Traditional Detective Mystery

In the six volumes of the Library of the World’s Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Julian Hawthorne presents us thrilling and mysterious short stories from all corners of the world. Some of the stories appeared in this 1907 collection for the first time translated into English, and many of them come from unexpected sources, such as the letters of Pliny the Younger, or a Tibetan manuscript. In the first volume, we find stories written by American authors.

London 1884. Electricity pioneer Simon Borthwick lights up Victorian London with a stunning illuminations display - then shoots himself in a hansom cab. Plucky Fleet Street reporter Penny Green witnesses the inventor's death and suspects the clue to his suicide lies in a mysterious letter he left behind. But can she persuade Inspector James Blakely of Scotland Yard that a crime has been committed? Borthwick isn't the only person who died that day, and Penny soon encounters a shadowy world which the police can't get close to.

Who could have suspected that the exciting stag party for the groom would be the prelude to the murder of his close friend Charlie Hatton? And Charlie's death was only the first in a string of puzzling murders involving small-time gangsters, cheating husbands, and loose women. Now Chief Inspector Wexford and his assistant join forces with the groom to track down a killer....

When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, Mrs. Quine just thinks her husband has gone off by himself for a few days - as he has done before - and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home. But as Strike investigates, he discovers that Quine's disappearance is no coincidence. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were published, it would ruin lives - meaning that almost everyone in his life would have motives to silence him.

Isabel Dalhousie grapples with complex matters of the heart as she tries to juggle her responsibilities to friends, family, and the philosophical community. With two small boys to raise, a mountain or articles to edit for the Review of Applied Ethics, and the ever-increasing demands of her niece, Cat, who always seems to need a helping hand at the deli, Isabel barely has any time for herself. Her husband, Jamie, suggests acquiring extra help, and she reluctantly agrees.

Uncertain Voyage is certain to hold you spellbound with its tale of a timid young American woman who finds herself in situations that would test anyone’s courage. Melissa Aubrey is touring Europe alone as part of her quest to establish her self-reliance. Still recovering from a nervous breakdown brought on by a disastrous marriage, Melissa is fragile, to say the least. When one of her fellow travelers makes an urgent plea that she deliver a small package to an address in Majorca, Melissa is thrown into a dizzying whirlwind of romance, mystery, and danger.

Back in the harness after his abortive retirement to Florida, Rumpole glories in the mushroom pie, rainy day life of the Old Bailey. Here he spars with some old familiars like the venomous Judge Bullingham, and makes the acquaintance of some fresh foes. Six stories.

Dashiell Hammett is best known as both pioneer and master of American hard-boiled detective fiction, but these dozen and a half stories both affirm that reputation and present him in a different light. Along with the full-length treatments On the Make and The Kiss-Off, this collection includes never before and rarely published stories that explore failed romance, courage in the face of uncertainty, hypocrisy, and crass opportunism.

In this sequel to Under an English Heaven, newlywed American Ellie Kent is looking forward to her first English village Christmas, but a missing Oxford student and an abandoned baby soon draw her away from the fireside into danger. When a body is discovered on Boxing Day, Ellie comes to believe all these events may be linked through a group of teenage girls who identify with Shakespeare's tragic Ophelia. The police scoff at her theory, so Ellie pursues her own investigation to identify their secret Hamlet, who may be a killer.

When historian Jaya Jones receives a mysterious package containing a jewel-encrusted artifact, she discovers the secrets of a lost Indian treasure may be hidden in a Scottish legend. But she's not the only one on the trail. Helping her decipher the cryptic clues are her magician best friend, a devastatingly handsome art historian with something to hide, and a charming archaeologist running for his life. When a member of the dig's crew is murdered, Jaya must figure out which of the scholars vying for her affections might be the love of her life - and which one is a killer.

Enjoy the first novels that brought the world two of Agatha Christies’ most enduring detectives: Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. The Murder at the Vicarage is the first Miss Marple mystery, one which tests all her powers of observation and deduction. In The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Captain Arthur Hastings, invalided in the Great War, is recuperating as a guest of John Cavendish at Styles Court, the "country-place" of John's autocratic old aunt, Emily Inglethorpe.

Here in one recording is every Sherlock Holmes story ever written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally appearing in serial form, these famous stories are here presented in the order in which they were first published beginning in 1887. Included in this definitive, award-winning collection are four novels and 56 short stories, a total of 60 titles. The 56 short stories are aggregated into five named collections, just as they were originally published in book form.

We are 40 years into the future, and London is a city in decay. John Watson has returned from medical service in the war in Afghanistan and lives by himself in a run-down part of ​town. On his way home from work, he stumbles upon a beaten man in the street – unconscious and completely naked. His chances of survival are minimal. The same evening, a passenger plane crashes in Richmond Park. There are several hundred victims, and Watson and the mysterious man are left to their own devices.

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.

Charlie Hills, former desk sergeant at Kings Lake Central, is in trouble. He hasn't told Smith, his old friend and sparring partner, but someone has, and now the two former policemen are about to embark on a difficult and potentially dangerous search for the truth. For one of them, it could be life-changing.

Though he may not look the part, Madoc Rhys is a Mountie - and his keen sense of detection tells him it's time to ask Janet Wadman to marry him. They have just gotten engaged when Christmas rolls around, and Janet's boss invites them to his family estate for a last holiday fling before Janet leaves her job. After a long helicopter ride, they are at Graylings, ancestral home of the Condryckes, a family so strange that Canada's shortest Mountie fits right in. There is a psychic old woman, an erudite butler, and a family patriarch.

No outsiders are ever admitted to the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, hidden deep in the wilderness of Quebec, where two dozen cloistered monks live in peace and prayer. They grow vegetables, they tend chickens, they make chocolate. And they sing. Ironically, for a community that has taken a vow of silence, the monks have become world-famous for their glorious voices, raised in ancient chants whose effect on both singer and listener is so profound it is known as “the beautiful mystery.”

London, 1884. A culprit is on the run after a fatal poisoning in Bermondsey. It seems like a simple case for Penny Green to report on, until a series of macabre photographs is discovered. As the poisonings continue, Scotland Yard is convinced they have their suspect. It's not long before they're outwitted, and no one is safe. Penny and Inspector James Blakely must avoid the red herrings and track down the manipulative poisoner. But could there be more than one?

Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star glass-and-cedar palace on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. New York financier Jonathan Alkaitis owns the hotel. When he passes Vincent his card with a tip, it’s the beginning of their life together. That same day, a hooded figure scrawls a note on the windowed wall of the hotel: “Why don’t you swallow broken glass.” Leon Prevant, a shipping executive for a company called Neptune-Avramidis, sees the note from the hotel bar and is shaken to his core.

The corpse of a young woman is found on a golf course. Clues are few until Sussex Police discover she was a student...and a model on a pornographic website run by two of her tutors. Technically, the deviant owners of this website are doing nothing illegal.

DI Henderson is forced to face his prejudices, resulting in an explosive confrontation. University has just become a very dangerous place.