Classic Thrillers

The best of the golden age crime writers, praised by all the top modern writers in the field including P. D. James and Ruth Rendell, Dorothy L. Sayers created the immortal Lord Peter Wimsey. His third appearance is a story of murder in a most respectable seaside resort. 'No sign of foul play,' says Dr Carr after the post-mortem on Agatha Dawson. The case is closed. But Lord Peter Wimsey is not satisfied . . .With no clues to work on, he begins his own investigation.

While on a sailing trip in the Baltic Sea, two young adventurers-turned-spies uncover a secret German plot to invade England. Widely recognized as the first modern spy thriller, this 1902 lone masterpiece by World War I Royal Navy officer Erskine Childers was written as a wake-up call to the British government to attend to its North Sea defenses. It accomplished that task and has been considered a classic of espionage literature ever since.

When a legacy of £40 million is left to a small college in Kenya, investigations begin about the true identities of the heirs - the South African Dirk Hendriks and his namesake, Henry Hendrix from California. Suspicion that Hendrix is an impostor leads Max Stafford to the Rift Valley, where a violent reaction to his arrival points to a sinister and far-reaching conspiracy far beyond mere greed....

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

In una cittadina siciliana imprecisata negli anni '50, l'uccisione di un piccolo imprenditore dà origine all'inchiesta condotta dal capitano dei carabinieri Bellodi, ex partigiano giunto da Parma e animato da un forte senso della giustizia. Gradualmente l'indagine diventa sempre più pericolosa per i poteri forti perché fa emergere una fitta rete di collusione tra mafia e politica. Attraverso la lotta di Bellodi per scoprire la verità, Sciascia rappresenta per la prima volta la mafia in un romanzo.

Published as a 'shilling shocker', Robert Louis Stevenson's dark psychological fantasy gave birth to the idea of the split personality. The story of respectable Dr Jekyll's strange association with 'damnable young man' Edward Hyde, the hunt through fog-bound London for a killer, and the final revelation of Hyde's true identity is a chilling exploration of humanity's basest capacity for evil. The other stories in this volume also testify to Stevenson's inventiveness within the Gothic genre.

The assignment begins with a simple errand - a parcel to deliver. But to Alan Stewart, standing on a deserted road in Iceland with a murdered man at his feet, it looks anything but simple. The desolate terrain is obstacle enough. But when Stewart realises he has been double-crossed and that the opposition is gaining ground, his simple mission seems impossible....

Action thriller by the classic adventure writer set in the Middle East. When film tycoon Robert Hellier loses his daughter to heroin, he declares war on the drug peddlers, the faceless overlords whose greed supplies the world with its deadly pleasures. London drug specialist Nicholas Warren is called upon to organise an expedition to the Middle East to track down and destroy them - but with $100 million worth of heroin at stake, Warren knows he will have to use methods as deadly as his prey....

With some trepidation Nigel Derry approaches the country house of his enigmatic and unpredictable aunt Gwenny for an Easter holiday visit. After a tense few days in which her guests' interactions range from awkward dinners to a knife fight, a disgruntled aunt Gwenny departs for Europe. Receiving a telegram from Le Touquet inviting him to join Gwenny in the south of France, Nigel finds himself on a vacation cut short by murder as a cold shadow of suspicion eclipses the sunny beauty of the Côte d'Azur.

It should have been a case like any other: a missing princess, a king willing to pay in gold for her return. But before he realizes it, private investigator Eddie LaCrosse, a slightly shopworn sword jockey with a talent for discretion and detection, is swept up in a web of mystery and deceit involving a brutally murdered royal heir, a queen accused of an unspeakable crime, and the tragic past he thought he'd left behind.

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.

Imogen Quy returns after a decade to solve another intriguing Cambridge mystery. Hoping to attract a generous endowment, St Agatha's College, Cambridge, invites fabulously wealthy Sir Julius Farran to dine. The evening is a disaster for everyone but Imogen Quy: Farran asks her to come and work for him. She declines, but when Farran dies, suddenly and shockingly, she has to look into it. His death left a large hole in his company accounts that could mean financial ruin for St Agatha's.

In the midst of the Japanese occupation of China and Hong Kong, two lives become intertwined: Wong Chia Chi, a young student active in the resistance, and Mr. Yee, a powerful political figure who works for the Japanese occupational government. As these two move deftly between Shanghai's tea parties and secret interrogations, they become embroiled in the complicated politics of wartime - and in a mutual attraction that may be more than what they expected.

Por un instante, los dos trenes circularon paralelos. En ese preciso momento, Elspeth McGillicuddy presenció un asesinato. Desde su vagón vio con impotencia como en el otro tren un hombre agarraba sin piedad el cuello de una mujer hasta estrangularla. Después el tren se alejó. No había sospechosos ni testimonios. Tampoco había cadáver. ¿Quién, salvo Jane Marple, se tomaría en serio esta historia?

Toren Daniels vanished eight months back, and his wife and kids have moved on - with more than a little relief. Toren was a good man but carried a raging temper that often exploded without warning. So when he shows up on their doorstep out of the blue, they're shocked to see him alive. But more shocked to see he's changed. Radically. His anger is gone. He's oddly patient. Kind. Fun. Toren has no clue where he's been but knows he's been utterly transformed. He focuses on three things: Finding out where he's been. Finding out how it happened. And winning back his family.

Twenty classic authors from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction are brought together in the latest “Bodies from the Library” anthology series of previously unpublished and uncollected stories of crime and suspense.

For The Penguin Book of Murder Mysteries, writer and anthologist Michael Sims did not summon the usual suspects. He sought the unfamiliar, the unjustly forgotten, and little-known gems by writers from outside the genre. This historical tour of one of our most popular literary categories includes stories never before reprinted, features rebellious early “lady detectives," and spotlights former stars of the crime field—Austrian novelist Auguste Groner and prolific American Geraldine Bonner among them.

The story involves a huge diamond, the moonstone, originally stolen from an Indian shrine. The gem is given to an English girl on her 18th birthday but disappears that same night. What follows is a spellbinding mystery that to this day has the power to draw the listener into its world of danger, suspense, and surprise.

Bob Boyd is a geologist, as resilient as the British Columbia timber country where he works for the powerful Matterson Corporation. But his real name and his past are mysteries - wiped out by the accident that nearly killed him. Then Boyd reads a name that opens a door in his memory - Trinavant - and discovers that Bull Matterson and his son will do almost anything to keep the Trinavant family forgotten forever....

Magic itself has been poisoned, and Allie Beckstrom's undead father may have left the only cure in the hands of a madman. Hunted by the Authority - the secret council who enforces the laws - wanted by the police, and unable to use magic, she's got to find the cure before the sickness spreads beyond any power to stop it.