Classic crime and mystery fiction Books

Agatha Christie’s ingenious mystery thriller, reissued with a striking new cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers. Lucy Angkatell invited Hercule Poirot to lunch. To tease the great detective, her...

There’s more than petty theft going on in a London youth hostel… An outbreak of kleptomania at a student hostel was not normally the sort of crime that aroused Hercule Poirot’s interest. But when he saw the list of stolen and vandalized items –...

Car brakes fail A boulder misses Accidents? Or not? On holiday in Cornwall, Poirot meets a pretty young woman with an unusual name, ‘Nick’ Buckley.Upon discovering a bullet-hole in Nick’s sun hat, the great detective decides the girl needs his...

The daughter of an American millionaire dies on a train en route for Nice… When the luxurious Blue Train arrives at Nice, a guard attempts to wake serene Ruth Kettering from her slumbers. But she will never wake again – for a heavy blow has killed her,...

An old widow is brutally killed in the parlour of her cottage… ‘Mrs McGinty’s dead!’ ‘How did she die?’ ‘Down on one knee, just like I!’The old children’s game now seemed rather tasteless. The real Mrs McGinty was killed by a crushing blow to the back...

The girl who has everything… Including a bullet in the head A cruise down the Nile on a river steamer sounds like the perfect way to get away from it all – a luxurious retreat, miles from civilization.But the warm and tranquil Egyptian evening is thick...

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. ‘Is Mr. Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil?’Set on the bleak moors of Yorkshire, Lockwood is forced to seek shelter at Wuthering Heights, the home...

Can you solve the mystery before the greatest detective of all time?   Sherlock Holmes and his faithful friend, Dr John Watson, have been hired by actor George Reynolds. George wants them to find out why the audience who comes to see him perform...

‘Crazy, sexy, cool: Caroline Kepnes gets better – and Joe Goldberg gets worse – with every book’ ERIN KELLY'Caroline Kepnes writes with such malevolent energy, such dark grace and such ink-black humour. An utterly unique character and an utterly unique...

THE ISLES OF SCILLY MYSTERIES # 1‘Gripping, clever and impossible to put down' ERIN KELLYDI Ben Kitto needs a second chance. After ten years working for the murder squad in London, a traumatic event has left him grief-stricken. He’s tried to resign...

For Miss Cordell, principal of Persephone College, there are two great evils to be feared: unladylike behaviour among her students, and bad publicity for the college. So her prim and cosy world is turned upside down when a secret society of...

'This detective novel is much more than interesting. The numerous characters are well differentiated, and include one of the most feckless, exasperating and lifelike literary men that ever confused a trail.' Dorothy L. Sayers, Sunday Times, 1934 When...

'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,...

'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...

The streets of London have been home to many great detectives since the days of Sherlock Holmes and Watson, and the exploits of these city sleuths have flourished in the short story from.Featuring a roster of Scotland Yard's meticulous best, a cohort of...

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 realized that she was married to a murderer.Following the success of Malice Aforethought,...

"The Master? Dr. Greeby? You don't say so! Murdered? Dear me! Poor Greeby! This will upset my whole day's work."An Oxford Master is slain on campus during Pentecost. A headmaster faces off in a deadly battle of wits with a disgruntled parent. A...

"You have to reach for the greatest of the Great Names (Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr, Ellery Queen) to find Christianna Brand's rivals in the subtleties of the trade." Anthony Boucher in the New York TimesNight falls in the capital, and a "London...

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...

*"Fear Stalks the Village has a sense of reality about it which few thrillers possess, and the characterisation is excellent. You will enjoy thrill upon thrill." Tatler"To the connoisseur of crime the name of Ethel Lina White is one to be spoken of with...

"Her best yet. A classic story with well concealed and ingenious clues, sufficiently difficult to leave us properly surprised by both murderer and method." The SpectatorNear St. Brynneys in the Welsh border country, isolated by heavy snow and flooding...

At Elysian Hall, a great exhibition space in post-War London, a cast has been assembled for a Medieval pageant show. There are knights in coloured armour, real horses, and a fair damsel in the tower on high. Tragedy is in the air when several members of...

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...

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...

It all began with sheep-stealing. A hateful act among the shepherds of the fells, and yet not a matter of life and death. Then came arson and with the leaping of the flames, death and disorder reached the peaceful moors.Holidaying with his friends the...

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...

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...

Over a long career in the courts Justice Horace Ireton has a 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...

The red robe concealed the blood until it made my hand sticky. Father Christmas had been stabbed in the back, and he was certainly dead.The murder of Father Christmas at one of London's great toy shops is just one of many yuletide disasters in this new...

"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...

'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...

'A bookshop is a first-rate place for unobtrusive observation,' he continued. 'One can remain in it an indefinite time, dipping into one book after another, all over the place.' Mr Richard Dodsley, owner of a fine second-hand bookshop on Charing Cross...

'Mr. Anthony Berkeley deserves all gratitude for his energetic efforts to escape from the thraldom of formula... If you are hard-boiled and disillusioned about detectives, you will find this tale very refreshing.' Dorothy L. Sayers At a costume party...

'It almost seemed that the murder, if it was a murder, must have been committed by someone who could rise up unsupported in the air...'When Miles Hammond is invited to a meeting of the Murder Club in London, he is met instead with just two other guests...

'I hate murders and I hate murderers, but I must admit that the discovery of a bearded corpse would give a fillip to my jaded mind.' Vivian Lestrange celebrated author of the popular mystery novel The Charterhouse Case and total recluse has apparently...

E.C.R. Lorac must be seriously considered for the position of leading writer of classic detective stories.' Birmingham PostWhile hot on the heels of serial coupon-racketeer Gordon Ginner, Chief Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard receives word of a...

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, threesuspicious characters...

"Christianna Brand is not merely a purveyor of thrills or a maker of puzzles. She is a novelist." The Daily TelegraphWhile the Blitz bombards London, the boisterous grandchildren of Sir Richard March have descended upon Swanswater Manor in Kent for a...

"Ahoy, my lad!" he bellowed back. "I didn't expect you so early. Come for a dip! The water's fine. Everything is-" Then it happened.Mystery and murder runs amok amidst ominous peaks and icy lakes. In hushed valleys, venom flows through villages...

"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...

The headline from The Maningpool Telegraph read: TRAGIC DEATH OF SIR NOEL GRAMPIAN shot during performance Symphony Concert Calamity. As a rousing Strauss piece is reaching its crescendo in Maningpool Civic Hall, the talented yet obnoxious conductor Sir...

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...

'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...

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...

Crime author Dick Markham is in love again; his fiance 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...

'There are a dozen clever deceptions in the book, twice as many as most writers would have given us.' Julian Symons in Bloody MurderHugh Everton was intent on nothing more than quietly drinking in the second-rate hotel he found himself in on England's...

'"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 Duchne was seen heading into the Gallery of Horrors at the Muse Augustin waxworks, alive. Today...