Amateur Detective

Claire Beacham returns from a busy day at work to a parcel on her doorstep - no note, no label. As a politician, she's used to being suspicious of anonymous hate mail but today she's too tired to worry. She opens it, finding a gruesome surprise inside. A severed head falls to her kitchen floor; the rich, red drip of blood on her hands. It is clear to Claire and those around her that this terrifying package is a message. But who sent it, and why?

Londres, 1929. Maisie Dobbs abre una oficina como flamante investigadora privada en el centro de Londres y se convierte en una de las primeras mujeres detective de la época. Su primer caso, la investigación de la supuesta infidelidad dela esposa de un hombre de la alta sociedad, la lleva a un lugar conocido como El Retiro, un refugio de convalecientes de la Primera Guerra Mundial.

It is possibly the most repugnant piece of fiction in all of England. So why is Plumtree Press, one of the country's most respectable publishing houses, about to add the hotly controversial new novel to its list? Publisher Alex Plumtree isn't talking. Hardly anyone knows he has taken on the project as a favor to the Prime Minister. Forget the bad press and hateful reviews. Alex swiftly finds himself on the wrong side of a lawsuit, bugged, betrayed, roughed up, and implicated in murder. Suddenly Alex doesn't know who to trust.

Mark Ablett is hosting all his friends at his English country house when he receives a letter from his estranged brother, Robert, announcing Robert's intention to arrive from Australia. Not long after his arrival, Robert turns up dead, his body found with a bullet wound to the head, and Mark is nowhere to be seen. Antony Gillingham and his friend Bill Beverly play Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson to solve this whodunnit mystery. This is Milne's only mystery novel.

Ein Mörder in der Familie? Das kann nur Agatha Christie so spannend mitteilen! Stets hatte Jacko Argyle beteuert, seine Mutter nicht ermordet zu haben. Trotzdem wird er für die Tat verurteilt und stirbt kurz darauf im Gefängnis. Zwei Jahre später überbringt Arthur Calgary der Familie den Beweis für Jackos Unschuld. Diese ist wider Erwarten alles andere als erfreut, denn nun hat sie Gewissheit: Der Mörder muss einer von ihnen sein.

England's prestigious Plumtree Press is about to release a shocking book that exposes coded messages in a famous novel - codes alleged to be printer's errors. The messages are so treacherous, that if discovered at the original time of publication, the author would have been hung for treason. Now, with someone ruthlessly trying to keep this revealing exposé out of stores, Alex Plumtree must protect his star author and family's legacy before the phrase "publish or perish" becomes all too real!

"Only in Bologna" reads the headline in the Carlino after a professor of music is apparently murdered leaving the opera. But what looks like an open-and-shut case begins to fall apart when English detective Daniel Leicester is tasked with getting the accused man off, and a trail that begins among Bologna's close-knit classical music community leads him to suspect there may be a serial killer at large in the oldest university in the world. And as Bologna trembles with aftershocks following a recent earthquake, the city begins to give up her secrets.

Kizzy Cutler finds it so delicious to be back in her hometown of Shadow Bend, Missouri, that she seems to have forgotten why she fled 20 years ago. For now, she's excited to kick off her new line of cupcakes with a competition, which Dev has agreed to host in her shop. But before the first yummy cupcake is even baked, Kizzy's assistant, Fallon, dies from a mysterious ailment.

Alix London, the art restorer and FBI consultant renowned as the Art Whisperer, can spot a counterfeit masterpiece before the paint even dries. What she can't see is why an elite European art dealer would offer her big money for a little mirror that's no more than a homemade gift from her beloved uncle Tiny. Not that Alix would part with it at any price. But when the mirror is abruptly stolen from her home, she realizes that someone sees more in the looking glass than mere sentimental value.

Ellery Queen is persuaded to accompany an old friend and sculptor to his ancestral home when the latter arrives at Ellery's house covered in blood and unable to remember anything from the past few weeks. Once there, tensions erupt and foul play results in the murder of one of the household's members. Among the many transgressions Ellery will uncover are adultery, blackmail, and deceit.

Unorthodox, but effective. This is perhaps the best way to describe Detective Hanako Yamamoto. Competent? Certainly. Inquisitive? Undeniably. Conventional? No. Whether it's finding a missing pet or tracking down a cheating spouse, Detective Yamamoto can handle the case, especially when no one else will even bother to try.

London, 1556. Hal Westmecott, one of the city's most feared executioners, reckons Jack Blackjack owes him a favour - and now he's come to collect his dues. Hal has ordered Jack to track down his long-lost son. But when Jack's search draws him to the attention of a ruthless nobleman, a dead priest's vengeful brother and finally to a bloodstained body in a filthy lodging house, he comes to realise he is an unwitting pawn in a mesh of schemes dreamed up by the most powerful people in England. Just who is a friend, who is a foe - and will Jack escape with his life intact?

The Book of Extraordinary Impossible Crimes and Puzzling Deaths is the latest collection from legendary murder mystery editor and writer Maxim Jakubowski. Filled with impossible murders and puzzling plot twists that keep your brain on the mysteries until the last minute. Clever fictional crime stories. Some of mystery fiction's most inventive talents from the USA and UK offer a series of brand-new ingenious murder stories that will have you scratching your brow until the very last minute and delighting in Machiavellian solutions.

A note from bartender Brian McNulty, Raymond Ambler’s friend, confidant, and sometimes adviser, sets the librarian sleuth off on a murder investigation - one that he pursues reluctantly until a second murder upends the world as he knows it. The second victim is a lady friend of McNulty’s - and the prime suspect is McNulty himself.

"La scarica di adrenalina adesso era una locomotiva in corsa nelle sue vene. Nel profondo di sé, Renée Ballard sapeva che era per via di momenti come questo che non avrebbe mai mollato, qualsiasi cosa dicessero di lei, in qualsiasi turno la obbligassero a lavorare." La polizia di Los Angeles non è stata gentile con Renée Ballard: ex reporter di nera, è entrata in polizia stufa di scrivere di crimini, e impaziente di risolverne qualcuno, e in poco tempo è diventata detective alla Omicidi. Ma poi qualcosa è andato storto.

When a murder desecrates the halls of New York City's iconic 42nd Street Library, Raymond Ambler, the library's curator of crime fiction, has a personal interest in solving the crime. But his quest to solve the murder is complicated by personal entanglements involving his friend - or, perhaps, more-than-friend - Adele Morgan. Not only does Adele's relationship with the staffer who was murdered get in the way of Ambler's investigation, but her growing interest in a darkly handsome Islamic scholar disturbs him.

Murder at the 42nd Street Library follows Ambler and his partners in crime-solving as they track down a killer, shining a light on the dark deeds and secret relationships that are hidden deep inside the famous flagship building at the corner of 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. In their search for the reasons behind the murder, Ambler and his crew uncover sinister and profoundly disturbing relationships among the scholars studying in the iconic library.

In this delicious murder mystery we are introduced to Jeremy Wadlington-Smythe, a newcomer to the wonderful world of the whodunnit. In this novel, the first of the series, Jeremy, an accomplished orchestral conductor with a unique view of his mission, accepts an engagement to lead a major American symphony orchestra only to find himself in the midst of murder and mayhem.

In the merry month of May, Ellery Queen made a trek to Gettysburg to witness an annual celebration - and an annual murder. February found the ingenious Ellery locked in a furious battle of wits with a dead US president. These are but two of the 12 appointments with crime that make up Queen's baffling calendar of conundrums. Each elegant enigma ticks off all the surprise and excitement that have made Queen the dean of American detective fiction.

From the Collins Crime Club archive, the first original novel to feature Ben the Cockney tramp, the unorthodox detective character created by J. Jefferson Farjeon, author of Mystery in White. Strange things are happening in the untenanted houses of Jowle Street. There are unaccountable creakings and weird knockings on the door of no.29, where a homeless ex-sailor has taken up residence.