English Detective Mysteries

When 12-year-old Holly Mitchell’s fragile little body is found on the steps of a mountainside church in the small town of Denton, a doll made from pine cones clasped tightly to her chest, Detective Josie Quinn rushes to attend the scene. She knows this little girl’s angelic face; her mother had offered Josie help when she’d needed it most. Searching the girl’s house, Josie is devastated to find that Holly’s mother is dead, too, and her little sister is missing.

The handpicked stories in this collection introduce us to the most determined of gumshoe gals, from debutant detectives like Anna Katharine Green's Violet Strange to spinster sleuths like Mary Roberts Rinehart's Hilda Adams, from groundbreaking female cops like Baroness Orczy's Lady Molly to contemporary crime-fighting PIs like Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone, and include indelible tales from Agatha Christie, Carolyn Wells, Edgar Wallace, L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace, Sara Paretsky, Nevada Barr, Laura Lippman, and many more.

Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death: Putting all her eggs in one basket, Agatha Raisin gives up her successful PR firm, sells her London flat, and samples a taste of early retirement in the quiet village of Carsely and enters a local baking contest. But her recipe for social advancement sours when the judge not only snubs her entry―but falls over dead! Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet: Agatha Raisin hasn't quite adjusted to the slow pace of village life, or to the failure of her overtures to her handsome neighbor, James Lacey.

As funeral mourners stand in silence at Ragmullin cemetery, a deafening cry cuts through the air. Lying crumpled at the bottom of an open grave is the bloodied body of a young woman, and Detective Lottie Parker is called in to investigate. Knowing the body can’t have been there long, Lottie wonders if it could be Elizabeth Bryne, a young woman who vanished without trace just days earlier. And with a new boss who seems to have it in for her, Lottie is under pressure to solve both cases quickly.

In Agatha Christie’s class mystery Murder on the Links, Hercule Poirot attempts to unravel the grisly conundrum of not one, but two dead bodies discovered on a French golf course.

Matt is intrigued when his partner Liz brings home an old carpet bag she found dumped in the local library. It contains a pile of mysterious handwritten notes. Liz is convinced the bag belongs to Old Molly, a local woman who lives on the streets. The following day, a body is discovered in a marshy lagoon. It's Old Molly. Suffocated with an expensive men's handkerchief. Molly clearly knew something that got her killed. Liz believes she was trying to tell them something important. She calls on her nephew David to help decipher the carpet bag notes.

There's a body in a trunk; a dead girl's reflection is caught in a mirror; and one corpse is back from the grave, while another is envisioned in the recurring nightmare of a terrified eccentric. What's behind such ghastly misdeeds? Try money, revenge, passion, and pleasure. With multiple motives, multiple victims, and multiple suspects, it's going to take a multitude of talent to solve these clever crimes. In this inviting collection, Agatha Christie enlists the services of her finest - Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and Parker Pyne.

Bo Tully, sheriff of Blight County, Idaho, has dealt with small-town crime throughout his long, storied career. Now, contemplating retirement after years on the job, Tully is faced with perhaps his most perplexing case yet. When area bald eagles start getting picked off by a ghost-like killer, and when a prominent local rancher is murdered by an arrow with eagle fletching, things gets complicated fast. In this fast-paced whodunit, Tully has a vast array of suspects to choose from, including the rancher's gorgeous, bird-loving wife, who mysteriously leaves for a ranch in Mexico the day of the murder.

The tranquility of a luxury cruise along the Nile was shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway had been shot through the head. She was young, stylish, and beautiful. A girl who had everything . . . until she lost her life. Hercule Poirot recalled an earlier outburst by a fellow passenger: “I’d like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger.” Yet under the searing heat of the Egyptian sun, nothing is ever quite what it seems.

When Detective Erika Foster receives a tip-off that key evidence for a major narcotics case was stashed in a disused quarry on the outskirts of London, she orders for it to be searched. From the thick sludge the drugs are recovered, but so is the skeleton of a young child. The remains are quickly identified as seven-year-old Jessica Collins. The missing girl who made headline news 26 years ago.

An unidentified woman is found murdered on the North Norfolk Coastal Path and newly promoted Detective Sergeant Kate Brannon and Kings Lynn's CID have the task of figuring out whom, how, and why. A job that's made more difficult when every one of the 40 residents in the village has something to hide and answers her questions with a string of lies. Georgina Temple has her own secrets to keep, and her own reasons to keep them. But her growing attraction to Kate makes it increasingly difficult to keep them.

A torso in a suitcase looks like an impossible case, but Sean Duffy isn’t easily deterred, especially when his floundering love life leaves him in need of a distraction. So with detective constables McCrabban and McBride, he goes to work identifying the victim. The torso turns out to be all that’s left of an American tourist who once served in the U.S. military. What was he doing in Northern Ireland in the midst of the 1982 Troubles?

When a police detective is taken off life support after falling into a coma, only an autopsy reveals the murderous act that precipitated her death. She'd been working on a special task force within North London's Nigerian community, and Acting Detective Superintendent Thomas Lynley is assigned to the case, which has far-reaching cultural associations that have nothing to do with life as he knows it. In his pursuit of a killer determined to remain hidden, he's assisted by Detective Sergeants Barbara Havers and Winston Nkata.

In a quiet kitchen, where two mugs wait by the kettle to be filled, Sheryl Hawne lies in a pool of blood. Her only daughter, Katie, is found at her side, still clutching the murder weapon and apparently incapable of speech. To Detective Kim Stone, the case seems open and shut. But Katie is in no state to be questioned, so Kim and the team must dig deep to understand what triggered this brutal act.

When Sheriff Jenna Alton and her deputy, David Kane, hear reports of a plane crashing into the mountains that surround Black Rock Falls, their hearts shatter. Their friend’s blonde-haired teenage daughter, Julie, was on that flight. They won’t sleep until they bring Julie home to her distraught family. A blizzard closing in, Jenna pushes on with the search until, just beyond the snow-capped trees, she finds the plane. She falls to her knees at the sight of the lifeless bodies, still buckled into their seats. But one passenger is missing: Julie has vanished.

When Denton’s most loved TV presenter returns home to find his wife dead at the dining table, it shatters the close-knit community. Beautiful and absolutely besotted with each other, Beau and Claudia Collins were idolized for being the perfect couple. But the devastating scene Detective Josie Quinn finds in their remote hideaway has her asking what dark secrets lurk beneath the surface of this seemingly flawless marriage.

Two bestselling Agatha Christie novels in one great audiobook: Hercule Poirot comes out of retirement in one of Agatha Christie’s ten favorite novels, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Agatha Christie’s classic, The Hollow, finds Poirot entangled in a nasty web of family secrets when he comes across a fresh murder at an English country manor.

RJ Spencer is a lucky 12-year-old. He lives in the big city and his parents are landlords of the high-rise apartment building that is his home. The many tenants in the building, along with the endless possibilities of adventures in the city itself, are the perfect setting for the young detective as he sets out to solve every case he can get his hands on. RJ is getting caught up in disgusting green goo everywhere he goes. After seeing some strange bright lights at the park one night, he and Joey are determined to catch the aliens before they get what they are seeking...possibly RJ and Joey!

R. J. and Joey are very excited about the summer, especially their favorite daily treat of ice cream. Then the worst thing possible occurs and one day Mr. Pip's ice cream truck is nowhere to be seen. Will R. J. and Joey be able to track down the strange guy who seems to be responsible for the disappearance of Mr. Pip and their daily treat?

Seabury Quinn's short stories were featured in well more than half of Weird Tales' original publication run. His most famous character, the supernatural French detective Dr. Jules de Grandin, investigated cases involving monsters, devil worshippers, serial killers, and spirits from beyond the grave, often set in the small town of Harrisonville, New Jersey. Collected for the first time, The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, edited by George Vanderburgh, presents all 93 published works featuring the supernatural detective.