Amateur Detectives Mystery

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.

While Kate winds her way through the elaborate manor, gaining inspiration for her next Gothic novel, Lord Charles discovers the reason behind their journey. It seems Prince Eddy, heir to the throne until his purported death in 1892, has actually been alive all these years. Deemed unfit to rule, he has been living secretly at Glamis under an assumed name. But now the prince has gone missing—on the very morning the body of one of his servants was found, her throat slashed in a manner eerily reminiscent of the Ripper's.

When Robin Anstey KC comes upon the beautiful Miss Blake, who has been wounded while courageously attempting to detain a fleeing murderer, he calls upon his long-time legal collaborator Dr. John Thorndyke to investigate the killing. But what at first looks like a mere robbery gone wrong, leaving a scene awash with clues, in fact proves to be far from straightforward. And while trying to untie that knot, Thorndyke also interests himself in the still more complex mystery of Miss Blake's family inheritance, and the cat's eye pendant....

As the hotel launches an addition to its overnight amenities on a neighboring property, Delia Sanchez MacBride, the Loring’s principal owner and hospitality manager, is haunted by premonitions of disaster. Delia’s worst fears begin to materialize when the hotel’s most macabre secret is literally unearthed, namely when the bodily remains of The Forgotten Fifty, a group of townspeople who vanished without a trace a century ago, are revealed as being buried in the Loring’s basement.

It's Carnival time in Rio, and Fletch has plenty of money, thanks to a little arrangement he made stateside. But between the American widow who seems to be following Fletch and the Brazilian widow who's fingered Fletch as her long-dead husband, he suddenly doesn't have much time to enjoy the present or even get a wink of sleep. A 30-year-old unsolved murder, a more recent suicide, an inconvenient heart attack - somehow Fletch is connected to all of them, and one of those connections might just shorten his own life.

On holiday in the beautiful country of Brosnia, Agaton Sax and his faithful dachshund Tickie find themselves on the wrong side of the law when the great detective is declared to be an imposter.

As night falls, 17-year-old Cassie Baker leaves Winchcome and takes her usual shortcut down a moonlit country lane. She never makes it home. With no body and no evidence, she's just another teenage runaway.

Let Ellery Queen clue you in on his special brand of high tension, brain-teasing mystery! This collection consists of novelettes and short stories from Queen's many escapades.

June wedding bells are ringing! Cameron Cripps Hayman is the matron of honor, and her five furry good boys are all ushers, so what could go wrong? The day before the wedding, the new pastor is found hanging from the choir loft. It's ruled a suicide by the police, but Cam and her Action Agency suspect foul play. Cam's police-officer husband warns her to not stir up trouble where none exists, but when the pastor's home is ransacked, it's clear to Cam that she was murdered.

Sam Strait didn’t want to leave home early for the snowbird season, but the rules he lived his life by demanded it. When a relationship turned sour, the rules dictated he pack his bags and get out of town. He could have gone anywhere in the world, but Sam picked Phoenix, Arizona. With its beautiful women, fall baseball league, and warm winters, what more could a single guy ask for? When the death of a new friend brings violent strangers into his life, Sam is forced to make a choice—run out of town or find a killer.

It's harvest season at Montgomery Estate Vineyard - the busiest time of year for winemakers in Atoka, Virginia. A skull is unearthed near Lucie Montgomery's family cemetery, and the discovery of the bones coincides with the arrival of handsome, wealthy aristocrat Jean-Claude de Merignac. He's come to be the head winemaker at neighboring La Vigne Cellars, but he's no stranger to Lucie - he was her first crush 20 years ago when she spent a summer in France. Not long after his arrival, Jean-Claude is found dead.

London, 1920: Boston-bred Enoch Hale, working as a reporter for the Central News Syndicate, arrives on the scene shortly after a music-hall escape artist is found hanging from the ceiling in his dressing room. What at first appears to be a suicide turns out to be murder...the first of several using the same modus operandi. What's the connecting factor among all the victims? Or isn't there one? That's what the dogged journalist Hale aims to find out.

Things are always odd and strange in Metamora, but when the proprietor of the curiosity shop, Odd and Strange Metamora, hosts a spring carnival showing off his collection of oddities, the day goes right in the garbage - or rather, out of the garbage when a raccoon overturns a trash can in the middle of town scattering human bones around the park. When it's discovered that the remains date back over a century, rumors start to run as rampant as the pack of furry bandits taking over the town at night.

This rare volume is a collection of some of Queen's best, containing three novelettes and two short stories. The stories include "The Death of Don Juan", "The Wrightsville Heirs", "The Case Against Carroll", "E = Murder", and "Diamonds in Paradise". Ellery Queen stars in all of them, making this collection a must-listen for mystery fans.

"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.

Após uma tacada especialmente ruim, Bobby Jones lança sua bola de golfe em um precipício. Ao procurá-la, encontra um homem acidentado que parece estar em seus momentos finais. Pouco antes de morrer, o moribundo abre os olhos e proclama suas últimas palavras: "Por que não pediram a Evans?" Assombrados pela pergunta, Bobby e sua amiga Frankie tentam descobrir quem é Evans e o que exatamente não lhe foi pedido. Porém, os dois logo percebem que, por mais que não sejam detetives profissionais, os perigos dessa investigação são muito reais.

Die Einwohner des kleinen englischen Ortes Cotton Abbas haben ein Problem: Immer mehr Neureiche zieht es in das florierende Dörfchen - und das gefällt bei Weitem nicht jedem. Bald nach ihrer Ankunft erhalten die Neuankömmlinge anonyme Briefe, prall gefüllt mit dunklen Geheimnissen und dreckiger Wäsche. Unter den Einwohnern wachsen Hass und Niedertracht. Anonyme Nachrichten sind eine Sache, doch bald schon stören noch ernsthaftere Ereignisse den Frieden in Cotton Abbas: ein Mord, ein Selbstmord und ein mysteriöses Verschwinden.

Urkomisch und spannend zugleich - Ein Klassiker unter den Detektivromanen. England Ende der 40er Jahre. In der Castrevenford School in Straford-upon-Avon steht das große Schulfest an. Mit dabei ist Gervase Fen, Englischprofessor, Exzentriker und Amateurdetektiv, dazu auserkoren einige Preise zu verleihen sowie eine Rede zu halten. Doch am Abend vor dem großen Tag nehmen ungewöhnliche Ereignisse ihren Lauf, an deren Ende zwei Mitglieder des Personals tot aufgefunden werden. Mord steht ganz offensichtlich neu auf dem Programm. Der Schuldirektor bittet Gervase Fen, sich des Falles anzunehmen.

Ein Spielzeugladen löst sich in Luft auf. England im Herbst 1938. Um seine Schreibblockade zu lösen, begibt sich der Lyriker Richard Cardogan nach Oxford. Kaum in der Universitätsstadt angekommen, ist ihm die exakte Adresse seiner Unterkunft entfallen. So stolpert er prompt in einen Spielzeugladen und darin über die Leiche einer Frau. Bevor er auch nur einen klaren Gedanken fassen kann, trifft ihn ein Schlag auf den Hinterkopf und er findet sich am folgenden Tag auf dem Boden des Lagerraums wieder.

England in den 40er Jahren. Englischprofessor und Teilzeitdetektiv Gervase Fen verbringt gerade seine Ferien in dem kleinen Städtchen Tolnbridge, als es mit der Erholung schlagartig ein Ende hat. Auf den örtlichen Organisten wurde ein Mordanschlag verübt. Der Mann hat weder Feinde, noch kann seine völlig harmlose Musik der Auslöser gewesen sein. Als Ersatz für den Organisten beordert Fen einen befreundeten Musiker in die Provinz, den prompt ein Drohbrief erreicht. Eins ist klar, hinter der kleinstädtischen Idylle verbirgt Tolnbridge ein Geheimnis. Bald machen Gerüchte die Runde.