British Mystery Classics

Mary Connon froze out her husband, Sam, long ago. She likes the attention of other men—like the fellow members of Sam's rugby club. Naturally, when she's found dead in her sitting room with a hole in her head, Sam is a suspect. If only he hadn't suffered a dizzying scrum injury that's left everything a blur. He isn't sure that he didn't kill her. But Det. Inspector Andrew Dalziel and his partner, Peter Pascoe, are looking outside the unhappy home. Because it seems everyone within spitting distance of the suburban femme fatale wanted Mary dead.

Read by Daniel Weyman (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power) and featuring an author's note read by Peter James 'What a fool I've been not to have read Peter James until The Hawk Is Dead! A great story' – James Patterson, bestselling author of the Alex Cross series Roy Grace never dreamed...

Hercule Poirot comes out of retirement to solve one of the most vexing cases of his career. The quiet village of King’s Abbot is still reeling from the death of the widow Ferrars from an overdoes of Veronal, when not twenty-four hours later it is learned that the man she planned to marry, Roger Ackroyd, has been brutally murdered. Prior to his death, Ackroyd had been reading an article in the Evening Post to discover who had been blackmailing his wife over poisoning her first husband. But before he could learn who the blackmailer was, he was stabbed through the neck in his own study.

Noir - as a style, movement, or sensibility - has its roots in hardboiled detective fiction by writers like Chandler and Hammett, and films adapted from their novels were among the first called "film noir" by French cineastes. But film isn't the only medium with a taste for a dark story. Hundreds of noir dramas have been produced for television, featuring detectives and femmes fatales, gangsters, and dark deeds, continuing week after week, with a new disruption of the social order. In TV Noir, television historian Allen Glover presents the first complete study of the subject.

The fifth mystery in the acclaimed and bestselling Adam Dalgliesh series by “the reigning mistress of murder”(Time), P.D. James, is now available on CD. Just recovered from a grave illness, Commander Adam Dalgliesh is called to the bedside of an elderly priest. When Dalgliesh arrives, Father...

Murder in My Backyard is the second mystery novel in the Inspector Ramsay series by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series. No one in Heppleburn has a bad word to say about Alice Parry . . . but here she is, murdered in her own backyard on a bitter St. David’s Eve...

When Lord Montbarry dies suddenly in his Venice palace, and his courier goes missing, suspicion is instantly thrown on his new wife, the beautiful Countess Narona, who has collected his life insurance and fled to America. Montbarry's former fiance, Agnes, still harboring feelings for him, and Henry Westwick, Montbarry's younger brother, decide to investigate this tragedy and head for the palace, now a hotel. Not long after their arrival they experience strange and unsettling occurrences, and the circumstances of Montbarry's death begin to unravel.

Mary Stewart, one of the great British storytellers of the 20th century, transports listeners to rural Northumberland for this tale of romance, ambition, and deceit - a perfect fit for fans of Agatha Christie and Barbara Pym. Whitescar is a beautiful old house and farm situated in Roman Wall...

The game is once again afoot in this thrilling mystery from the bestselling author of The House of Silk, sanctioned by the Conan Doyle estate, which explores what really happened when Sherlock Holmes and his arch nemesis Professor Moriarty tumbled to their doom at the Reichenbach Falls...

August 1911. Emily Hardcastle and her inimitable lady’s maid Florence Armstrong are enjoying a fine summer until Harry, Lady H’s brother, turns up out of the blue with a mystery for them to solve. A routine parachute test at a local aeroplane factory has gone horribly wrong - with pilot Dickie Dupree plummeting to his death. Harry is certain there is more to this ‘tragic accident’ than meets the eye, having discovered that someone at the airfield is leaking top secret intelligence to foreign rivals.

The classic World War II thriller from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. The guns of Navarone, huge and catastrophically accurate, embedded atop an impregnable iron fortress in the Mediterranean Sea. Twelve hundred British soldiers trapped on a nearby island, with no hope of rescue...

When reclusive artist Gabriel Quinn is gunned down outside a gallery on Oxford High Street, Detective Inspector Bridget Hart investigates the world of contemporary art, where paintings can change hands for millions in the auction room. Bridget is convinced that the last words spoken by the artist - a mysterious code of eight digits and a letter - are key to unraveling the mystery of his death.

When Detective Inspector Bridget Hart returns to her old Oxford college for a reunion dinner, she's hoping for a fun weekend catching up with old friends. But the reunion takes a macabre turn when body parts are served up at the college feast, and one of her friends is found murdered. With Bridget's arch rival Inspector Baxter leading the murder inquiry, and herself a potential suspect, Bridget is forbidden from taking part in the investigation. But that doesn't stop her from carrying out her own private inquiries. Bridget soon realizes that the murderer is someone known to her.

From one of our most beloved authors, Mary Stewart, comes a thrilling tale set in a France as beautiful as it is deadly, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie and Barbara Pym. High in the rugged Pyrenees lies the Valley of the Storms, where a tiny convent clings to the beautiful but lonely...

The novel that launched the astonishing career of one of the 20th century’s greatest writers of action and suspense – an acclaimed classic of heroism and the sea in World War II. Constant patrols have pushed the crew of the HMS Ulysses beyond the limits of endurance. And now they must be put...

A rare meeting of literary genius: P. D. James, long among the most admired mystery writers of our time, draws the characters of Jane Austen’s beloved novel Pride and Prejudice into a tale of murder and emotional mayhem. It is 1803, six years since Elizabeth and Darcy embarked on their life...

When Dr Raymond Ferens moves to a practice at Milham in the Moor in north Devon, he and his wife are enchanted with the beautiful hilltop village lying so close to moor and sky. At first they see only its charm, but soon they begin to uncover its secrets - envy, hatred and malice. Everyone says that Sister Monica, warden of a children's home, is a saint - but is she? A few months after the Ferens' arrival her body is found drowned in the mill-race. Chief Inspector Macdonald faces one of his most difficult cases in a village determined not to betray its dark secrets to a stranger.

A sudden murder in an English village pub sets off the twenty-sixth novel in the bestselling series starring superintendent Richard Jury, from bestselling author Martha Grimes, still “one of the most fascinating mystery writers today” (Houston Chronicle). One calm night in Twickenham, a...

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Jessie Buckley, Richard Cordery, Julian Wadham, David Sturzaker, Hugh Fraser, Bruce Alexander, Oscar Batterham, Matthew Spencer, James MacCallum, Stewart Clarke and Jot Davies. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by...

Roy Grace is back in this gripping new instalment from number one bestselling author Peter James. ***** 23 million books sold. Now a major ITV/BritBox show starring John Simm as Roy Grace. Creator of Her Majesty Queen Camilla’s favourite fictional detective. 'Peter James is one of the best...