Classic Fiction Mysteries

At what point in the day could the note have been slipped into his pocket, his left breast pocket? It was an ordinary sheet of glazed squared paper, probably torn out of an exercise book. The words were written in pencil, in a regular handwriting that looked to him like a woman's. For pity's sake, ask to see the patient in room 15. When Inspector Maigret's wife falls ill on their seaside holiday, a visit to the hospital leads him on an unexpected quest to find justice for a young girl.

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in Graham's Magazine in 1841. It has been claimed as the first detective story; Poe referred to it as one of his "tales of ratiocination".

Exiled from Paris, Maigret discovers some disturbing secrets in a sleepy coastal town in this new translation. A short, sprightly man appeared in the doorway, looked left and right, and went back into the passage. A moment later, the improbable happened. The little man reappeared, bent over, clinging to a long mass that he now started dragging through the mud. It must have been heavy. After four metres, he stopped to catch his breath. The front door of the house had been left open.

In Europe, the Americans are pulling out their troops in a tide of isolationism. Britain, torn between loyalties to America and the continent, is caught betwixt and between. In America, a space shuttle crashes on landing, killing all but one of the crew on-board: A British man named Mike Dreyfuss, who will become vilified by the US press and protesters. Halfway across the world, Martin Hepton, an English ground control technician watches as they lose contact with the most advanced satellite in Europe.

A thriller writer is embroiled in a real-life whodunit when a friend drops dead with her hatpin impaled in his back. The violation of a sealed West Bank tomb, its rock walls intact, provides a Thebes investigator with a mystifying conundrum. Two sisters take shelter in a shuttered old house at the end of a country road . . . only to discover they're not alone. And the author's most beloved characters, Amelia Peabody and Radcliff Emerson, make an appearance in a newly uncovered tale with a witty nod to Sherlock Holmes.

In The Secret of the Indian, Omri vowed to lock his magical cupboard forever. But now, in The Mystery of the Cupboard, he finds an old journal written by his great-great aunt that reveals that Omri is compelled to open the cupboard just once again.

A young woman named Lulu, who has a history of brushes with the law and once lived on the streets of the 18th arrondissement, is found murdered in Paris. Maigret is called to the scene and soon learns that her boyfriend, a musician, has gone into hiding upon reading the news of her death. And when the inspector learns that the young victim was pregnant, he begins to suspect the case might be more sinister than he imagined.

The Aldens are visiting Grandfather’s friend Abby in Peachland, Canada - home of the mysterious lake monster called Ogopogo. When the children learn that Abby must sell her resort unless she can attract more business, they decide to help. But someone or something is trying to get in their way. Can they save the resort?

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.

Set in a small Cotswold town, Inspector Hobbes and the Blood is a fast-paced comedy cozy mystery fantasy about the adventures of Andy, an incompetent reporter, when he is reluctantly working with Inspector Hobbes, a police detective with a reputation. Andy soon finds himself immersed in a world where not everyone is human, and a late-night visit to a churchyard nearly results in grave consequences, and a ghoulish outcome. An accidental fire leads to Andy having to doss in Hobbes's spare room.

Camping in the north woods, fishing, boating and hiking all suddenly become commonplace experiences to the members of the Sugar Creek Gang as they learn about the rites of Chippewa burial ceremonies from a real live Indian. But that is not all that happens as they visit the Indian cemetery.

Sarah Crowe left Atlanta, and the remnants of a tumultuous relationship, to live alone in an old house in rural Rhode Island. Within its walls she discovers an unfinished manuscript written by the house's former tenant - a parapsychologist obsessed with the ancient oak growing on a desolate corner of the property. And as the gnarled tree takes root in her imagination, Sarah risks her health and her sanity to unearth a revelation planted centuries ago.

Halloween Night, 1954. A young, film-obsessed scriptwriter has just been hired at one of the great studios. An anonymous investigation leads from the giant Maximus Films backlot to an eerie graveyard separated from the studio by a single wall. There he makes a terrifying discovery that thrusts him into a maelstrom of intrigue and mystery - and into the dizzy exhilaration of the movie industry at the height of its glittering power.

Three men meet on a ship bound for Haiti, a world in the grip of the corrupt 'Papa Doc' and the Tontons Macoute, his sinister secret police. Brown the hotelier, Smith the innocent American, and Jones the confidence man - these are the 'comedians' of Graham Greene's title. Hiding behind their actors' masks, they hesitate on the edge of life. And, to begin with, they are men afraid of love, afraid of pain, afraid of fear itself.

A priceless pearl necklace goes missing. The Secret Seven are first off the mark to catch the thief. Why? Because they saw him making his escape! Now all they have to do is find the necklace.

Drug dealers, hustlers, brothels, dirty politics, corrupt cops...and sorcery. Welcome to Low Town. In the forgotten back alleys and flophouses that lie in the shadows of Rigus, the finest city of the Thirteen Lands, you will find Low Town. It is an ugly place, and its cham­pion is an ugly man. Disgraced intelligence agent. Forgotten war hero. Independent drug dealer. After a fall from grace five years ago, a man known as the Warden leads a life of crime, addicted to cheap violence and expensive drugs.

'You see, I mainly work at night. I've ended up getting to know everybody. They're used to me in Pigalle, I exchange a few words with this person or that person. I go into the bars and cabarets where they give me a quarter bottle of Vichy without waiting for me to order anything.' An anonymous tip-off regarding the death of a restaurant owner sends Maigret into the world of Parisian nightlife, a notorious criminal gang and a man known as 'the Flea'. This novel has been pubished in a previous translation as Maigret and the Flea.

Scobie, a police officer in a West African colony, is a good and honest man. But when he falls in love, he is forced into a betrayal of everything that he has ever believed in, and his struggle to maintain the happiness of two women destroys him.

Maigret savoured the sensations of his youth again: the cold, stinging eyes, frozen fingertips, an aftertaste of coffee. Then, stepping inside the church, a blast of heat, soft light; the smell of candles and incense. The last time Maigret went home to the village of his birth was for his father's funeral. Now an anonymous note predicting a crime during All Souls' Day mass draws him back there, where troubling memories resurface and hidden vices are revealed. Georges Simenon was born in Liège, Belgium, in 1903.

Welcome to Hemlock Cove, where the town is magically rebranded - but real witches aren't necessarily welcome. That makes things hard for the Winchester witches - including local newspaper reporter Bay. She's got a persnickety family - wait until you met Aunt Tillie - and a penchant for stumbling across trouble.