Classic Thrillers

In the swirling mists of post-World War I England, a character emerged from the pen of "Sapper", (H.C.McNeile) whose adventures would captivate readers and endure through the ages. Bulldog Drummond, the invincible hero, burst onto the literary scene with a resounding force that echoed the sentiments of a society grappling with the aftermath of conflict and the winds of change.

For the first time in his career Inspector Maigret receives written summons to the Prefect's office where he learns that he has been accused of assaulting a young woman. With his career and reputation on the line, Maigret must fight to prove his innocence. This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret on the Defensive.

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.

A reclusive writer of detective stories, Oe Shundei, has gone missing, leaving behind a suspicious trail of blackmailing letters to a former lover. Another detective novelist, his rival, is the only one who can find him. A sequence of macabre and appalling events follows.

At the dawn of the French Revolution, the men, women, and children of Paris have one hope to escape the guillotine: the masked and mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel. But who is this daring swordsman and quick-thinking master of disguise? London’s privileged, self-obsessed Sir Percy Blakeney. When his estranged wife, Marguerite, falls prey to French envoy Chauvelin’s blackmail, she unwittingly exposes the Pimpernel and imperils the covert league he commands.

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….

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.

These six cases are among the last undertaken by Sherlock Holmes before he retired to the Sussex downs. However, the problems facing the sleuth are as diverse and challenging as ever. What with seeking the whereabouts of the stolen Mazarin Diamond, discovering the importance of being called Garrideb, encountering a mysterious murder on Thor Bridge, searching for eternal youth and the threat of a vampire in Sussex, there is no sign of Holmes' deductive powers slowing down.

Murder comes in two familiar forms. Whether as a crime of passion with high emotions or a cold dispassionate plot to take life in order to gain in some way, the act strikes us all as somehow inhuman. Beneath us as civilised beings. But however we cloak our animal instincts the need to remove a human being and gain relief from abuse or gain from money, the term is just the same – MURDER. Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, J M Barrie, W W Jacobs and many others bring their literary heft to bear in as calculating a way as any killer could.

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

That shoeless foot looked incongruous lying on the pavement next to another foot encased in a shoe made of black kid leather. It was naked, private.... It was Maigret who retrieved the other shoe, which lay by the kerb six or seven metres away. A series of strange phone calls leads Inspector Maigret through the Paris streets towards a man out of his depth amid a network of merciless criminals.

These classic mystery short stories feature Maurice Lebanc’s famous rogue, Arsène Lupin. A master of disguise, Lupin moves between high society and a burglar’s life, stealing from the rich and powerful and creating mischief for Detective Ganimard.

In Prague researching the legend of the Golem, a fantastical "living" creature made of clay, archaeologist Annja Creed is faced with an even bigger mystery on her hands when someone begins murdering the homeless. And every day there's a fresh corpse. As the suspicion that Golem is behind the deaths circulates quietly on the streets of the city, Annja cannot resist unraveling the thread that binds science to superstition. According to Czech history, these aren't new attacks.

The eclectic surgeon-detective Mr. Reggie Fortune solves a fourth collection of Golden Age mysteries, including: the sudden disappearance of a husband; a skillful but oddly undiscriminating cat burglar; a jewel theft at a society party; a cryptic inscription on an ancient oak chest; a fatal poisoning and a troubled woman; and the whimsical theft of a Persian kitten—which leads Mr. Fortune to a far more chilling and sinister crime.

While hot on the heels of serial coupon-racketeer Gordon Ginner, Chief Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard receives word of an intriguing incident up in Lancashire – the summer cottage of local farmer Giles Hoggett has been broken into, with an assortment of seemingly random items missing which include a complete reel of salmon line, a large sack, and two iron dogs from his fireplace. What first appears as a simple break-in quickly spirals into a mystery of contested land grabs for fishing between farmers, made all the more enticing to MacDonald when a body is then found in the river.

Over a 25-year period, author Maurice Leblanc wrote of the exploits of gentleman thief and master of disguise Arsène Lupin, to the delight of readers on the continent and elsewhere. Often referred to as France's version of Sherlock Holmes, Lupin in this early appearance is wrongfully accused of the death of a prominent German millionaire with nefarious plans. The thief and the mysterious killer find themselves in a race to find an incriminating bundle of letters that, in the wrong hands, could change the political map of the world.

In what many refer to as one of the first and greatest science fiction thrillers, a mysterious stranger wanders into an inn, wrapped head-to-toe in bandages. What lies beneath the bandages is something even more mysterious. As Wells tackles issues of identity, deception, and the deterioration of the human mind, listeners will be drawn into the story of the mysterious man, whose own mistakes end up whisking him into a whirlwind of deceit, terror, and even murder. In the end, the question will be asked: when your sense of self and identity vanish, who will you become?

Time rewinds at the video store—the clerk is always hot and grumpy, and kindly retiree Mr. Hoffman rents the same thing every week. Audrey hangs around for both these reasons. But when her fellow film buff fails to appear, she goes to his house over the protests of her flannelly video store crush, who knows more than he lets on. It’s just like a movie. And she’s worried about the twist.

"Uno studio in rosso", il primo romanzo scritto da Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sulle indagini del detective Sherlock Holmes...

Haggard wrote Allan Quatermain immediately after King Solomon's Mines. Quatermain is wearied with the traditional English lifestyle. He longs for the wilds of Africa. He convinces his friends Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good as well as the Zulu chief Umbopa to return to Africa in search of a fabled race of white people. Fierce Masai warriors, subterranean rivers, creatures from the deep, and a spectacular civil war are all in store for our seasoned adventurers. It's an adventure you won't want to miss!