he seems to know exactly what she wants - like the Julius House. Roe has always...

Prince's College, Cambridge, is a peaceful and scholarly community, enlivened by Prudence Pinsent, the Master's daughter. Spirited, beautiful, and thoroughly unconventional, Prudence is a remarkable young woman. One fine morning she sets out for Suffolk to join her cousin, Lord Wellende, for a few days' hunting. On the way, Prudence encounters Captain Studde of the coastguard, who is pursuing a...

Dr James Earle and his wife live in comfortable seclusion near the Hog's Back, a ridge in the North Downs in the beautiful Surrey countryside. When Dr Earle disappears from his cottage, Inspector French is called in to investigate. At first, he suspects a simple domestic intrigue and begins to uncover a web of romantic entanglements beneath the couple's peaceful...

The arsenic in her sugar bowl was wealthy widow Eliza Fairbanks' first clue that somebody wanted her dead. The nightly plagues of bats, birds, and rats unleashed in her bedroom were the second indication, an obvious attempt to scare the life out of the delicate dowager. So instead of calling the exterminator, Eliza calls the cops, who send Hilda Adams—“Miss...

A severed head is found on the Greek border near a wall planned to stop Middle Eastern immigrants crossing from Turkey. Intelligence Agent Evangelos must solve the case of the severed head but is also asked not to make waves. After all, EU funding and relations with Germany are at risk. But Evangelos wants to get to the truth: about...

An all-new case for the World's Greatest Detective The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - The Devil and the Four takes Sherlock Holmes to the heart of Paris. He is in pursuit of Marguerite Hardy, a mysterious Frenchwoman who fled her comfortable English home after receiving a strange letter. Desperate for her safe return, her husband implores Holmes for help....

In the rough edges of 1940s Chicago, the discovery of a corpse in an alleyway isn't always enough to cause a big stir—especially when the victim is killed in the midst of a night-long bender, caught between barrooms in what appears to be a mugging gone awry. Which is why the police don't take a huge interest in finding the...

Through the double clamour of Big Ben and the shrill sound of the bell rang a revolver shot. A financier is found shot in the House of Commons. Suspecting foul play, Robert West, a parliamentary private secretary, takes on the role of amateur sleuth. Used to turning a blind eye to covert dealings, West must now uncover the shocking secret...

London, 1943. Across the city, prominent figures in science and the military are bursting into flame and being incinerated. Convinced that the Germans have deployed a new terror weapon, a desperate government turns to the one man who can track down the source of this dreadful menace—Sherlock Holmes. The quest for a solution drives Holmes into an uneasy alliance with...

The purpose, the illusion, the spirit of a waxworks. It is an atmosphere of death. It is soundless and motionless... Do you see? Last night, Mademoiselle Duchene was seen heading into the Gallery of Horrors at the Musee Augustin waxworks, alive. Today, she was found in the Seine, murdered. The museum's proprietor, long perturbed by the unnatural vitality of his...

Never, even in his most optimistic moments, had he visualised a scene of this nature - himself in one arm-chair, a police officer in another, and between them - a mystery. The Reverend Dodd, vicar of the quiet Cornish village of Boscawen, spends his evenings reading detective stories by the fireside; heaven forbid that the shadow of any real crime...

[Belloc Lowndes] brings to the making of a mystery a literary sense and an imagination that puts life into the tale and into the readers. The Observer An enigmatic young woman named Laura Dousland stands on trial for murder, accused of poisoning her elderly husband Fordish. It seems clear that the poison was delivered in a flask of Chianti with...

In the seeming tranquillity of Regency Square in Cheltenham live the diverse inhabitants of its ten houses. One summer's evening, the square's rivalries and allegiances are disrupted by a sudden and unusual death—an arrow to the head, shot through an open window at No. 6. Unfortunately for the murderer, an invitation to visit had just been sent by the crime...

Sleuthing attorney Perry Mason can't resist a good mystery, so when he sees an older woman being accused of shoplifting during a department store outing with his assistant, Della Street, he doesn't hesitate to intervene. Armed with an assumption of innocence and the legal acumen to silence her accuser, Mason leaps to the woman's defence—until her niece appears, acknowledging her...

A sinister case of deadly poisoned chocolates from Sodbury Cross's high street shop haunts the group of friends and relatives assembled at Bellegarde, among the orchards of 'peach-fancier' Marcus Chesney. To prove a point about how the sweets could have been poisoned under the nose of the shopkeeper, Chesney stages an elaborate memory game to test whether any of his...

A successful writer and a B-movie director seem like the perfect match in the Hollywood Hills. With him working to produce her novel for an upcoming film, the pair's recent marriage isn't the only way that they're connected. When the husband is found murdered on the wife's birthday, using a method of poisoning described in one of her books, Victoria...

Based on the popular Netflix series! In the early 20th century, esteemed writer Maurice Leblanc created Arsène Lupin, a French Sherlock Holmes-type who became known as the gentleman thief. Lupin's exploits, in pursuit of the rich, have been documented in more than twenty stories and books, as well as in film. In January 2021, Netflix released a major hit in...

The 1939 Arsenal side is firing on all cylinders and celebrating a string of victories. They appear unstoppable, but the Trojans—a side of amateurs who are on a winning streak of their own—may be about to silence the Gunners. Moments into the second half, the whistle blows, but not for a goal or penalty. One of the Trojans has collapsed...

When a washed-up Hollywood cowboy-turned-circus rodeo actor is shot dead in the midst of his performance at a New York sports palace, in front of thousands of onlookers, it seems obvious that someone would have seen the perpetrator of the crime— or at the very least, recovered the gun. But when the ensuing investigation fails to turn up any evidence,...

When a washed-up Hollywood cowboy-turned-circus rodeo actor is shot dead in the midst of his performance at a New York sports-palace, in front of thousands of onlookers, it seems obvious that someone would have seen the perpetrator of the crime—or at the very least, recovered the gun. But when the ensuing investigation fails to turn up any evidence, even after...

Even in the early 1930s, Crescent Place is a neighbourhood out of the past. The five Victorian mansions and the remote patch of pasture placed between them have the air of the 1890s, even as the city—once miles away from this idyllic retreat—encroaches and surrounds the enclave. But while these rarified residences may appear calm on the outside, their isolated...

Even in the early 1930s, Crescent Place is a neighbourhood out of the past. The five Victorian mansions and the remote patch of pasture placed between them have the air of the 1890s, even as the city—once miles away from this idyllic retreat—encroaches and surrounds the enclave. But while these rarified residences may appear calm on the outside, their isolated...

A strange encounter with a little girl named Claudia and a dead toad sparks elderly detective fiction fan Rachel Murdock's obsessive curiosity, and she winds up renting the house next door just to see how things play out. But soon after she and her cat Samantha move in, Rachel realises they've landed right in the middle of a deadly love...

A strange encounter with a little girl named Claudia and a dead toad sparks elderly detective fiction fan Rachel Murdock's obsessive curiosity, and she winds up renting the house next door just to see how things play out. But soon after she and her cat Samantha move in, Rachel realises they've landed right in the middle of a deadly love...

Discover the first adventures of the most iconic detective of all time. This quintessential collection includes many of the famous cases that made the legendary Sherlock Holmes one of fiction's most popular creations. Set against the foggy backdrop of London and the English countryside, each story unravels an exciting new mystery, from mistaken identity and ominous omens to counterfeit currency...

Crofts constructs his alibi with immense elaboration... The story is highly successful, and Mr Crofts is to be congratulated upon his experiment - Dorothy L. Sayers We begin with a body. Andrew Crowther, a wealthy retired manufacturer, is found dead in his seat on the 12.30 flight from Croydon to Paris. Rather less orthodox is the ensuing flashback in which...

On a cold winter's afternoon, Alberta Mansbridge waits at a table set with teacups for eight, musing over her guests. The ex-jailbird Barry, the nephew and his ghastly new flibbertijibbet of a wife, the Italian playboy, the old friend with whom she had so recently fallen out... Alberta returns upstairs to get herself ready. When the guests arrive, the door...

Following a mysterious explosion, the offices of Excelsior Joinery Company are no more; the three directors are killed, and the peace of a quiet town in Surrey lies in ruins. When the supposed cause of an ignited gas leak is dismissed and the presence of dynamite is revealed, Superintendent Littlejohn of Scotland Yard is summoned to the scene. Beneath the...

A riveting read Sunday Times, Crime Book of the Year A smartly-paced thriller Evening Standard Dramatic, unnerving… exceptional The Sun SELECTED FOR BBC’S BETWEEN THE COVERS A NEW YORK TIMES Editor’s Pick THE SUNDAY TIMES’ Crime Book of the Year THE GUARDIAN’s Best Recent Crime and Thrillers THE EVENING STANDARD’s Best New Books of 2022 THE TIMES’ Best Crime Books...

Then I felt his warm hand grow cold, it was as if he had been reminded of death. He wasn't looking at me any more, but obliquely, across the restaurant. I turned round. Sarah has been receiving threatening anonymous letters, seemingly from a former lover. Just one day after revealing this information to her co-worker Nancy, Sarah is found shot...

The death was an odd one, it was true; but there was after all no very clear reason to assume it was anything but natural. In the winter of 1942, England lies cold and dark in the wartime blackout. One bleak evening, Councillor Grayling steps off the 6.12 from Euston, carrying GBP120 in cash, and oblivious to the fate that...

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 reputation—especially as the murder looks like an inside job. The partners and staff of the firm keep...

Christmas is a mysterious, as well as magical, time of year. Strange things can happen, and this helps to explain the hallowed tradition of telling ghost stories around the fireside as the year draws to a close. Christmas tales of crime and detection have a similar appeal. When television becomes tiresome, and party games pall, the prospect of curling up...

A series of grisly murders rocks London. At each location, only a jumble of bones remains, along with a bizarre bone sphere covered in arcane symbols. The son of the latest victim seeks the help of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, who discover a common thread that ties together the murders—and the persons responsible. Bizarre geometries—based on ancient schematics—point...

It is 1897, and Sherlock Holmes - The Spider's Web finds the renowned detective investigating a murder that took place during a society ball. Holmes and Watson rush to the scene, only to be shocked by the flippant attitude of the ball's hosts: the wealthy Ernest Moncrieff and his new wife Gwendolen. Suspicion naturally falls upon the party guests, yet...

"I have heard, Mr. Holmes, that you can see deeply into the manifold wickedness of the human heart." Scandal, treachery and crime are rife in Old London Town. A king blackmailed by his mistress, dark dealings in opium dens, stolen jewels, a missing bride—these are cases so fiendishly complex that only the great Sherlock Holmes would dare to investigate. For...

It is 1891, and a Catholic priest arrives at 221B Baker Street, only to utter the words "il corpe" before suddenly dropping dead. Though the man's death is attributed to cholera, when news of another dead priest reaches Holmes, he becomes convinced that the men have been poisoned. He and Watson learn that the victims were on a mission from...

Ted Lyte, an amateur thief, has chosen an isolated house by the coast for his first robbery. But Haven House is no ordinary country home. While hunting for silverware to steal, Ted stumbles upon a locked room containing seven dead bodies. Detective Inspector Kendall takes on the case with the help of passing yachtsman Thomas Hazeldean. The search for the...

"The detective story is a game between two players, the author... and the reader." - Ronald Knox From the squash court to the golf links, the football pitch to the swimming pool and the race course to the cricket square, no court, grounds, stadium or stand is safe from skullduggery. Entering the arena where sport clashes with crime, this spirited...

He could feel it in the blackness, a difference in atmosphere, a sense of evil, of things hidden. Amy Snowden, in middle age, has long since settled into a lonely life in the Yorkshire town of Gunnarshaw, until—to her neighbours' surprise—she suddenly marries a much younger man. Months later, Amy is found dead, apparently by her own hand, and her...

‘My friend Ellingham has persuaded me to reveal to the public the astounding features of the Reisby case. As a study in criminal aberration it is, he tells me, of particular interest, while in singularity of horror and in perversity of ingenious method it is probably unique.’ 1913. John Farringdale, with his cousin Eric Foster, visits the famous archaeologist Tolgen...

Scandalize My Name opens with a haunting image: Caroline stares out at the restless traffic, her mind plagued by the memory of Ivan Sweet's pale, cold face and the malevolent storm behind his dead brown eyes. On the eve of Elaine Southey's 21st birthday, Ivan Sweet is discovered dead in his basement flat in the Southeys' historic north London home....

Holidays offer us the luxury of getting away from it all. So, in a different way, do detective stories. This collection of vintage mysteries combines both those pleasures. From a golf course at the English seaside to a pension in Paris, and from a Swiss mountain resort to the cliffs of Normandy, this new selection shows the enjoyable and unexpected...

THE FIRST AURORA TEAGARDEN MYSTERY - NOW A HALLMARK MOVIES & MYSTERY ORIGINAL STARRING CANDACE CAMERON BURE! No. 1 New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris introduces a librarian whose bookish bent for murder gets her involved in a real-life killing spree... Lawrenceton, Georgia, may be a growing suburb of Atlanta, but it's still a small town...

Quick Curtain is a witty detective story, originally published in 1934. It is one among many books that enjoyed brief popularity during the "Golden Age of murder" between the two world wars but subsequently fell out of sight. The author, Alan Melville, was a successful playwright and man of the theatre, and he uses his knowledge of backstage life to...

"Now tell us about your crime novel. Take my advice and don't try to be intellectual over it. What the public likes is blood." The Surrays and their five children form a prolific writing machine, with scores of treatises, reviews, and crime thrillers published under their family name. Following a rare convergence of the whole household at their Oxfordshire home,...

Powerful and impressive ... there is a fine inevitability in the plot structure which gives it true tragic quality - Dorothy L. Sayers Portrait of a Murderer by Anne Meredith presents a captivating journey into the dark psychology of a murderer. Adrian Gray was born in May 1862 and met his death through violence, at the hands of one of...

Poppy Done to Death, the eighth book in bestselling author Charlaine Harris's compelling mystery series, features Aurora 'Roe' Teagarden, who must use all of her southern wiles to investigate a murder within her own family. Not just any woman in Lawrenceton, Georgia, gets to be a member of the Uppity Women Book Club. But Roe's stepsister-in-law, Poppy, has climbed her...

The smoking room on a transatlantic cruise ship is bound to be a hotbed of activity, but it's less common for it to be the site of a murder. Yet, when the lights flicker aboard the luxury Meganaut, making its way from New York to Paris, this is precisely what happens. In the darkness, a gunshot rings out, and when...

The smoking room on a transatlantic cruise ship is bound to be a hotbed of activity, but it's less common for it to be the site of a murder. Yet, when the lights flicker aboard the luxury Meganaut, making its way from New York to Paris, this is precisely what happens. In the darkness, a gunshot rings out, and when...

The horror on the train, great though it may turn out to be, will not compare with the horror that exists here, in this house. On Christmas Eve, heavy snowfall brings a train to a halt near the village of Hemmersby. Several passengers take shelter in a deserted country house, where the fire has been lit and the table laid...

'Full of twists, the emphasis is on comedy . . . but the extraordinary Holmes can pull the heartstrings too.' THE TIMES The McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts is a luxurious, clandestine college dedicated to the fine art of murder where earnest students study how best to "delete" their most deserving victim. Who hasn't wondered for a split second...

"I should imagine this was murder, too, because it would be very difficult to build yourself into a heap of sandbags and then die..." In the blackout conditions of a wintry London night, amateur sleuth Agnes Kinghof and a young air-raid warden have stumbled upon a corpse stowed in the walls of their street's bomb shelter. As the police begin...

For the passengers aboard the Latakia, the transatlantic journey from New York to Cherbourg promises weeks of rest and relaxation, no matter what class of ticket they have. But after an Italian baroness is found strangled in her cabin, the situation on board becomes more tense. The main suspect soon goes overboard, creating more questions than answers: Did a guilty...

Murder of a Lady is set in Duchlan Castle, a gloomy and forbidding place in the Scottish Highlands. Late one night, the body of Mary Gregor, sister of the laird of Duchlan, is discovered in the castle. She has been stabbed to death in her bedroom, which is locked from within and the windows are barred. The only tiny clue...

When Dr Raymond Ferens moves to a practice at Milham in the Moor in North Devon, he and his wife are enchanted with the beautiful hilltop village lying so close to moor and sky. At first, they see only its charm, but soon they begin to uncover its secrets - envy, hatred, and malice. Everyone says that Sister Monica, warden...

When two newlyweds discover that a corpse has been buried in the basement of their new home, a gruelling case begins to trace the identity of the victim. With all avenues of investigation approaching exhaustion, a tenuous piece of evidence offers a chance for Chief Inspector Moresby and leads him to the amateur sleuth Roger Sheringham, who has recently been...

When a beautiful staff member at a luxurious California boot camp is found brutally murdered, the owner pleads with the plucky senior sleuths, Angela Benbow and Caledonia Wingate, to investigate. Angela and Caledonia quickly join the party at The Time-Out Inn to check out their fellow guests: nice ladies on the surface, but beneath one of those mud-packs lurks a...

If much of the action is set in a bookshop or a library, it is a bibliomystery, just as it is if a major character is a bookseller or a librarian. - Otto Penzler A bookish puzzle threatens an eagerly awaited inheritance; a submission to a publisher recounts a murder that seems increasingly to be a work of non-fiction; an...