Classic Thrillers Mystery

One of the 20th-century's most darkly beautiful works of crime fiction - a story of carny life, spiritualism, and a con man of merciless resolve.

Extensively revised by Nabokov in 1965 - 30 years after its original publication - Despair is the wickedly inventive and richly derisive story of Hermann, a man who undertakes the perfect crime: his own murder. One of the 20th century’s master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States, and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator.

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.

After the explosive events of the Copper Heart, Lydia must deal with a secret service operative with murder in his heart. The mysterious Mr Smith has sent a professional assassin after Lydia and the bonds of blood are stretched to breaking point when it turns out to be someone very close to home. Meanwhile, the head of the powerful Silver Family is demanding a favour and Lydia must comply or risk their fledgling alliance. To be strong enough to beat the odds stacked against her, Lydia must delve deep into Crow Family lore, but what she discovers is far from a fairy tale.

Poirot’s peace is disturbed when a local gentleman, Roger Ackroyd, is found murdered in his study. Clues include a vanished letter, a scrap of cambric cloth, a goose quill, and an elaborately tooled Tunisian dagger. We follow Poirot, aided by the village doctor, James Sheppard, as he traces his way through a tangle of suspects that include Ackroyd’s sister-in-law, niece, secretary, adopted son, and housemaids—all of whom appear to have motives for killing him.

Exiled from Paris, Maigret discovers some disturbing secrets in a sleepy coastal town in this new translation. A short, sprightly man appeared in the doorway, looked left and right, and went back into the passage. A moment later, the improbable happened. The little man reappeared, bent over, clinging to a long mass that he now started dragging through the mud. It must have been heavy. After four metres, he stopped to catch his breath. The front door of the house had been left open.

The Moonstone, a priceless yellow diamond, is looted from an Indian temple and maliciously bequeathed to Rachel Verinder. On her 18th birthday, her friend and suitor Franklin Blake brings the gift to her. That very night, it is stolen again. No one is above suspicion, as the idiosyncratic Sergeant Cuff and the Franklin piece together a puzzling series of events as mystifying as an opium dream and as deceptive as the nearby Shivering Sand.

The attempted suicide of a countess and the death of a billionaire in the same luxury Paris hotel send Maigret to the Riviera and then to Switzerland, as he searches for the truth amid the glittering world of the super rich. Eyes half closed, head tilted against the back of his seat, he seemed not to be thinking, as the plane flew over a thick carpet of bright clouds. In reality, he was making an effort to bring names and shadowy figures to life, names and figures that even this morning had been as unknown to him as the inhabitants of another planet.

A psychological thriller before its time, James Hogg’s Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, published in 1824, takes us back to the world of 18th-century Scotland, into a mind haunted by religious obsession, and driven to commit murder. The events are told from several different viewpoints, so that truth and reality appear to dissolve in this disturbing story of the dark legacy of Calvinist doctrine, and how it led one man to madness.

A retired manufacturer has been shot dead by his own pistol, last seen alive by his son-in-law. In this seemingly motiveless murder, Inspector Maigret must rely on his famous intuition to discover the truth. This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret and the Black Sheep.

In what many refer to as one of the first and greatest science fiction thrillers, a mysterious stranger wanders into an inn, wrapped head-to-toe in bandages. What lies beneath the bandages is something even more mysterious. As Wells tackles issues of identity, deception, and the deterioration of the human mind, listeners will be drawn into the story of the mysterious man, whose own mistakes end up whisking him into a whirlwind of deceit, terror, and even murder. In the end, the question will be asked: when your sense of self and identity vanish, who will you become?

The world is in the throes of economic decay and at the mercy of terrorists. Across this post-apocalyptic landscape marches one extraordinary soldier and his band of brothers. In a novel as disturbingly plausible as it is powerfully gripping, they are headed into a battle in which they will have to come to grips with the power of technology and the true price of freedom.

Maigret sets the record straight and tells the story of his own life, giving a rare glimpse into the mind of the great inspector - and the writer who would immortalise him. 'I can still see Simenon coming into my office the next day, pleased with himself, displaying even more self-confidence, if possible, than before, but nevertheless with a touch of anxiety in his eyes.... He trumpeted these last words as if they were a sensational discovery. Making it seem truer than life, that's the crux of it. Well, I've made you truer than life.'

When Philo Drax receives a letter from her wealthy grandfather saying he fears for his life at the hands of the vicious Slape family, she rushes to the rescue. But too late! Katie Slape, a monstrous girl with psychic powers and a penchant for smashing skulls with her hammer, has already finished him off and gotten hold of his cash.

قوطعت وجبة عشاء هيركيول بوارو في أحد مقاهي لندن عندما تسر له امرأة شابة بأنها على وشك أن تقتل، كانت المرأة تشعر بالهلع الشديد، ولكنها رجت بوارو ألا يحاول العثور على قاتلها وعقابه، وأصرت على أن العدالة ستتحقق بمجرد أن تموت في وقت لاحق من تلك الليلة، نما الى علم بوارو أن ثلاثة من نزلاء أحد الفنادق الأنيقة في لندن قد قتلوا، وتم وضع أزرار أكمام في فم كل منهم، هل هناك علاقة بين المرأة المذعورة وجريمة القتل ؟ بينما كان بوارو يحاول حل خيوط ذلك اللغز كان القاتل يجهز غرفة أخرى من غرف الفندق من أجل ضحيته الرابعة، لغز شديد الغموض لن يحل خيوطه الاالمحقق البلجيكي الموهوب وخلايا مخه الرمادية الصغيرة.

أشعر بالكثير من الامتنان إلى الأشخاص الرائعين التالية أسماؤهم، والذين كرسوا أنفسهم من أجل إلهام الآخرين: جيمس بريكارد، ماثيو بريكارد، هيلاري سترونج، كريستيان ماكفيل، جوليا وايلد، ليديا ستون، نيكي وايت، وجميع العاملين في مؤسسة أجاثا كريستي المحدودة، دافيد براون، كايت إلتون، لاورا دي جيسيبي، سارة هودجسون، فليس دينهام، وإلى جميع العاملين في مؤسسة هاربر كولينز في المملكة المتحدة، دان مالوري، كايتلين هاري، جينيفر هارت، كاثرين جوردون، دانييل بارتلت، لياتي ستيهليك، مارجو ويزمان، وفريق عمل ويليام مارو، بيتر شتراوس، وماتيو تيرنر من مؤسسة روجر وكولريدج ووايت.

Following the events of The Umbrella Lady, young Saffron Faith Anders searches for family and love in this spine-tingling gothic fairy tale from the New York Times bestselling author of the Flowers in the Attic series and Landry series—now popular Lifetime movies. After escaping the trauma of...

Part lawman, part tracker and part magician, the Wardens are monster-hunters - tasked with protecting the people from the various, nightmarish creatures that have invaded the world of men. However, despite being descended from a long line of Wardens, 16-year-old Errol Magnus believes it to be the absolute worst job on the planet: How could a single occupation simultaneously be the most boring, abominably stupid, and extraordinarily dangerous profession imaginable?

'There will be ten teacups at number 4, Berwick Terrace, W.8, on Wednesday, July 31st, at 5 p.m. Precisely. The presence of the Metropolitan Police is respectfully requested.' The note was delivered to New Scotland Yard, its words evoking a cold murder case and its unsolved mystery of the ten teacups found beside the body. Scrambling to prevent a second killing, the police set up a watertight cordon at Berwick Terrace. But gunfire rings out from the top floor at 5 p.m.

It may not be front page news, but Island Times food and cocktails columnist Hayley Powell is now happily married. Before she can set sail on her honeymoon cruise, however, Hayley's mom, Sheila, pays an impromptu visit - and promptly becomes the prime suspect in a murder. The victim is Sheila's old high school rival, Caskie Lemon-Hogg, known for her homemade blueberry pies and her home-wrecking flirtations. As Hayley teams up with her BFFs Liddy and Mona to clear her mother's name, Sheila reunites with Liddy's mom Celeste and Mona's mom Jane for their own amateur sleuthing.