Detective Anthology

In one of London's most elegant shops, a decorative doll in green velvet adopts some rather human, and sinister, traits.... A country gentleman is questioned about a murder that has yet to be committed.... While summoning spirits, a medium is drawn closer to the world of the dead than she ever imagined possible.... In a small country church, a dying man's last word, sanctuary, becomes both an elegy and a clue to a crime.

Humans have always been fascinated by darkness. Especially the darkness of a city at night, when the black sky is made ever more inky by the pools of illumination dropped under streetlights. Whether the mean streets be in an alternate past charmed with dark magic or the dirty alleyways of futuristic crowded space stations, the city—and its darkened streets—will always fascinate us. Here then, an anthology of all new stories of science fiction and fantasy with a hardboiled noir twist that acknowledge that the city is a living, breathing entity...and it isn’t always on our side.

"The Book Case" is a story that features Nelson DeMille's most famous (and successful) character, Detective John Corey, who has appeared in six DeMille novels: Plum Island, The Lion's Game, Night Fall, Wild Fire, and The Lion. In this story, we see John Corey in his early years as an NYPD Detective, before he became involved with the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force.

In this dual collection of short stories, Alexander McCall Smith brings his trademark humor and warmth to inventive tales of spying and vengeance. In one story, a spy dropped deep into enemy territory manages to disguise himself—quite convincingly—as a nun. In another, an invitation to join the Vatican Secret Service sends a prospective operative down a rabbit hole of controversy and confusion. A third story finds an author, on the brink of public ruin, seeing the error of his ways after an act of kindness saves the day.

>From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and John D. MacDonald got their start in Black Mask.

The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture. Modern computer games, films, and television are rooted in the fiction popularized by “the seminal and venerated mystery pulp magazine” (Booklist).

A classic from the queen of mystery: Agatha Christie.

First appearing in print in 1890, the character of Sherlock Holmes has now become synonymous worldwide with the concept of a super sleuth. His creator, Conan Doyle, imbued his detective hero with intellectual power, acute observational abilities, a penchant for deductive reasoning and a highly educated use of forensic skills. Indeed, Doyle created the first fictional private detective who used what we now recognize as modern scientific investigative techniques.

From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and John D. MacDonald got their start in Black Mask. The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture.

From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner, and John D. MacDonald all got their start in Black Mask. The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture. Modern computer games, films, and television are rooted in the fiction popularized by the magazine.

El detective Sherlock Holmes es un genio de la observación, la deducción lógica y la ciencia forense. Posee un profundo conocimiento de la química y, sobre todo, un sentido común único. Cualquier detalle que parece indiferente, cobra ante sus ojos pleno sentido. Y así, de detalle en detalle, Holmes va encontrando a los culpables de los crímenes que analiza.

Sir Henry Marquis, the Sleuth of St. James’ Square, shines in these 16 unique mystery and crime stories from Melville Davisson Post.

This collection by crime fiction master Raymond Chandler features four long stories in which private eye Philip Marlowe is hired to protect a rich old guy from a gold digger, runs afoul of crooked politicos, gets a line on some stolen jewels with a reward attached, and stumbles across a murder victim who may have been an extortionist.

Stephen Munro, a demobbed army officer, reconciles himself to taking a job as a footman to make ends meet. Employed at Wintringham Hall, the delightful but decaying Sussex country residence of the elderly Lady Susan Carey, his first task entails welcoming her eccentric guests to a weekend house-party, at which her bombastic nephew—who recognises Stephen from his former life—decides that an after-dinner séance would be more entertaining than bridge. Then Cicely disappears!

A serial kidnapper is on the loose in a small town in Maine, targeting wealthy women and demanding a huge ransom in bitcoin for their safe return. When his latest victim’s husband claims that he can’t come up with the money, the word “deadline” takes on a disturbingly literal meaning. The local police are out of their depth, but Colter Shaw takes the lead in the investigation. Soon, he’s using his survivalist instincts to uncover clues and pursue suspects, putting his own life on the line to catch the would-be killer before the countdown hits zero.

Throughout history and infinite dimensions, there exists a secret group of supernatural investigators operating on the fringes of society, lurking in the shadows, working strange cases with little reward. They are hardboiled zombies and ghosts, mythological creatures, ass-kicking vampires, tortured humans, and uncanny sleuths whose normal is the bizarre and weird.

Internationally best-selling author Lyndsay Faye became enamored with tales of Sherlock Holmes and his esteemed biographer, Dr. John Watson, as a child and later began spinning these quintessential characters into her own works of fiction - from her acclaimed debut novel, Dust and Shadow, which pitted the famous detective against Jack the Ripper, to a series of short stories for the Strand Magazine, whose predecessor published the very first Sherlock Holmes short story in 1891.

In Lisa Gardner’s first-ever short story following 13 best-selling novels, "The 7th Month" takes listeners between the books and into a day in the life of Boston Detective D. D. Warren.

In her seventh month of pregnancy, D.D. should be taking it easy. Instead, she accepts a small consulting role on the set of a serial-killer film shooting in Boston. D.D. figures she’ll be useful to someone for at least one night, serving as a police expert and making a little extra money in the bargain. It seems like a simple task—until the previous film consultant, a former Boston cop, is found beaten to death.

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. This book of short stories is his ninth appearance and introduces another detective, Montague Egg. Poisoned port, pet cats in peril, purloined pearls...Lord Peter Wimsey solves the mysteries of the man who was blown into the fourth dimension and the murder in fancy dress.

This anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together a selection of rare tales by masters of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form, including a newly discovered Agatha Christie crime story that has not been seen since 1922. At a time when crime and thriller writing has once again overtaken the sales of general and literary fiction, Bodies from the Library unearths lost stories from the Golden Age, that period between the World Wars when detective fiction captured the public’s imagination.

Assembled and edited by Julian Hawthorne and first published in 1907, the Old Time English volume of The Lock and Key Library features ten classic mysteries and ghost stories by Charles Dickens, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Thomas de Quincey, Charles Robert Maturin, Laurence Sterne, and William Makepeace Thackeray. This volume of The Lock and Key Library is sure to haunt and charm fans of ghost and detective mysteries alike.