Classic English Mystery

The last of John Buchan’s thrillers and the final appearance of Richard Hannay now in retirement reverie deep in the comfortable Cotswolds.However, he and Sandy [Lord Clanroyden] are roused to action once more to help the son of a recently deceased treasure hunter, called Haraldsen. The heir is receiving threats from Lancelot Troth, a man who believes himself ill treated financially by Haraldsen’s father and seeks revenge and reparation.

It's a race against the clock in this tale of danger and intrigue. In the glitzy era of the 1920s, charming armature sleuths, Tommy and Tuppence set out to solve the mysterious disappearance of a client and unravel a mysterious plot involving blackmail, international intrigue, and perhaps even the sinking of the Lusitania. When labor unrest erupts in England, the situation could turn deadly if a state secret falls into the wrong hands, but Tuppence has no qualms in accepting a job offer to stop that from happening.

"Circus" Brown's father makes a life-changing decision at a revival meeting. Will he be able to stay on the narrow path? Back in the woods, the mean Till boys and the Sugar Creek Gang wrestle over a patch of wild strawberries. This leads to an encounter with an angry black bear. Join the gang as they learn to apply the lesson of forgiving 70 times seven in the face of great danger.

The Moonstone, a priceless yellow diamond, is looted from an Indian temple and maliciously bequeathed to Rachel Verinder. On her 18th birthday, her friend and suitor Franklin Blake brings the gift to her. That very night, it is stolen again. No one is above suspicion, as the idiosyncratic Sergeant Cuff and the Franklin piece together a puzzling series of events as mystifying as an opium dream and as deceptive as the nearby Shivering Sand.

Louie Thorne is good at only one thing. Killing. She knows peace only when she kills and this relentless thirst drives her to hunt the world's worst crime lords. But when her cancer-stricken aunt makes a dying wish, Louie is torn between her own dark nature and a promise made to the only family she has left.

These timeless stories are perfect for young fans of mystery, adventure or detective series. A store of stolen silver, a surprising view through a telescope, a shrill scream on a night out, a disappearing cash box, a dangerous accident and a trap for the Secret Seven! Solve the mystery with the Secret Seven in these six classic short stories by Enid Blyton - perfect for bedtime listening! The stories were originally published in books and magazines in the 1940s and 1950s. This audio recording features the classic texts.

Harmon Cooper presents Book 8 in the Cherry Blossom Girls series.

A psychological thriller before its time, James Hogg’s Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, published in 1824, takes us back to the world of 18th-century Scotland, into a mind haunted by religious obsession, and driven to commit murder. The events are told from several different viewpoints, so that truth and reality appear to dissolve in this disturbing story of the dark legacy of Calvinist doctrine, and how it led one man to madness.

Julian, Dick, Anne, George and Timmy the dog find excitement and adventure wherever they go in Enid Blyton's most popular series. In book 18, the Famous Five hunt for the lost dungeons of a ruined castle on Finniston Farm. The friends are determined to find them, and whatever they hide, but they are not alone. Can the Famous Five get there first?

Julian, Dick, Anne, George and Timmy the dog find excitement and adventure wherever they go in Enid Blyton's most popular series. In book nine, the Famous Five are really worried - George and her devoted Timmy have disappeared. Not only that, somebody has broken into Kirrin Cottage. Could there be a connection? Will the Five find George and Timmy and bring them home safe?

In his junior year at college, the only things on Sean's mind are doing his homework and getting out of college to get a real job. A gamer and a bit of a nerd, Sean's philosophy in life has been to keep his head down and get his work done. But when a failed kidnapping attempt leaves him with a gaping hole in his memory, his oldest friend dead, and his mother missing, Sean suddenly finds his whole world turned upside down as he's thrust into the hidden world of magic and the supernatural.

A new translation, by David Bellos, of this chilling novel, set on the Belgian border. "She wasn't an ordinary supplicant. She didn't lower her eyes. There was nothing humble about her bearing. She spoke frankly, looking straight ahead, as if to claim what was rightfully hers. 'If you don't agree to look at our case, my parents and I will be lost, and it will be the most hateful legal error..." Maigret is asked to the windswept, rainy border town of Givet by a young woman desperate to clear her family of murder.

New Mark Twain! This previously unpublished Twain piece was written 125 years ago, composed in 1876 as a "blind novelette" that Twain planned to launch as a competition for other great writers of the day. The competition never took place, and the story was thought by many to have been lost. This rediscovered gem, with a new introduction and afterword by Roy Blount, Jr., and brilliantly read by Blount and Garrison Keillor, allows us, once again, to celebrate the literary genius of Mark Twain.

Randy and Oliver Melendy awake one morning full of gloom. Their brothers and sisters are away, the house seems forlorn and empty, and even Cuffy, their adored housekeeper, can't pick up their spirits. Will they have to face a long and lonely winter?

This classic memoir by the remarkable French explorer and Buddhist Alexandra David-Néel is the one of the greatest Buddhist travelogues of the 20th century. She was the first European woman to meet the Dalai Lama (in the 1920s) and in 1924 became the first to enter the forbidden Tibetan capital, Lhasa. She had already spent a decade travelling through China and Sikkim, India; lived and meditated in a cave on the Tibetan border; and everywhere learned about Buddhism from hermits, mystics and bandits.

Published in January 1922, The Secret Adversary is the second detective fiction novel by British crime novelist Agatha Christie. The book introduces the characters of Tommy Beresford and Prudence Tuppence Cowley, two out-of-work 20-somethings in post-war London. The two agree to form The Young Adventurers, Ltd, hiring themselves out with the slogan no reasonable offer refused. They are quickly enlisted to solve the mysterious disappearance of a young woman who was entrusted with sensitive diplomatic documents amid the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.

October “Toby” Daye is finally doing all right. She’s settling into her new role as the Countess of Goldengreen; she’s actually dating again; she’s even agreed to take on Quentin as her official squire. Life is looking up all around - and that inevitably means it’s time for things to take a turn for the worse. Someone has kidnapped the sons of Duchess Dianda Lorden, regent of the Undersea Duchy of Saltmist. To prevent a war between land and sea, Toby must not only find the missing boys, but also prove that the Queen of the Mists was not behind their abduction.

In the only novel Conrad set in London, The Secret Agent communicates a profoundly ironic view of human affairs. The story is woven around an attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1894 masterminded by Verloc, a Russian spy working for the police, and ostensibly a member of an anarchist group in Soho. His masters instruct him to discredit the anarchists in a humiliating fashion, and when his evil plan goes horribly awry, Verlac must deal with the repercussions of his actions.

Raven is a ruthless assassin, a hired killer, whose cold-blooded murder of the minister for war will have violent repercussions across Europe. As the nation prepares for battle, Raven goes on the run, hunted by the police and in search of the man who paid him in stolen banknotes, eventually unearthing the terrible truth behind his deadly assignment.

"The 120 Days of Sodom" is "the most impure tale that has ever been told since our world began". It was written by the Marquis de Sade, a french noble man, in the space of 37 days, while imprisoned in the famous parisian Bastille. Fearing confiscation, the Marquis de Sade, Donatien-Alphonse-François, had to write it on a continuous roll of paper, made up of small pieces glued together. The original manuscript is now on display in Paris, and is the third most expensive kept in France, insured for 12 million euros.