Classic Crime & Mystery Fiction

A rediscovered diabolical slice of great American noir. The Night of the Hunter is one of the great chase novels, centred on the ferocious, unforgettable figure of Preacher, a psychopath who relentlessly pursues two children who may or may not know the secret of where the money from a bank raid is hidden. Set in a brilliantly rendered Depression-era American...

Don't miss MAKING A KILLING, the new DI Adam Fawley thriller, AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW! THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - THE FIRST EVER STAND-ALONE FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE DI ADAM FAWLEY MILLION-COPIES-SOLD SERIES A Financial Times Best Book of 2023 A Guardian Best Crime and Thriller book of 2023 ‘This devilishly clever, ground-breaking novel will keep you...

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of the Tiktok sensation Murder in the Family and the DI Adam Fawley series comes a brand new gripping crime thriller about a figure from the past… In 2016, eight-year-old Daisy Mason vanished from her Oxford home. Her disappearance made the national press and the final culprit shocked everyone. DCI Adam Fawley remembers the...

Out of his smoke-filled rooms in Baker Street stalks a figure to cause the criminal classes to quake in their boots and rush from their dens of iniquity. . . The twelve mysteries gathered in this first collection of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson's adventures reveal the brilliant consulting detective at the height of his powers. Problems...

THRILLERS THAT RACE FROM THE VERY FIRST PAGE . . . Felix Francis' novels gallop along splendidly – Jilly Cooper ‘From winning post to top of the bestseller lists’ – Sunday Times An old friend in need, a dangerous conspiracy – a new case for Sid Halley… Sid Halley, former British jump racing champion and private detective, is not having...

Evidence that clears the name of a boy sentenced for killing his adopted mother arrives too late to save his life – so who did kill her? According to the courts, Jacko Argyle bludgeoned his mother to death with a poker. The sentence was life imprisonmentBut when Dr Arthur Calgary turns up a year later with the proof that confirms...

THE BRAND NEW DESTINATION THRILLER FROM THE MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER Welcome to The Surf House Where everyone’s escaping something… High on the cliffs of Morocco, far from the city lights and the souks, stands The Surf House: a sanctuary for travellers chasing sunshine and waves. But the idyll hides a dark mystery. And when Bea washes in, seeking refuge after a...

Was Richard III truly the ogre of legend and Shakespeare's play—a wicked uncle who murdered his nephews to steal the crown of England? Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard is laid up in hospital with a broken leg. The novels he tries reading to pass the time all bore him, until a real-life mystery awakens his curiosity and soon turns...

If Carolus Deene catches so much as a whiff of murder he will be on the scent with all the persistence and gusto of a dachshund in search of truffles. While Senior History Master of Queen's School, Newminster, Carolus Deene has a troubling hobby as a criminologist and sometime sleuth. Even more troublingly, he has jaundice. But with the papers...

She said once she heard some people told to get an airing in a closed carriage and that her life had been like that, trying to get fresh air, but always closed up, in a box. As warm sunshine bathes the streets of Paris in the late 1800s, the lively young debutante May meets the cotton-broker John Tyler. Far from...

A striking new edition of the New York Times No.1 bestselling YA crime thriller and TikTok sensation. Now a major BBC and Netflix series! A stunning exclusive edition of the bestselling YA crime thriller sensation, with a striking new cover design and black sprayed edges. Pip Fitz-Amobi is haunted by the way her last investigation ended. Soon she’ll be leaving...

She could imagine the headlines all too well... DEATH ON POSSETT ISLAND Well-known Playwright Found Dead on Christmas Tree. Dimpson McCabe — Dimpsie — has invited all of his closest friends of the theatre world to join him for Christmas at his castle on a private island some hours' drive from Edinburgh. The festivities have barely had a chance to...

They should have made sure he was dead. DI Hope Fenton is haunted by the abduction of her son Noah eight years ago. It shadows every investigation she works with her ex-husband, forensic scientist Dr Adam Fenton. One down. When a supposed overdose victim is found to have received a postcard marked You're first, Hope uncovers links to a circle...

They should have made sure he was dead. DI Hope Fenton is haunted by the abduction of her son Noah eight years ago. It shadows every investigation she works on with her ex-husband, forensic scientist Dr Adam Fenton. One down. When a supposed overdose victim is found to have received a postcard marked “You're first”, Hope uncovers links to a...

I am not an angel nor a genie nor a ghost...I am Erik! A mysterious Phantom haunts the depths of the Paris Opera House where he has fallen passionately in love with the beautiful singer Christine Daaé. Under his guidance, her singing rises to new heights and she is triumphantly acclaimed. But Christine is also loved by Raoul de Chagny,...

"I never can resist a touch of the dramatic." The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is now best remembered for its concluding story in which the great detective appears to plunge to his death into the waters at the bottom of the Reichenbach Falls, locked in a struggle with his nemesis, Professor Moriarty. However, the collection also brings the reader back...

'There's an east wind coming... such a wind as never blew on England yet.' Arthur Conan Doyle's His Last Bow features a selection of Sherlock Holmes stories written at a time of growing tensions in Europe. First published as a collection in 1917, against the backdrop of the First World War, the volume covers tales that deviate from the pattern...

In New York Times bestselling author Anthony Horowitz's ingenious fifth literary whodunnit in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series, Detective Hawthorne is once again called upon to solve an unsolvable case — a gruesome murder in an idyllic gated community in which suspects abound. Riverside Close is a picture-perfect community. The six exclusive and attractive houses are tucked far away from...

Brilliant . . . A fantastic page-turner Katy Brent, author of HOW TO KILL MEN AND GET AWAY WITH IT THEY'RE A PERFECT MATCH. BUT IS SHE ABOUT TO GET BURNED? Ivy Harcourt's been as unlucky in love as she's been successful in writing. A bestselling romance author with a sad relationship track, it's pretty clear there are no good...

Arthur Conan Doyle published his last tale of Sherlock Holmes in 1927. That same year, The Strand Magazine—the periodical in which most of the Sherlock Holmes stories first appeared—sponsored a competition for its readers to choose the twelve best stories featuring The Great Detective. Doyle himself participated, and in his essay "How I Made My List," published in the magazine's...

I have been in the Valley of Fear... I am not out of it yet. "There - is - danger!" The warning message decrypted by Sherlock Holmes arrives too late to save John Douglas of Birlstone Manor, Sussex, an American gentleman gruesomely murdered in his study by person or persons unknown. But who was John Douglas, why wasn't he wearing...

John Dickson Carr is famous for his puzzling "impossible crime” plots, in which corpses are discovered in scenarios that seem to lack any logical explanation, concealing clues as to how the murder was committed and how the body arrived in its current setting. Among all of Carr's ingenious crime scenes, the present case is one of his best known: a...

John Dickson Carr is famous for his puzzling "impossible crime" plots, in which corpses are discovered in scenarios that seem to lack any logical explanation, concealing clues as to how the murder was committed and how the body arrived in its current setting. Among all of Carr's ingenious crime scenes, the present case is one of his best known: a...

In an elaborate house known as the Cloisters, Maud Wainwright rules supreme. The queen of society in the small town of Beverly, she has a table long enough to seat one hundred, and she keeps an iron grip on the guest list. Her right-hand woman is Pat Abbott, a local girl who is beautiful, innocent, and kind. Pat has no...

For Ellery Queen, there is no puzzle that reason cannot solve. In his time, he has faced down killers, thugs, and thieves, protected only by the might of his brain—and the odd bit of timely intervention by his father, a burly New York police inspector. But when a university professor asks Queen to teach a class, the detective finds there...

For Ellery Queen, there is no puzzle that reason cannot solve. In his time, he has faced down killers, thugs, and thieves, protected only by the might of his brain—and the odd bit of timely intervention by his father, a burly New York police inspector. But when a university professor asks Queen to teach a class, the detective finds there...

Cub reporter Mary Llewellyn is on a soothing sea cruise to help her recover after a minor operation. Her fellow passengers are pleasant enough, gathering to play a friendly game of bridge to pass the time. But the game turns considerably less so when a wealthy businessman samples a cocktail—and ends up dead at the table. The news that someone...

"I came here to make a dead man change his mind." So begins a creepy and unusual mystery celebrated to this day as one of the greatest "impossible crime" novels of all time. When a family's promise to protect the beloved pine grove of their dead father creates a financial strain, a séance is suggested to summon the ghost of...

"I came here to make a dead man change his mind." So begins a creepy and unusual mystery celebrated to this day as one of the greatest "impossible crime" novels of all time. When a family's promise to protect the beloved pine grove of their dead father creates a financial strain, a séance is suggested to summon the ghost of...

The magnificent Transcontinental Express, showcasing the cutting edge of mid-1930s luxury train travel, is making its first trip from New York to San Francisco. For its record-breaking maiden voyage—coast to coast in three days with no passenger stops—the express carries only invited guests, among them renowned businessmen, physicians, psychologists, and even a high-ranking member of the NYPD. Among refined staterooms,...

Unable to stop herself from investigating another murder, Rachel Murdock gets plenty of help from Samantha, the cat who follows her wherever she goes; her much less adventurous sister Jennifer; and Lieutenant Mayhew, who is grateful to have another sharp mind on the case. Miss Rachel, her sister, and her cat are watching with undisguised interest a bandy-legged man who...

From the author of Death on the Lusitania, The Spies of Hartlake Hall is a gripping and evocative historical crime novel set in the closing stages of the First World War. London, 1917. Deep inside Room 40, a highly secretive organization within the Admiralty, the body of a man has been found in a room locked from the inside with...

Inspector Henry Tibbett is taking a much-needed holiday from his job at Scotland Yard with his wife Emmy. Headed for a spot of skiing in the Italian Dolomites and some first-class people-watching, Tibbett's worries blissfully melt away. That is, until a fellow guest who boards the ski lift alive at the top of the mountain is found dead when the...

The day his mother dies, Meursault notices that it is very hot on the bus that is taking him from Algiers to the retirement home where his mother lived; so hot that he falls asleep. Later, while waiting for the wake to begin, the harsh electric lights in the room make him extremely uncomfortable, so he gratefully accepts the coffee...

Here, in one volume, are the stories that transformed Sherlock Holmes into a household name: the fateful first meeting of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in A Study in Scarlet, the mysterious treasure of The Sign of the Four, the formidable Irene Adler of A Scandal in Bohemia, and many more! This collection includes A Study in Scarlet, The Sign...

The White Priory Murders presents an 'impossible situation' regarded as the best Mr Dickson has given us, according to Torquemada in The Observer, 1935. "Sir Henry is at his best in this baffling yarn, and so is Carter Dickson," praised The New York Times in 1934. James Bennett has been invited to stay at White Priory for Christmas among the...

Holmes has changed since his resurrection in The Adventure of the Empty House in 1903. He is as keenly observant and nimble of mind as ever, but his patience with British justice is wearing thin. At times, he takes the law into his own hands and knowingly breaks the law. What can have happened to produce such uncharacteristic behaviour in...

Sherlock Holmes is the greatest detective in fiction, a crime-solver gifted with powers of observation that allow him to see clues that ordinary detectives easily overlook. For more than a century, his adventures have thrilled generations of readers with crimes that are seemingly insoluble until the great detective steps in and applies his skills of deductive reasoning. This volume collects...

The brand new Miss Marple novel from Lucy Foley, the No.1 bestselling author of The Guest List and The Midnight Feast. AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW * High in the Swiss Alps, with glorious mountain views and exclusive access to powdery slopes, the Grand Alpine Hotel draws guests from far and wide. The notorious actress The high-flying politician The reserved political...

An explosive love triangle, a formidable matriarch, and a house party of enemies. All drawn inexorably … Towards Zero. Now Anjelica Huston and a star-studded cast feature in a brand new BBC adaptation of Agatha Christie's tense, ingenious novel. Read it before you see it! After a scandalous celebrity divorce, British tennis star Nevile Strange and his ex-wife Audrey make...

Impossible crime stories have delighted readers since the invention of detective fiction as puzzle-lovers sought more cerebral entertainment. Following on from Miraculous Mysteries, CWA Diamond Dagger Award-winning crime writer Martin Edwards brings together a whole new casebook of mystifying locked room mysteries and impossible crimes. Featuring more great stories by John Dickson Carr, Julian Symons, and Margery Allingham alongside newly...

At Firenze, the reclusive artist Adrian Delafield's Florentine enclave in St John's Wood, the whispers of an impending tragedy are growing louder. The tension between the fanatical zealot of a housekeeper Miss Trimming and Delafield's sister Virgilia is just shy of fever pitch, when a cold morning at the house finds Trimming and Adrian sprawled at either end of the...

A Christmas party is punctuated by a gunshot under a policeman's watchful eye. A jewel heist is planned admist the glitz and glamour of Oxford Street's Christmas shopping. Lost in a snowstorm, a man finds a motive for murder. This collection of mysteries explores the darker side of the festive season - from unexplained disturbances in the fresh snow, to...

A biting psychological thriller from the best-selling author of Tokyo Express, now available in English for the first time Onizuka Kumako is a fierce woman- tall, beautiful, and not afraid to speak her mind. In Tokyo bars, she seduces customers and commits petty crime, using her connections to the local yakuza to get by. When she meets Shirakawa Fukutaro, a...

Trouble is brewing once more for the Hoggetts and their friend Chief Inspector Macdonald in Lunesdale, deep in the Lancashire fell country. The treacherous slopes and still waters of a quarry pool have become the backdrop for strange happenings by night, and after an architect surveying the area is nearly hoisted into the cold waters by an unseen assailant, the...

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...

Radical, ruthless - and razor-sharp. Welcome to the brutal, revolutionary crime thrillers of Jean-Patrick Manchette, reissued by Vintage Classics in a major new celebratory series Murder isn't always ugly. Aimee is drop-dead gorgeous, razor-sharp, and lethally efficient. A killer with a cool head and a taste for chaos, she arrives in the backwater town of Bleville - a festering stew...

'My dear Inspector, this is simply nonsense. Girls don't murder each other in respectable dress shops.'Life for the staff of the West End boutique Christophe et Cie is hard enough with all the pressures of delivering the ambitious Mr. Bevan's vision and then comes murder, a poisoning via the toxic crystals of hat-cleaner, pitching haute couture into heinous crime.Faced with...

Cyanide in the Sun, curated by Martin Edwards, offers a jam-packed travel case of short mysteries bristling with murder and chicanery, just right for a summer getaway. This anthology is another instalment in the popular series celebrating forgotten classics and stories not printed since their original publication. It's the perfect bite-sized holiday reading for both the Classic Crime enthusiast and...

Discover your new favourite forgotten female classics with the Mermaid collection - No 7 - Henrietta Hamilton's Answer in the Negative with a foreword by Sophie Hannah. Frank Morningside, assistant at The National Press Archives on Fleet Street, is receiving nasty poison pen letters. His superior, Toby Lorn, wants to put a stop to it, so he calls on his...

France's favourite country policeman investigates a suicide and gets involved in a tricky local issue in the latest adventure in this ever-popular and bestselling mystery series. 'FRENCH TOURISM SHOULD RAISE A GLASS TO WALKER'S DORDOGNE MYSTERIES' Daily Mail An Enemy in the Village features Bruno Courrèges, the chief of police of the lovely Dordogne town of St Denis, with a...

The brand new thriller in the San Diego Case Files series from Sunday Times bestselling author Karen Rose 'High wire suspense that keeps you riveted' Lisa Gardner Homicide Detective Kit McKittrick and psychologist Sam Reeves arrive at Mary Sherman's house after she fails to turn up for an arranged meeting with Kit's foster sister Akiko. Three weeks earlier, Akiko received...

Occult or psychic detective tales have been chilling readers for almost as long as there have been ghost stories. This beguiling subgenre follows specialists in occult lore—often with years of arcane training—investigating strange supernatural occurrences and pitting their wits against the bizarre and inexplicable. With tales featuring the most prominent psychic detectives, such as William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki, the Ghost...

'Another genteel but compelling murder mystery in a glorious setting that deserves a huge readership' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A devastating accident An isolated hotel A murdered guest… When Miss Atalanta Ashford learns that her dear friend Raoul Lemont has had a serious accident, she rushes to his remote hotel in the Alps only to discover he has no memory of her –...

I'm taking a revolver to Thrackley. You never know with blokes like Carson. I hate these harmless, potty people - they're always up to something. Jim Henderson is one of six guests summoned by the mysterious Edwin Carson, a collector of precious stones, to a weekend party at his country house, Thrackley. The house is gloomy and forbidding, but the...

When New Orleans coffee merchant Louis Durand first meets his bride-to-be after a months-long courtship by mail, he's shocked that she doesn't match the photographs sent with her correspondence. But Durand has told his own fibs, concealing from her the details of his wealth, and so he mostly feels fortunate to find her so much more beautiful than expected. Soon...

A woman is on trial for her life, accused of murder. The twelve members of the jury each carry their own secret burden of guilt and prejudice which could affect the outcome. In this extraordinary crime novel, we follow the trial through the eyes of the jurors as they hear the evidence and try to reach a unanimous verdict. Will...

A lost novel from the golden age of crime, published for the very first time. It happened on a dark and misty night; the night of the ball at The Prince's Hall, Fordings. Abuzz with rumours surrounding the disappearance of Rosemary Reeve on the eve of last year's ball, the date proves ill-fated again when two homebound partygoers, Nick and...

It is past the half-hour. My time is coming nearer with every tick of the clock. Horace Manning, scientist, recluse, and 'closed book' even to his friends, is found dead in his study at 4am, following a dinner in honour of his daughter's engagement. An ivory-handled carving knife rests between his shoulder blades as the houseguests gather round to witness...

Tour de Force is "written with much ingenuity, gaiety of colour and bright, joyful malice," according to Julian Symons in the Times Literary Supplement, 1955. Inspector Cockrill has finally booked a holiday, destined for a Mediterranean tour with a motley crew of fellow vacationers. By the time they have reached the island of San Juan el Pirata off the Italian...

Crime author Dick Markham is in love again; his fiancée is the mysterious newcomer to the village, Lesley Grant. When Grant accidentally shoots the fortune teller through the side of his tent at the local fair, following a very strange reaction to his predictions, Markham is reluctantly brought into a scheme to expose his betrothed as a suspected serial husband-poisoner....

Aurora Teagarden's decision to become a real estate agent turns out to be a life-or-death choice in this mystery from No. 1 New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris. Aurora 'Roe' Teagarden had always worked for a living, until an unexpected legacy gave her the money to quit her librarian job. Now, with time on her hands,...

No observer, ignorant of the situation, would have guessed that death lurked nearby, and that only a little distance from the glitter of silver and glass and the hum of voices, two victims lay silent on a studio floor. On a fine autumn weekend, Lord Aveling hosts a hunting party at his country house, Bragley Court. Among the guests are...

Jefferson Farjeon is quite unsurpassed for creepy skill in mysterious adventures.- Dorothy L. Sayers Richard Temperley arrives at Euston station early on a fogbound London morning. He takes refuge in a nearby hotel, along with a disagreeable fellow passenger, who had snored his way through the train journey. But within minutes the other man has snored for the last time—he...

'There are a dozen clever deceptions in the book, twice as many as most writers would have given us.' Julian Symons in Bloody Murder Hugh Everton was intent on nothing more than quietly drinking in the second-rate hotel he found himself in on England's south coast. Then in walked his old flame Lucy and her new husband and ex-Judge, Gregory...

For the staff of the library at the center of The Widening Stain, it's easy enough to dismiss the death of a woman who fell from a rolling ladder as nothing more than an unfortunate accident. It's more difficult, however, to explain away the strangled corpse of a man found inside a locked room, surrounded by rare and obscure erotica....

Then the rhythm of the train changed, and she seemed to be sliding backwards down a long slope. Click-click-click-click. The wheels rattled over the rails, with a sound of castanets. Travelling home from a European holiday, Iris Carr ends up alone at the station after a quarrel with her friends. Struck by a mysterious assailant and waking up just in...

When Sherlock Holmes receives a bungled tip-off from one of the agents of his nemesis, Professor Moriarty, the great detective hopes to avoid a murderous crime and bring the would-be assassin to justice. However, upon being informed soon afterwards that one John Douglas of Birlstone Manor has been found with his head blown apart by a shotgun, he realises that...

To catch a murderous theatre impresario, a young woman takes a deadly new role The note discovered beside Rosaleen Wright's hanged body is full of reasons justifying her suicide—but it lacks her trademark vitality and wit, and, most importantly, her signature. So the note alone is far from enough to convince her best friend Jane that Rosaleen was her own...

In a small, artsy New Mexico town, the arrival of a wealthy stranger from back East is enough to get folks talking. Even a few years after Mona Brandon landed in Santa Maria, the rumour mill still churns with tidbits about her money, her influence, and—when a corpse is discovered in the nearby desert that may or may not be...

In a small, artsy New Mexico town, the arrival of a wealthy stranger from back East is enough to get folks talking. Even a few years after Mona Brandon landed in Santa Maria, the rumour mill still churns with tidbits about her money, her influence, and—when a corpse is discovered in the nearby desert that may or may not be...

The business of death has given insurance investigator Miles Bredon a unique outlook on life in this witty Golden Age mystery. The Three Taps introduces us to Jephthah Mottram, a very wealthy man who has received dire news from his doctor—he has just two years left to live. However, he doesn't even manage to make it that far. While enjoying...

E.C.R. Lorac must be seriously considered for the position of leading writer of classic detective stories. – Birmingham Post While hot on the heels of serial coupon-racketeer Gordon Ginner, Chief Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard receives word of a peculiar incident up in Lancashire. The fishing cottage of a local farmer has been broken into, with an assortment of seemingly...

Already it looked as if the police were up against a carefully planned and cleverly executed murder, and, what was more, a murder without a corpse! Two brothers, John and William Rother, live together at Chalklands Farm in the beautiful Sussex Downs. Their peaceful rural life is shattered when John Rother disappears and his abandoned car is found. Has he...

Trusted surgeon. Loving wife. Murderer? Before my world came crashing down, I had it all. The successful career I dreamed of. The beautiful red-brick home where I could relax in front of the fire. The handsome, devoted husband whose blue eyes and charming smile always made me feel safe. As I call time of death, my voice is steady. My...

The Godfrey family is vacationing among the picturesque rocky cliffs of the North Atlantic seaboard, expecting peace, quiet, and, perhaps, a bit of golf or tennis. But one dusky evening in an isolated spot on the grounds of Spanish Cape, Rosa and her uncle David get into an argument about her secretive romance with one of their guests, the roguish...

The Godfrey family is vacationing among the picturesque rocky cliffs of the North Atlantic seaboard, expecting peace, quiet, and perhaps a bit of golf or tennis. But one dusky evening, in an isolated spot on the grounds of Spanish Cape, Rosa and her uncle David get into an argument about her secretive romance with one of their guests, the roguish...

When the body of a cowboy is discovered in London while Sherlock Holmes is incapacitated, it is up to Watson to fill his shoes. He discovers a mad genius and three beautiful women bent on killing the world's leaders and rendering all of humanity slaves to love. Tired and filled with self-doubt, Watson must find the confidence and inner strength...

A cache of Venezuelan gold bullion is hijacked en route to safe-keeping in a bank vault deep in the Swiss countryside, the heist orchestrated by the elusive Mr Bonjour, an international man of mystery and villain. Through a series of events, the gold ends up not in Bonjour's hands, but in the grease separator of the newly opened Gourmet Burger...

Should detectives go to parties? Was it consistent with the dignity of the Yard? The inspector tossed for it—and went. Chief Inspector Macdonald has been invited to a treasure hunt party at the house of Graham Coombe, the celebrated publisher of Murder by Mesmerism. Despite a handful of misgivings, the inspector joins a guestlist of novelists and thriller writers disguised...