Classic Mystery

Martha Macnamara knows that her daughter, Elizabeth, is in trouble; she just doesn't know what kind. Mysterious phone calls from San Francisco at odd hours of the night are the only contact she has had with Elizabeth for years. Now, Elizabeth has sent her a plane ticket and reserved a room for her at San Francisco's most luxurious hotel. Yet she has not tried to contact Martha since she arrived, leaving her lonely, confused, and a little bit worried. Into the story steps Mayland Long, a distinguished-looking and wealthy Chinese man who lives at the hotel and is drawn to Martha's good nature and ability to pinpoint the truth of a matter.

Fenton Hardy requests his sons, Frank and Joe, to help him solve a case of stolen gold in Montana. The gang who stole the gold attempts to thwart their train ride from their home in Bayport on Barmet Bay on the Atlantic coast to Lucky Bottom, Montana. After finally arriving, the boys face more trouble with the gang as well as a mine shaft cave-in, a Rocky Mountain Blizzard, a pack of wolves, and finally Black Pepper, the leader of the gang. On top of all that, the boys needed to discover who was the first thief and who are the rightful owners of the gold.

"Make me beautiful." That's what Marci wants from the old woman, not "inner beauty", but real, physical attractiveness to save her from being a teenage outcast. The woman offers a gift in the form of a story, a strange tale from 1940s Bosnia about a group of soldiers who terrorize a town of women and children, brutalize their priest, and murder a child.

Inspector Maigret must untangle the web of lies left behind by a murdered man whose family didn't know him as well as they thought. When a man is found stabbed to death in an alley off Boulevard Saint-Martin, his identity card shows a workplace that had gone out of business three years earlier. As far as his wife knew, he still worked there, and she insists that the shoes and a tie he was wearing when he was killed 'couldn't be his'.

When a postwar search for London lodgings introduces ailing doctor John H. Watson to quirky chemist Sherlock Holmes, their collaboration in the art of observation and deduction begins. Congenial flatmates and even better colleagues, the pair is quickly drawn into a case of murder and revenge that has Scotland Yard at their wits’ end.

The Duke of Denver, accused of murder, stands trial for his life in the House of Lords. Naturally, his brother Lord Peter Wimsey is investigating the crime - this is a family affair. The murder took place at the duke's shooting lodge and Lord Peter's sister was engaged to marry the dead man. But why does the duke refuse to co-operate with the investigation? Can he really be guilty, or is he covering up for someone?

Beloved author Mary Stewart's long-lost novella, now available again for the first time in 40 years. In 1879 a wealthy young woman elopes with an impoverished fisherman, leaving her family, who live on the volcanic island of Lanzarote, distraught. In 1968, 23-year-old Perdita West, secretary to the famous author Cora Gresham, visits Lanzarote, the strangest and wildest of the Canary Isles, on a research trip. They meet Cora's estranged son, Mike, and fall in love with the unusual, beautiful little island.

With his partner away on a honeymoon, Yorkshire detective Andrew Dalziel tries to beat the blues by taking a vacation of his own. But after getting caught in a torrential rain and running into a funeral procession, he winds up accompanying a crowd of upper-class mourners to a crumbling country house. Dalziel isn't known for his elegant manners, but he has bigger problems than not fitting in: The owner of the home has died under unusual circumstances, and soon more bodies are turning up.

The first action thriller by the classic adventure writer, set in Italy. When the Allies invaded Southern Italy in 1943, Mussolini's personal treasure was moved north to safety under heavily armed guard. It was never seen again. Now an expedition plans to unearth the treasure and smuggle it out of Italy. But their reckless mission is being followed - by enemies who are as powerful and ruthless as they are deadly.

Extensively revised by Nabokov in 1965 - 30 years after its original publication - Despair is the wickedly inventive and richly derisive story of Hermann, a man who undertakes the perfect crime: his own murder. One of the 20th century’s master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States, and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator.

Julian, Dick, Anne, George and Timmy the dog find excitement and adventure wherever they go in Enid Blyton's most popular series. In book 20, the Famous Five visit Whispering Island, another mysterious place with a million stories surrounding it. Is it really haunted? It's all fun and games until the Five get stranded there and realise they're not the only ones on the island.

Stuart Reid is an Iron Master - a Dark Fae with a rare ability to make iron do his bidding. Exiled by the High Fae who fear him, he now lives in a simple house in Shiftertown outside Las Vegas, watching over Peigi, a bear Shifter woman, and the cubs she cares for. Peigi, rescued from an evil Shifter and welcomed into the Vegas Shiftertown, knows Reid and the cubs have helped her survive and heal. When Reid’s people send him a call for help, Peigi senses danger to him - too much of it. She finds she’ll do anything, even sacrifice herself and her happiness, to keep him safe.

Madame Maigret takes the lead in a disturbing investigation in this new translation, book 34 of the Maigret series. Inspector Maigret's wife turns sleuth after a strange encounter in a Paris square leads her on the trail of a woman in a white hat and towards a grisly tale of deception and greed.

Promoted to the rank of Monsignor, Quixote and his friend Sancho, the ex-mayor of El Toboso and an avid Communist, set off on their travels in the rusty old car the call Rocinante. Together, they roam through modern-day Spain in a brilliant picaresque fable that, like Cervantes' classic, offers enduring insights into our life and times. Cyril Cusack reads Grahame Greene’s moving, hilarious novel about a Catholic priest and his friend, a Marxist mayor.

Action thriller about security consultant Max Stafford, set in the Sahara. Written by the classic adventure writer. Why is Max Stafford, security consultant, beaten up in his own office? What is the secret of the famous 1930s aircraft the Lockheed Lodestar? And why has accountant Paul Bilson disappeared in North Africa? The journey to the Sahara desert becomes a race to save Paul Bilson, a race to find the buried aircraft, and - above all - a race to return alive....

When a man is found dead in a freshly dug grave adjacent to a golf course, Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings arrive on the scene only to be met by a hostile local police detective who is unwilling to share information. But Poirot's methodical investigation slowly and surely reveals the real killer amid a host of suspects and clues, including an impassioned love letter and heavy lead piping found near the body. However, as Poirot and Hastings rush to solve the murder, a similarly slain corpse and fresh clues are discovered.

The sinister Madame de Rougierre is employed as governess to the young Maud Ruthven, bringing with her a dark cloud of impending doom that hangs over the whole household. The governess eventually leaves, in possession of a dark secret, but that is not the end of her, much to Maud’s dismay.

As a dense yellow fog swirls through the streets of London, a deep melancholy has descended on Sherlock Holmes, who sits in a cocaine-induced haze at 221B Baker Street. His mood is only lifted by a visit from a beautiful but distressed young woman - Mary Morstan, whose father vanished 10 years before. Four years later, she began to receive an exquisite gift every year: a large, lustrous pearl. Now she has had an intriguing invitation to meet her unknown benefactor and urges Holmes and Watson to accompany her.

Chief Inspector Macdonald has been invited to a treasure hunt party at the house of the Graham Coombe, the celebrated publisher of Murder by Mesmerism. The clues of the hunt have been devised by Coombe's thriller-writer friends, disguised on the night under literary pseudonyms. The fun comes to an abrupt end, however, when 'Samuel Pepys' is found murdered in the telephone room in bizarre circumstances.

They were meant to be safe on Fleet Ward: psychiatric patients monitored, treated, cared for. But now one of their number is found murdered, and the accusations begin to fly. Was it one of his fellow patients? A member of staff? Or did someone come in from the outside? DC Alice Armitage is methodical, tireless, and she's quickly on the trail of the killer. The only problem is, Alice is a patient too.