Series: Penguin Modern Classics – Crime & Espionage

George Smiley becomes tangled in a case of suicide and espionage in le Carré's first novel. After a routine security check by George Smiley, civil servant Samuel Fennan apparently kills himself. When Smiley finds that Circus head Maston is trying to blame him for the man's death, he begins his own investigation, meeting with Fennan's widow to find out what...

In le Carré's first post-Cold War novel, an ex-soldier helps British Intelligence penetrate the secret world of ruthless arms dealers. At the start of it all, Jonathan Pine is merely the night manager at a luxury hotel. But when a single attempt to pass on information to the British authorities—about an international businessman at the hotel with suspicious dealings—backfires terribly,...

A hardboiled story of abduction and murder in the Los Angeles hills. Private Detective Lew Archer doesn't believe in coincidences... A forest fire has mysteriously broken out in the hills above southern California. Meanwhile, Lew Archer has been asked by a desperate mother to find her six-year-old son. Instead, he discovers the boy's wealthy father, murdered, and buried in a...

A gripping tale of adultery and murder served hard-boiled. When Maude Slocum—beautiful, frightened and angry—comes to Lew Archer's office with a poison pen letter intended for her husband, he reluctantly agrees to help her. As he follows the Slocums around, Archer finds that Mrs. Slocum might have the least of the family's troubles—her teenage daughter is desolate, her husband is...

An English novelist uncovers a trail of crime in Istanbul - and all roads lead to the mysterious master criminal Dimitrios. English crime novelist Charles Latimer is travelling in Istanbul when he makes the acquaintance of Turkish police inspector Colonel Haki. It is from him that he first hears of the mysterious Dimitrios - an infamous master criminal, long wanted...

The deliciously dark and funny story of Merricat, tomboy teenager, beloved sister - and possible mass murderer. Eighteen-year-old Merricat may, or may not be, a mass murderer. Six years ago, everyone in the Blackwood family was poisoned by sugar laced with arsenic - everyone, that is, apart from Merricat and her elder sister, Constance. They live in peaceful, ordered isolation,...

From America's top writer of hardboiled crime, the novel that became Tarantino's hit film Jackie Brown. An air hostess doing the Caribbean-Florida run, Jackie also uses her job to shift large amounts of hot money. The Feds are closing in on her, and the highly dysfunctional arms-dealers she works for are not getting any more functional. It would involve huge...

A rip-roaring caper novel by bestselling crime author Elmore Leonard. Mickey is bored and angry with her life as a housewife in suburban Detroit, trapped with her dreary, golf-obsessed husband. Then she is kidnapped by a deeply unimpressive criminal gang who want to trade her for a huge ransom from her—as it turns out—crooked husband. But what if she doesn't...

The Labyrinth Makers by Anthony Price is a classic Cold War thriller where a crashed plane becomes a case for a civil servant turned detective. A missing plane resurfaces—and so do long-submerged secrets. An RAF Dakota, presumed lost at sea during World War Two, has just been discovered at the bottom of a drained lake over twenty years later. The...

Two great novels featuring hard-boiled Californian detective Philip Marlowe. Raymond Chandler created the fast-talking, trouble-seeking Californian private eye Philip Marlowe for his first great novel, The Big Sleep, in 1939. Marlowe's entanglement with the Sternwood family—alongside an attendant cast of colourful underworld figures—forms the backdrop to a story reflecting all the tarnished glitter of the great American Dream. The hard-boiled...

A darkly comic thriller following a cynical LA gumshoe who makes the catastrophic mistake of helping a 14-year-old find her dog... Serendipity Dahlquist is a headstrong roller-blading teenager living in LA who has lost her dog. She asks private investigator Leo Bloodworth to help her find the missing pet. In what proves to have been a moment of madness, Bloodworth...

A murderer targets British historians of the First World War in this 1970s classic. Paul Mitchell spends his days researching the carnage of the First World War in the silence of the library. But his peace is shattered by an unexpected visit from a man with a fragment of a German trench map—and a lot of questions. Why does Dr...

An endlessly ingenious battle across Japan between dogged detective Akechi Kogoro and the many-faced thief Gold Mask. A frenzied test of wits between ace detective Akechi Kogoro and the seemingly superhuman and fiendishly clever villain known only as Gold Mask, this is one of Edogawa Rampo's most enjoyable and witty novels. The anonymous fiend, lurking imperturbably behind his glittering mask,...

Game Without Rules features two secret agents living in the English countryside who try—and fail—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...

A memory loss mystery set in wartime New York Who stole George Matthews' life? 'Doctor, I think I'm losing my mind...' When a wealthy young man turns up at respected psychiatrist Dr George Matthews' office uttering these words, it changes his safe existence forever. Suddenly Matthews finds himself dragged into a strange, surreal world where nothing is certain. And when...

An intricate, puzzle-like murder mystery set in Imperial China, featuring the indefatigable Judge Dee. The Chinese Gold Murders invites you into a world where Judge Dee is about to step into the shoes of a dead man... Most people would refuse the job of Magistrate at the lonely port town of Peng-lai—especially as the last occupant of the post has...

One of the classic works by the master of Japanese detective fiction. A super-criminal— as deadly as she is beautiful— wagers all in an epic battle with a master detective, Akechi Kogoro. No trick is too elaborate, no disguise too fantastic as the two perfectly matched antagonists take turns to outwit each other. Experience the gripping tale of cunning and...

A twisting psychological thriller of a family caught in a murderous trap of their own making. Mr Marble is in serious debt, desperate for money to pay his family's bills, until the combination of a wealthy relative, a bottle of Cyanide, and a shovel offer him the perfect solution. Slowly, the Marble family becomes poisoned by guilt and caught in...

Maigret goes to London on the trail of a young man on the run. When Maigret's prized gun goes missing, he must travel to London on the trail of a troubled young man on the run. Maigret's Revolver is a wonderful picture of both London and Paris and one of Simenon's most ingenious and satisfying stories.

A wild and wildly compelling noir novel about a train crash and a case of mistaken identity. What if you woke up to discover everyone thought you were somebody else? Pregnant and abandoned, all Helen Georgesson has is five dollars and a one-way ticket to San Francisco. Then she is involved in a train crash, and regains consciousness only to...

One of Inspector Maigret's strangest and most compelling cases. The discovery of a dismembered body in the Canal Saint Martin leads Maigret into a tangled, baffling case involving a taciturn bistro-owner and a mysterious inheritance. This is a matchless description of a harsh, grim part of Paris a long way from the tourist trail, and a perfect example of Maigret's...

Inspector Maigret investigates a case of deception in an isolated community. Maigret has been interrogating Carl Andersen for seventeen hours without a confession. He's either innocent or a very good liar. So why was the body of a diamond merchant found at his isolated mansion? Why is his sister always shut away in her room? And why does everyone at...

A chilling, stylish piece of LA noir After the war, cynical veteran Dix Steele has moved to L.A., a city terrified by a strangler preying on young women. Bumping into an old friend, now a detective working on the case, Dix is thrilled by closely following the progress of the police. Meeting his new neighbour, sultry and beautiful actress Laurel...

SS-GB is a chilling alternative history in which the Nazis have conquered Britain, now featured in the iconic Penguin Crime series. It is 1941, and Germany has won the war. Britain is occupied, Churchill executed, and the King imprisoned in the Tower of London. At Scotland Yard, Detective Inspector Archer tries to do his job and keep his head down....

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy finds George Smiley facing his greatest challenge yet: unmasking a Soviet double agent at the heart of the British establishment. George Smiley, a troubled man of infinite compassion, is also a single-mindedly ruthless adversary as a spy. The scene he enters is a Cold War landscape of moles and lamplighters, scalp-hunters and pavement artists, where men...

An imposter has a fortune to win and his life to lose in this gripping country house mystery. A stranger enters the Ashby family home posing as Patrick Ashby, the heir to the family's sizeable fortune. The stranger, Brat Farrar, has been carefully coached on Patrick's mannerisms, appearance, and every significant detail of Patrick's early life, up to his thirteenth...

One of the great chase stories—Nazi agents will stop at nothing to kill a British weapons expert on his long, fraught journey home from Istanbul. It is 1940 and Mr Graham, a quietly-spoken engineer and arms expert, has just finished high-level talks with the Turkish government. And now somebody wants him dead. The previous night, three shots were fired at...

James Bond is back with a bang in Penguin Classics, in the new Crime & Espionage series. 'It is not just a question of blowing up a building or shooting a prime minister. Such bourgeois horseplay is not contemplated. Our operation must be delicate, refined and aimed at the heart of the Intelligence apparat of the West.' Deep inside the...

Scams, heists, and murders abound in a high-energy caper. A preacher called Deke O'Malley's been selling false hope — the promise of a glorious new life in Africa for just $1,000 a family. But when thieves with machine guns steal the proceeds and send one man to the morgue, the con is up. Now Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed,...

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...

From the bestselling author of Get Shorty and Jackie Brown, a thriller spiced with blackmail and revenge. Detroit businessman Harry Mitchell is a self-made man, happily married for over twenty-two years and a pillar of the community. But then he slips – he meets a young 'model' and begins an affair. One night he arrives at his girlfriend's apartment and...

One of the great country house detective novels, entertaining and ingenious. Marion Sharpe and her mother are quiet and ordinary villagers, enjoying a peaceful life in their country home, the Franchise. Everything changes when a local schoolgirl accuses them of kidnap and abuse, describing the attic room of the house as her prison. Scotland Yard inspector Alan Grant is called...

A lean and mean thriller about one man and the Mob from the crime laureate INDEPENDENT The last time Florida motel owner George Moran was in the Dominican Republic, he was in a uniform and people were shooting at him. Years later, he's back looking for a girl he lost—and finding one he'd be better off without. Mary de Boya...

Three previously unpublished stories by the master of tense set-ups. These three stories—Picket Line, 'Chick Killer', and 'Ice Man'—show Elmore Leonard at his most terse and harsh, able to conjure up a sense of profound unease and injustice in just a few words. The main story Picket Line describes a tense stand-off between migrant workers in Texas, police, and labour...

A rollicking tale of the 1970s Detroit criminal underworld from legendary crime writer Elmore Leonard. Swag follows 'The Ten Golden Rules for Successful Armed Robbery'. If rigidly adhered to, these rules will catapult two trainee robbers—Frank and Stick—into Detroit's criminal elite. But for how long can they maintain the Rules' austere discipline as the lurid, fun temptations pile up?

'As gritty and hard-driving a thriller as you'll find . . . The action never stops, the language sings and stings' Washington Post Clement Mansell knows how easy it is to get away with murder. The crazed killer is back on the Detroit streets—thanks to some nifty courtroom moves by his lawyer—and this time he's feeling invincible enough to execute...

A detective novelist searches for an elusive rival writer, in this classic work of Japanese crime fiction. A reclusive writer of detective stories, Oe Shundei, has gone missing, leaving behind a suspicious trail of blackmailing letters to a former lover. Another detective novelist, his rival, is the only one who can find him. A sequence of macabre and appalling events...

A brilliant story of revenge and counter-revenge in Atlantic City After being shot by a mugger, Lt Vincent Mora is convalescing in Puerto Rico. There he meets Iris, a beautiful young woman who is bored and frustrated, looking for excitement and a new life. Then she is offered a job as a 'hostess' at a casino in Atlantic city by...

Detroit comes to the Holy Land as a mixed bag of gangsters arrive looking for revenge Al Rosen was doing just fine, hiding out in Israel - until he decided to play Good Samaritan and rescue some elderly tourists from a hotel fire. Now his picture's been published in the press, and the guys he's been hiding from know exactly...

Tough guy Jack Ryan goes looking for a missing lowlife and finds himself in a whole lot of trouble... Motor city process server and ex-thug Jack Ryan is very good at finding people - especially people who don't want to be found. Now he's being offered large bucks to locate a lost lowlife named Robert Leary, a.k.a. Bobby Lear. But...

Essential reading for mystery fans: the first masterpiece by the doyenne of American noir. Sailor, former henchman and trouble-accruing gangster, travels from Chicago to Santa Fe, New Mexico, looking for revenge and for money. But it's hard to make a dishonest buck when everything seems to be against him. It is Fiesta, it is hot, thousands of people are crowding...

A riveting thriller about an ordinary man's quest for extraordinary vengeance. Charlie Heller is a CIA cryptographer, a quiet man in a back-room job. He's not a spy, let alone an assassin. But when his beloved fiancée is murdered by terrorists and his employers refuse to pursue her killers, Heller decides to take matters into his own hands. Pursuing the...

A superb murder mystery set in the snowy wastes of ancient northern China. Judge Dee is again in relentless pursuit of evil in one of van Gulik's most strange, atmospheric, and ingenious murder mysteries. Set in a remote, freezing part of China, the novel twists together a girl's disappearance, the theft of some jewels, and a horrifying beheading. And, just...