Classic Thrillers

After the explosive events of the Copper Heart, Lydia must deal with a secret service operative with murder in his heart. The mysterious Mr Smith has sent a professional assassin after Lydia and the bonds of blood are stretched to breaking point when it turns out to be someone very close to home. Meanwhile, the head of the powerful Silver Family is demanding a favour and Lydia must comply or risk their fledgling alliance. To be strong enough to beat the odds stacked against her, Lydia must delve deep into Crow Family lore, but what she discovers is far from a fairy tale.

Eugene Onegin is the master work of the poet whom Russians regard as the fountainhead of their literature. Set in 1820s imperial Russia, Pushkin's novel in verse follows the emotions and destiny of three men - Onegin the bored fop, Lensky the minor elegiast, and a stylized Pushkin himself - and the fates and affections of three women - Tatyana the provincial beauty, her sister Olga, and Pushkin's mercurial Muse.

Begun in 1959 by a twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary is a brilliantly tangled love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s.

Did one of the Cavendish brothers poison their stepmother, Mrs. Iglethorp, or was it her new husband? Nadia May reads with such a delightful English accent, intonation, and careful pacing that the suspense and drama build gradually. Each character is easily distinguishable and a treat to listen to, especially Poirot. This baffling tale with many characters is well worth this listening experience. The compulsion to discover the truth is motive enough for all.

When a stranger attempting to deliver a cryptic message is shot dead at his dinner table, Richard Ames is thrown headfirst into danger, intrigue, and other dimensions where Lazarus Long still thrives, where Jubal Harshaw lives surrounded by beautiful women, and where a daring plot to rescue the sentient computer called Mike can change the direction of all human history.

Casino Royale, the first novel by the British author Ian Fleming, was published in 1953. As the first James Bond book, it paved the way for a further 11 novels and two short story collections by Fleming, and numerous further Bond novels by other authors. It tells the story of the British secret agent James Bond, gambling at the casino in Royale-les-Eaux to bankrupt the treasurer of a communist union who is a secret member of Soviet state intelligence. The novel is packed with intrigue, action, close escapes, clever spy gadgets, intrigue, and glamorous women.

Life’s always an adventure for the Athena Club...especially when one of their own has been kidnapped! After their thrilling European escapades rescuing Lucina van Helsing, Mary Jekyll, and her friends return home to discover that their friend and kitchen maid Alice has vanished - and so has their friend and employer Sherlock Holmes! As they race to find Alice and bring her home safely, they discover that Alice and Sherlock’s kidnapping are only one small part of a plot that threatens Queen Victoria, and the very future of the British Empire.

When a gay Los Angeles magician named Parsifal dies suddenly, he leaves behind his heartbroken assistant, Sabine, and a secret past that leads her to Nebraska and a father she never knew he had.

A land-surveyor, known only as K., arrives at a small village permanently covered in snow and dominated by a castle to which access seems permanently denied. K.'s attempts to discover why he has been called constantly run up against the peasant villagers, who are in thrall to the absurd bureaucracy that keeps the castle shut, and the rigid hierarchy of power among the self-serving bureaucrats themselves.

Wide Is the Gate followed the 1943 Pulitzer Prize-winning Dragon’s Teeth and introduces Lanny as a secret double agent fighting the Nazis as a supporter of the resistance in Germany. Lanny is living in England with his wife of almost five years, Irma Barnes, the twenty-three-million-dollar heiress. But Lanny is conflicted continuously in his heart and soul for the workers and social justice. He attempts to commit to Irma, to “behave” himself and lead a normal aristocratic life.

When a mysterious body is discovered in a bathtub, wearing only a pair of spectacles, the case seems destined to remain unsolved. But Lord Peter Wimsey, a sophisticated amateur detective, takes on the challenge, unraveling clues and exposing hidden motives in a story filled with suspense and clever twists.

When Shai is caught replacing the Moon Scepter with her nearly flawless forgery, she must bargain for her life. An assassin has left the Emperor Ashravan without consciousness, a circumstance concealed only by the death of his wife. If the emperor does not emerge after his hundred-day mourning period, the rule of the Heritage Faction will be forfeit and the empire will fall into chaos.

A few weeks after marrying an attractive widow, Gordon Cloade is tragically killed by a bomb blast in the London blitz. Overnight, the former Mrs. Underhay finds herself in sole possession of the Cloade family fortune. Shortly afterward, Hercule Poirot receives a visit from the dead man's sister-in-law who claims she has been warned by "spirits" that Mrs. Underhay's first husband is still alive. Poirot has his suspicions when he is asked to find a missing person guided only by the spirit world.

"Who is this man, this Scarlet Pimpernel?" Each day this question grew more pressing to the leaders of the French Revolution. Only this man and his band of followers threatened their total power. Only this maddeningly elusive figure defied the vast network of fanatics, informers, and secret agents that the Revolution spread out to catch its enemies.

The classic World War II thriller from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. One winter night, seven men and a woman are parachuted onto a mountainside in wartime Germany. Their objective: an apparently inaccessible castle, headquarters of the Gestapo. Their mission: to rescue a crashed American general before the Nazi interrogators can force him to reveal secret D-day plans.

In The Lady in the Lake, hard-boiled crime-fiction master Raymond Chandler brings us the story of a couple of missing wives - one a rich man's and one a poor man's - who have become the objects of Philip Marlowe's investigation. One of them may have gotten a Mexican divorce and married a gigolo, and the other may be dead. Marlowe's not sure he cares about either one, but he's not paid to care.

There have been ghosts on the London Underground, sad, harmless specters whose presence does little more than give a frisson to traveling and boost tourism. But now there's a rash of sightings on the Metropolitan Line and these ghosts are frightening, aggressive, and seem to be looking for something. Enter PC Peter Grant, junior member of the Metropolitan Police's Special Assessment Unit, AKA The Folly, AKA the only police officers whose official duties include ghost hunting.

Rachelle Matthews dreamed and awoke in another world. There she learned she was the 49th Mystic, the prophesied one, tasked with finding five ancient seals before powerful enemies destroy her. If Rachelle succeeds in her quest, peace will reign. If she fails, the world will forever be locked in darkness. In The 49th Mystic, Rachelle found the first three of those five seals through great peril and mind-altering adventure. But two seals remain hidden, and the fate of both worlds hangs in their balance.

When he falls ill on his way home from school, 15-year-old Michael Berg is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age. In time she becomes his lover--then she inexplicably disappears. When Michael next sees her, he is a young law student, and she is on trial for a hideous crime. As he watches her refuse to defend her innocence, Michael gradually realizes that Hanna may be guarding a secret she considers more shameful than murder.

The atomic submarine Dolphin has impossible orders: to sail beneath the ice floes of the Arctic Ocean to locate and rescue the men of weather station Zebra, gutted by fire and drifting with the ice pack somewhere north of the Arctic Circle. But the orders do not say what the Dolphin will find if she succeeds - that the fire at Ice Station Zebra was sabotage and that one of the survivors is a killer....