Classic Mystery Short Stories

Collected for the first time, the New York stories of John O'Hara, "among the greatest short story writers in English, or in any other language" (Brendan Gill, Here at The New Yorker) Collected for the first time, here are the New York stories of one of the twentieth century’s definitive...

"On the busy, bustling, colonized future Moon, McAuley reminds us that although everyone makes mistakes, some mistakes have far greater consequences than others..." So writes Gardner Dozois, editor of the Seventeenth Annual Collection of The Year's Best Science Fiction, about this thrilling and...

“Ahmad’s compassion, her deep care for the psychological and emotional nuances of her characters, never wavers.” – The New York Times Book Review In a searing collection by the award-winning author of The Return of Faraz Ali, characters seek to make their futures their own in a Pakistan...

The grand-prize winner of a writing contest sponsored by the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper, "The Gold-Bug" was one of Poe's most popular stories during his lifetime. Similar to his ratiocination tales - early versions of what we now call detective fiction - "The Gold-Bug" is full of mystery and adventure and includes a cryptogram, invisible ink, a scarab-like bug, and pirate treasure.

An elderly couple living in Victorian London struggle against despair as their small resources dwindle. When an eccentric and mysterious gentleman answers their advertisement for a lodger, they celebrate. But as women begin dying at the hands of "The Avenger", they start to suspect something too horrific for words.

Listening to great writing is a pleasure unto itself. Sometimes the opening paragraph of a work, or even the first sentence, makes it obvious that you are in the hands of a master, and once venturing a few furtive steps onto the path of prose, no matter what forest it enters, valley it descends, or mountain it scales, you will walk the entire distance.

Included in this collection: "Who Killed Zebedee" by Wilkie Collins, read by Sean Barrett; "Blue Suit" by Edgar Wallace, read by Paul Panting; "A Mysterious Case" by Anna Katharine Green, read by Liza Ross; "The Crooked Man" by Arthur Conan Doyle, read by Stephen Thorne; "Vendetta" by Guy de Maupassant, read by Liza Ross; "The Sapient Monkey" by Headon Hill, read by Paul Panting; and more....

When Sherlock Holmes met his demise in "The Adventure of the Final Problem," published in 1893, the distress of the unsuspecting reading public was profound. For years fans showed no signs of letting Sherlock Holmes lie down and die. Eventually, Doyle saw fit to continue his Holmes' canon and wrote a series of 13 short stories, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, published in 1905.

Learn more about The Great Detective Sherlock Holmes in The West End Horror. Illustration by David K. Stone...

This fantastic work of fiction that is based on a found manuscipt at a renowned univerity, follows the Great Detective, Sherlock Holmes during a previously unrevealed part of his life...

In Agatha Christie’s “The Affair at the Victory Ball,” Poirot is enlisted by Chief Inspector Japp to assist in the investigation of a murder at a costumed Ball. Six attendees form a circle of suspicion when a young aristocrat and his fiancée are found dead. Poirot then makes an interesting discovery about the costumes worn by the six friends. This short story originally appeared in the March 7, 1923 issue of The Sketch magazine.

In a town where it's not safe to be out after dark, student Claire Danvers and her friends have had their fair share of thrills. But Morganville still has a few secrets left to tell. Now, in this collection, you can venture down the town's strange streets, revisit all the tales you've come to love, and experience six new stories featuring your favorite Morganville residents - both human and vampire.

Adapted from the stories by Arthur Conan Doyle.... Sherlock Holmes is the greatest detective of them all. He sits in his room, and smokes his pipe. He listens, and watches, and thinks. He listens to the steps coming up the stairs; he watches the door opening – and he knows what question the stranger will ask.

In these three of his best stories, Holmes has three visitors to the famous flat in Baker Street – visitors who bring their troubles to the only man in the world who can help them.

In “Two Hundred Thousand Francs Reward!”, it has been a fortnight since the baroness Repstein disappeared from Paris, taking with her a fortune in jewels stolen from her husband. French detectives have chased her all over Europe, following the trail of gemstones like so many precious breadcrumbs, but she has eluded their efforts. When Arsène Lupin finds her, she will not escape so easily. Also featuring “The Wedding-Ring”, “The Sign of the Shadow”, “The Infernal Trap”, “The Red Silk Scarf”, “Shadowed by Death”, “Lupin’s Marriage”, and more.

The Dead Witness gathers the finest adventures among private and police detectives from the 19th century and into the early 20th - including a wide range of overlooked gems creating the finest ever anthology of Victorian detective stories. "The Dead Witness", the 1866 title story by Australian writer Mary Fortune, is the first known detective story by a woman, a suspenseful clue-strewn manhunt in the Outback. This forgotten treasure sets the tone for the whole anthology....

The gentle, unassuming cleric ferrets out the guilty in such mysteries as "The Blue Cross", "The Honour of Israel Gow", "The Hammer of God", "The Queer Feet", "The Flying Stars", "The Secret Garden", "The Eye of Apollo", "The Invisible Man", "The Wrong Shape", "The Sins of Prince Saradine", "The Sign of the Broken Sword", and "The Three Tools of Death".

This collection features some of the greatest fictional detectives ever, including: Sherlock Holmes, Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond, Father Brown, Morris Klaw, and Inspector Morse amongst others. Reader Edward Hardwicke, who played Watson to Jeremy Brett's Holmes in the early 1990s, makes an ideal reader for the genre.

First published in 1911, The Innocence of Father Brown contains stories involving one of the greatest characters in the history of detective fiction: Father Brown. He is a Roman Catholic priest who has an uncanny insight into human evil. Rather than the large serial villains in, for example, Sherlock Holmes stories, the mysteries Father Brown solved were more local murders by small-town crooks, narrowing the suspect list down to those in the area of the crime.

This is a story from the Murders in the Rue Morgue (The Dupin Stories) collection. Auguste Dupin, investigator extraordinaire, was the remarkable creation of Edgar Allan Poe. Written in the 1840s, Poe presented the acutely observant, shrewd but idiosyncratic character who, with his chronicler, provided the inspiration for the more famous Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

An enthralling collection of creepy and mysterious stories. From classic detective stories to spine-tingling horror and scary ghost stories, these tales will make your flesh crawl.... 1. 'A Ghost Story' by Mark Twain. 2. 'The Silver Mask' by Hugh Walpole. 3. 'The Cactus' by O. Henry. 4. 'Dead of Night' by W. F. Harvey. 5. 'The Terrible Old Man' by H. P. Lovecraft. 6. 'Rattle of Bones' by Robert E. Howard. 7. 'The Last Leaf' by O. Henry. 8. 'The Magnet' by Barry Pain. 9. 'Pickman’s Model' by H. P. Lovecraft.