Classic Thrillers

A Girl of the Limberlost, a novel by the writer and naturalist Gene Stratton-Porter, was published in 1909 as the sequel to her earlier novel Freckles. The tale unfolds in and around the Limberlost Swamp of north-eastern Indiana and in the nearby town of Onabasha. The main character, Elnora Comstock, lives with her widowed mother, Katharine Comstock, on the edge of the wetlands. The embittered Katharine blames her daughter for the death of her husband, who was swallowed by quicksand.

A new translation of Georges Simenon's gripping tale of lost identity. A man picked up for wandering in obvious distress among the cars and buses on the Grands Boulevards. Questioned in French, he remains mute... A madman? In Maigret's office, he is searched. His suit is new, his underwear is new, his shoes are new. All identifying labels have been removed. No identification papers. No wallet. Five crisp thousand-franc bills have been slipped into one of his pockets.

When a murder shatters the tranquility of the luxurious Blue Train during its journey from Calais to Nice, shocking its wealthy passengers, the renowned detective Hercule Poirot is called upon to solve the case. However, this won't be an easy case; Poirot must navigate through a web of deceit, secrets, and a cast of intriguing characters on board the train. As he delves deeper into the intricacies of the case, he uncovers a surprising parallel storyline that connects to the central mystery.

The Second World War is drawing to a close. Nicholas Vaughan, released from the army after an accident, takes refuge in Devon renting a thatched cottage in the beautiful countryside at Mallory Fitzjohn. Hard work and rural peace seem to make this a happy bachelor life. On a nearby farm lives the bored, flirtatious June St Cyres, an exile from London while her husband is a Japanese POW. June’s presence attracts fashionable visitors of dubious character and threatens to spoil Vaughan’s prized seclusion. When Little Thatch is destroyed in a blaze, all Vaughan’s work goes up in smoke, and Inspector Macdonald is drafted in to uncover a motive for murder.

One of the great works of the 20th century, Kafka's The Trial has been read as a study of political power, a pessimistic religious parable, or a crime novel where the accused man is himself the problem. In it, a man wakes up one morning to find himself under arrest for an offence which is never explained. Faced with this ambiguous but threatening situation, Josef K. gradually succumbs to its psychological pressure.

A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov was published in 1840. Set in the Russian Caucasus in the 1830s, the novel relates a series of adventures by the military officer Pechorin during his travels in the Caucasus. He kidnaps the daughter of a Circassian tribesman, becomes entangled with a group of smugglers, and tries to win the affection of a Muscovite princess while having on an affair with his former lover Vera.

Ex-cop Henry Shore has been Chief Park Ranger at Crater Lake National Park for eight years and he likes his park and his life the way it's been. Safe. Tranquil. Predictable. But he's about to be tested in so many ways. First the earthquakes begin, people begin to go missing, then there's some mysterious water creature that's taken up residence in the caves below Crater Lake and it's not only growing in size, it's aggressive and cunning and very hungry.

Bram Stoker's masterpiece is at the same time intensely romantic and very modern. It unfolds the story of a Transylvanian Don Juan, the aristocratic Count Dracula who preys on desirous damsels.

First conceived during a rainy summer holiday in the Highlands of Scotland in an attempt to amuse his stepson, Treasure Island began with the map. Young Lloyd Osbourne had drawn a crude version of an island, and Stevenson, looking over the boy's shoulder, began to elaborate, christening various curves and smudges the famed names of Skeleton Island and Spyglass Hill and finally adding the three red crosses marking the buried treasure.

Rumor has it that the Scarlet Pimpernel has super powers which aid him in evading capture along with his team of men. The Scarlet Pimpernel lives a double life, one as an English aristocrat, wealthy, and popular among society's elite, and another at night when he becomes a superhero and master of disguise to the French nobles he has vowed to save. To others, such as the revolutionists, he is something darker, and dangerous - a vigilante who must be captured and stopped at once.

Lovecraft’s gothic horror masterpiece. During an investigation in Red Hook, Detective Thomas F. Malone, and discovers horrors that he never imagined. A horror classic.

Crescent Place was once a peaceful country green surrounded by five tasteful suburban houses and populated by polite, responsible citizens. But as the city enveloped it, the residents built a gate to keep the world out. With each passing year, the subdivision grew stranger and stranger - until it began to look like a time capsule of the 1890s.

In an elaborate house known as the Cloisters, Maud Wainwright rules supreme. The queen of society in the small town of Beverly, she has a table long enough to seat 100, and she keeps an iron grip on the guest list. Her right-hand woman is Pat Abbott, a local girl who is beautiful, innocent, and kind. Pat has no idea how cutthroat high society can be, but she's about to get a deadly first lesson.

In “Two Hundred Thousand Francs Reward!”, it has been a fortnight since the baroness Repstein disappeared from Paris, taking with her a fortune in jewels stolen from her husband. French detectives have chased her all over Europe, following the trail of gemstones like so many precious breadcrumbs, but she has eluded their efforts. When Arsène Lupin finds her, she will not escape so easily. Also featuring “The Wedding-Ring”, “The Sign of the Shadow”, “The Infernal Trap”, “The Red Silk Scarf”, “Shadowed by Death”, “Lupin’s Marriage”, and more.

Apart from the ubiquitous presence of the authors who work in the short story tradition, the Second Season introduces poems and novellas. The romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge is here with his haunting and supernatural sea adventure "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", while Rudyard Kipling tests the human condition with his famous poem "If". Perhaps the most potent addition in this second part is Joseph Conrad’s timeless novella "The Heart of Darkness", exploring the darkest recesses of the human soul. B. J.

Aaron Platt has spent every day of his life breaking his back to scrape a living from the rocky, played-out fields of the Adirondack farm he inherited from his sadistic father. One winter morning, he follows footprints in the snow to his barn and discovers a man freezing to death in a horse stall. What unfolds between the two men, past and present, is a brisk, gritty depiction of crime and punishment. But their harrowing story is more than that, exposing the shocking hypocrisy of the people who live in the nearby bucolic town.

Sherlock Holmes es llamado para investigar el misterioso fallecimiento del coronel Barclay. Mientras todos los indicios parecen apuntar hacia su esposa, las circunstancias del caso se tornan más extrañas con cada detalle descubierto. Las huellas de un desconocido y de una criatura peculiar despiertan la curiosidad de Holmes. Detrás del caso se oculta una red de antiguos secretos, rivalidades y traiciones que datan de tiempos de guerra. Holmes deberá utilizar toda su astucia para desvelar la verdad detrás de este enigma, donde nada es lo que parece.

Nicolai Gogol's classic ghost story set in the streets of St. Petersburg in the 19th century.

Jim Thompson's classic The Grifters is one of the best novels ever written about the art of the con, an ingeniously crafted story of deception and betrayal that was the basis for the critically acclaimed film by Stephen Frears and Martin Scorcese. To his friends, to his coworkers, and even to his mistress Moira, Roy Dillon is an honest hardworking salesman. He lives in a cheap hotel just within his pay bracket. He goes to work every day. He has hundreds of friends and associates who could attest to his good character.

In these eight intriguing tales, Holmes and Watson solve cases that range from the suspicious to the downright strange. They encounter mysteries as diverse as vanishing staff, secret plans and eccentric lodgers as Holmes is struck down by a rare tropical disease and, later, lured away from retirement to help his country on the eve of war.