Series: An American Mystery Classic

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...

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...

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 the staff of the library at the centre 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....

The journey of the Mexico City-bound Pullman seems ill-fated from the outset, with engine troubles and the threat of an impending railway strike. However, no one aboard expects the terror that will descend upon the luxury train between Laredo and its destination. First, a man dies as the vehicle passes through a dark tunnel, and then, just as United States...

"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...

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...

Of crime fiction's many sub-genres, none is so reflexive and intriguing as the "bibliomystery": stories that involve crimes set, somehow, in the world of books. In Vincent Starrett's A Volume of Poe, a bookseller is murdered; in Ellery Queen's The Adventure of the Three R's, the detective tracks the disappearance of a local Missouri author; and a killer stalks the...

Robert Westland's date with the executioner is just around the corner when he finally decides to fight the murder rap sending him to the electric chair. Framed for his wife's grisly demise, Westland is in a bind, and his last hope is Bill Crane, a booze-soaked detective who's as ruthless with a quip as he is when trawling the streets...

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...

Of crime fiction's many sub-genres, none is so reflexive and intriguing as the "bibliomystery": stories that involve crimes set, somehow, in the world of books. In Vincent Starrett's A Volume of Poe, a bookseller is murdered; in Ellery Queen's The Adventure of the Three R's, the detective tracks the disappearance of a local Missouri author; and a killer stalks the...

Sometimes, the police aren't the best suited to solve a crime. Depending on the case, you may find that a retired magician, a schoolteacher, a Broadway producer, or a nun have the necessary skills to suss out a killer. Or, in other cases, a blind veteran, or a publisher, or a hard-drinking attorney, or a mostly-sober attorney… or, indeed, any...

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...

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...

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...

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...

"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 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...

In the countryside of Victorian England, a recluse and a beekeeper team up to catch a cunning villain. In a quiet village far from the noise of Victorian London, Sydney Silchester lives the life of a recluse led by two passions: privacy and honey. He gives up the former only when his stores of the latter run low. But when...

In the countryside of Victorian England, a recluse and a beekeeper team up to catch a cunning villain. In a quiet village far from the noise of Victorian London, Sydney Silchester lives the life of a recluse led by two passions: privacy and honey. He gives up the former only when his stores of the latter run low. But when...

The Miners Title and Trust is typically dead quiet, having gone bankrupt. Then, late one evening, the bank's blind president, Blake Hadfield, plummets eight stories to his death in the building's lobby. The only witnesses are the security guard and Blake's estranged wife, who were both on the first floor. Blake's son, Seth, is found drunk and dazed on the...

Following the loss of his sight in World War I, ex-intelligence officer Duncan Maclain honed his other senses and, with the help of his two German Shepherds, became one of the most successful and well-known private investigators in New York City, picking up on the unseen clues that often slip beneath the visual surface. The Miners Title and Trust is...

Martin Greenough's walled-off mansion is the last remaining holdout in the Boston parkland known as the Fenway—an achievement that testifies to the elderly bachelor's great wealth. Childless and nearing the end of his life, he surrounds himself only with his cat, his servants, and a friend, Mrs. Warden—not to mention the circle of extended family members whose lives he both...

When Quinn first meets Bricky, she's working as a partner-for-hire at a dancehall, and he's struggling to shake the anxiety of his guilty conscience. Earlier that day, the young man took advantage of a found key and used it to rob a stranger's home. Now, with the purloined money in his pocket, Quinn is unable to escape the memory of...

A strange sight greets Chicago haberdashery clerk Rufus Ker as he prepares to begin his workday by unlocking the door to Bluefield, Inc. A sign is attached to the glass. It reads: DEAD MAN INSIDE! I AM DEAD. THIS STORE WILL NOT OPEN TO-DAY. Once inside, Rufus is relieved to discover the shop is still in one piece and assumes...

A strange sight greets Chicago haberdashery clerk Rufus Ker as he prepares to begin his workday by unlocking the door to Bluefield, Inc. A sign is attached to the glass. It reads: DEAD MAN INSIDE! I AM DEAD. THIS STORE WILL NOT OPEN TO-DAY. Once inside, Rufus is relieved to discover the shop is still in one piece and assumes...

A detective steeped in the art of magic solves the mystifying murder of two occultists. Now retired from the tour circuit on which he made his name, master magician The Great Merlini spends his days running a magic shop in New York’s Times Square and his nights moonlighting as a consultant for the NYPD. The cops call him when faced...

Sometimes, the police aren't the best suited to solve a crime. Depending on the case, you may find that a retired magician, a schoolteacher, a Broadway producer, or a nun have the necessary skills to suss out a killer. Or, in other cases, a blind veteran, a publisher, a hard-drinking attorney, a mostly-sober attorney… or, indeed, any sort of detective...

When Nurse Keate arrives at the Thatcher estate to care for a man with a bullet in his shoulder, she’s told that he shot himself accidentally. However, when the convalescing man is murdered soon thereafter, it becomes clear that the only “accident” was his not being fully killed the first time around. A murderer stalks the manor, and yet the...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

Bertha Cool is the gruff, tough-talking, corpulent head of her private detective agency, opened after the death of her husband. Donald Lam is her meek, slight, and nervy new hire, who makes up for a lack of boldness with brilliant deductive work. The duo couldn't be any more dissimilar but, with their skills combined, they are an unstoppable force when...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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 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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

Bertha Cool is the gruff, tough-talking, corpulent head of her private detective agency, opened after the death of her husband. Donald Lam is her meek, slight, and nervy new hire who makes up for a lack of boldness with brilliant deductive work. The duo couldn't be any more dissimilar, but with their skills combined, they are an unstoppable force when...

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...