Classic Thrillers

Nicolai Gogol's classic ghost story set in the streets of St. Petersburg in the 19th century.

Jim Thompson's classic The Grifters is one of the best novels ever written about the art of the con, an ingeniously crafted story of deception and betrayal that was the basis for the critically acclaimed film by Stephen Frears and Martin Scorcese. To his friends, to his coworkers, and even to his mistress Moira, Roy Dillon is an honest hardworking salesman. He lives in a cheap hotel just within his pay bracket. He goes to work every day. He has hundreds of friends and associates who could attest to his good character.

Gretel - yes, that Gretel - is now 35, very large, still living with her brother, Hans, and working as a private investigator. The small, sleepy town of Gesternstadt is shaken to its pretty foundations when the workshop of the local cart maker is burned to the ground, and a body is discovered in the ashes. It is Gretel who notices that the cadaver is missing a finger. At first she does not see this as significant, as her mind is fully focused on a new case.

Inspector Maigret must untangle the web of lies left behind by a murdered man whose family didn't know him as well as they thought. When a man is found stabbed to death in an alley off Boulevard Saint-Martin, his identity card shows a workplace that had gone out of business three years earlier. As far as his wife knew, he still worked there, and she insists that the shoes and a tie he was wearing when he was killed 'couldn't be his'.

It's a race against the clock in this tale of danger and intrigue. In the glitzy era of the 1920s, charming armature sleuths, Tommy and Tuppence set out to solve the mysterious disappearance of a client and unravel a mysterious plot involving blackmail, international intrigue, and perhaps even the sinking of the Lusitania. When labor unrest erupts in England, the situation could turn deadly if a state secret falls into the wrong hands, but Tuppence has no qualms in accepting a job offer to stop that from happening.

Miriam Black knows when you will die. Still in her early twenties, she’s foreseen hundreds of car crashes, heart attacks, strokes, suicides, and slow deaths by cancer. But when Miriam hitches a ride with truck driver Louis Darling and shakes his hand, she sees that in thirty days he will be gruesomely murdered while he calls her name. Miriam has given up trying to save people; that only makes their deaths happen. No matter what she does, she can’t save Louis. But if she wants to stay alive, she’ll have to try.

In Tolstoy's final novel, a privileged nobleman by the name of Dmitri Nekhlyudov seeks to make amends for a bad deed he committed in the past. In the process, he discovers that he has been living in a world far removed from the reality of the average person.

Our story begins in 1785 when a young seafarer, Captain Thornhill, disappears while visiting the shop of a barber in London, a certain Sweeney Todd whose shop in Fleet Street is situated by St. Dunstan's church, just round the corner from the famous and popular meat pie shop run by Mrs. Lovett. Thornhill was carrying a string of pearls as a gift for Johanna Oakley, the sweetheart of his friend Mark Ingestrie who is missing, presumed lost at sea.

When a public tragedy threatens to expose a scandal within the Paris government, the Minister of Public Works calls in a favour to Maigret. A public project has collapsed and resulted in the death of 128 children after a report warning officials about the unsafe structure was disregarded. Now, that report has resurfaced, along with allegations that several politicians and contractors involved with the project may have suppressed its findings to avoid a scandal.

Con man Joe Berlin was used to scoring easy cash off of gullible women. But that was before he met Mona Brassard - and found himself holding a stolen stash of raw heroin. Now that Joe has fallen hard for Mona, he's got to pull off the most dangerous con of his career: one that will leave him either a killer - or a corpse. Block's debut novel under his own name is a classic example of prime pulp fiction, with an ending that will astonish even the most jaded crime-fiction fan.

Crime and Punishment is a profound psychological novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky that follows the troubled journey of Raskolnikov, a desperate ex-student who commits a murder. Plagued by guilt and inner turmoil, he grapples with his own moral justifications and the consequences of his actions, leading him to a path of redemption and self-discovery.

Ewan's shock revelation sends Vee's life further into chaos, and she faces an uncertain future in a secret world she never knew existed. The Four Horsemen now have their missing link and will each do anything to protect and support her, but Vee's determined to show them she can be their equal. When Vee joins the Four Horsemen's hunt for those behind the plot to murder a fae queen, she discovers society faces bigger dangers than she realised. One night changes everything and increases Vee's determination to harness her power and step into her new role.

Morley's sequel to Parnassus on Wheels, his second love letter to the bookselling trade, The Haunted Bookshop, finds Mifflin and McGill now married and ensconced in Brooklyn. When Aubrey Gilbert, a young advertising man, visits the shop, he falls for Mifflin’s assistant, Titania. But something is amiss. The ghosts of literature aren’t the only mysterious visitors in Mifflin’s bookshop, where books disappear and reappear, but Mifflin is too distracted to notice. Gilbert takes Titania's safety into his own hands. Her life—and the Mifflins’—may depend on it.

This story is based on the actual murder of Mary Cecilia Rogers, a crime that paralyzed New York because of the unprecedented violence that the murderer turned on her. Mary Cecilia Rogers was born in Connecticut in 1820 and disappeared on October 4, 1838, in unclear circumstances. Some days later the newspapers announced that she had been found and had fled to marry a naval officer. The case was closed, but three years later, on July 25, 1841, Mary Cecilia Rogers disappeared again. Her lifeless body was found floating in the Hudson River

As a dense yellow fog swirls through the streets of London, a deep melancholy has descended on Sherlock Holmes, who sits in a cocaine-induced haze at 221B Baker Street. His mood is only lifted by a visit from a beautiful but distressed young woman - Mary Morstan, whose father vanished 10 years before. Four years later, she began to receive an exquisite gift every year: a large, lustrous pearl. Now she has had an intriguing invitation to meet her unknown benefactor and urges Holmes and Watson to accompany her.

The gods are dying. But for one man, death is only the beginning. Murdered as a ritual sacrifice, amateur thief and professional charmer Dustin Graves mysteriously survives, finding himself gifted with strange, dark magic. Then more dead bodies turn up. Some are human, but one is a god of the old world, slain at his own doorstep.

In the swirling mists of post-World War I England, a character emerged from the pen of "Sapper", (H.C.McNeile) whose adventures would captivate readers and endure through the ages. Bulldog Drummond, the invincible hero, burst onto the literary scene with a resounding force that echoed the sentiments of a society grappling with the aftermath of conflict and the winds of change.

The best of the golden age crime writers, praised by all the top modern writers in the field including P. D. James and Ruth Rendell, Dorothy L. Sayers created the immortal Lord Peter Wimsey. His second appearance is a thrilling quest to save his own brother - the Duke of Denver - from the hangman. The Duke of Denver, accused of murder, stands trial for his life in the House of Lords. Naturally, his brother Lord Peter Wimsey is investigating the crime - this is a family affair.

A collection of 31 tales of mystery and murder from the career of the great scientific detective, Dr John Thorndyke. Including every story from John Thorndyke's Cases (1909), The Adventures of Dr Thorndyke (1912), Percival Bland's Proxy (1913), The Missing Mortgagee (1914), Dr Thorndyke's Case-book (1923), and The Puzzle Lock and Other Stories (1925)

Susan Wittig Albert delights mystery lovers with this series based on the life and stories of beloved English children's author Beatrix Potter. When Beatrix finds an abandoned infant, Captain Woodcock and Dimity care for the child as Beatrix and her furry and feathered friends search for its mother.