Classic crime and mystery fiction Books

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...

"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...

What would you do if you found yourself in the world of the classic crime novel? How would you avoid being framed for murder or evade an untimely demise? Let classic crime expert Kate Jackson give you the tools to survive the golden age murder mystery...

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...

"A war's on and a murder has been committed-and we sit here talking nonsense about almond whirls and mince pies!"Good old Uncle Willie-rich, truculent and seemingly propped up by his fierce willpower alone-has come to stay with the Redpaths for the...

'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...

On a dismally foggy night in Hampstead, London, a curious party has gathered in an artist's studio to weather the wartime blackout. A civil servant and a government scientist are matching wits in a game of chess, while an artist paints the portrait of...

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,...

Staffordshire in the 1950s. Within the clay tanks at the pottery company Shentall's, a body has been found. Amid cries of industrial espionage and sabotage of this leader of the pottery industry, there is a case of bitter murder to solve for Inspector...

In London's Bloomsbury, Inspector Julian Rivers of Scotland Yard looks down at a dismal scene. Here is the victim, burnt to a crisp. Here are the clues - clues which point to a good climber and expert skier, and which lead Rivers to the piercing sunshine...

'That is the case. Alison has been murdered. His blazing body was seen running about the battlements of Castle Skull.'And so a dark shadow looms over the Rhineland where Inspector Henri Bencolin and his accomplice Jeff Marle have arrived from Paris...

"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...

Death in White Pyjamas: A theatre-owner, a 'slightly sinister' producer, a burgeoning playwright and a cast of ego-driven actors have gathered at a country home to read through the promising script for Pigs in Porcelain. Before the production ever...

"Her writing is moment by moment intense, and successful as such... What propels the reader through the pages is not the tug of 'who done it' nor the excitement of men with guns coming through doors, but the sheer excellence of the writing." H.R.F...

Some of the Latest and Best from the Whodunnit Genre "...simply the best short mystery and crime fiction of the year and a real treat for crime-fiction fans." Leonard CarpenterLusitania Lost The Book of Extraordinary Impossible Crimes and Puzzling...

New Sherlock Holmes Historical Fiction Thriller The Tarleton Murders: A corking good early Sherlock Holmes story that any mystery reader will love. Find out the answers to many tantalizing Sherlock Holmes questions in The Tarleton Murders, the book that...

Things get murky when a ferry captain is found dead in the water in this mystery starring Inspector Littlejohn, "the model of a calm, rational policeman" (Publishers Weekly).After a ferry to Falbright carrying forty people runs aground, the skipper is...

Inspector Littlejohn is once again summoned to the Isle of Man when a local vicar is accused of murder in this long-running British mystery series.As a rule, the towns of the Isle of Man are eerily silent after dark. But that silence is shattered one...

Two separate murders put CI Littlejohn on a devious killer's twisting path in this long-running British mystery series.Finlo Crennell, the former harbourmaster of Castletown, was reported missing one week ago. Now he's turned up in London, wandering the...

A classic from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. "One of the best books by a mystery novelist whose work is always of first rank." -The New York TimesSomething is afoot at the Ivory Gallery in London. A string of suspicious incidents-a Kang-Tse vase...

A classic collection of mystery stories: "With skillful plotting laced with tongue-in-cheek humor, Allingham never ceases to intrigue and surprise" (Daily Mail).This volume offer eighteen delightful mysteries from the Queen of Crime that will baffle the...

Inspector Littlejohn confronts a challenging case across the Channel in this classic mystery from the "venerable" British author (Kirkus Reviews).When Alderman Dawson is stabbed to death while visiting the Riviera with a group of English tourists,...

Murder and skullduggery on the oldest course in golf. St. Andrews might never be the same again.Private investigator John Royle takes on a routine missing person case in search of his client's brother. When the body turns up in a bunker on the Old Course...

The sleepy beach town of Summer Haven is waking up to a new nightmare-reality TV!Lance Avery-host of thepopular adventure documentary show "Mysterious Expedition"-is in town to investigate a sunken shipwreck rumored to be the flagship of the infamous...