Classic Thrillers

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.

Ex-mob enforcer-turned-private investigator Isaiah Coleridge pits himself against a rich and powerful foe when he digs into a possible murder and a sketchy real-estate deal worth billions. Ex-majordomo and bodyguard to an industrial tycoon-cum-U.S. senator, Badja Adeyemi is in hiding and shortly...

The Lampreys revel in their eccentricity and entertain their guests with complicated charades. But when one game goes wrong and rich Uncle Gabriel is found murdered in a most grizzly manner, the only person capable of solving the crime is Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn.

In 2015 the Quantum Bomb exploded. An accident at an atom-smasher has fractured reality and opened Earth - now called Otopia - to waves of immigration from other dimensions, home to demons, fairies, elves and elementals. It is now 2021 and Lila Black, a special operative condemned to live as a cyborg after losing her limbs on a dangerous mission, has been assigned as bodyguard to Zal, a charismatic elven rock star.

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.

Sisters? Forever. Friends? NEVER. Who knew a reunion weekend could be so deadly? Meet the sorority sisters of Theta Gamma Mu: Roxy Callahan Gentry, the ruthless former sorority president and current hostess who has painstakingly choreographed every detail of this weekend—even matching the...

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.

In the1930s and '40s, Black Mask was the single most important magazine for the modern mystery field. Here writers such as Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Earl Stanley Gardner reshaped the established view of mystery fiction, creating the "hard-boiled" private eye. Now this series resurrects from those pages the toughest of tough detectives in sonic dramatizations from the award-winning Hollywood Theater of the Ear.

Ce recueil de 12 nouvelles captivantes dévoile les exploits inégalés du génie de la déduction, Sherlock Holmes, et de son fidèle compagnon, le Dr John Watson. Ensemble, ils se lancent dans une série de mystères intrigants et de crimes apparemment insolubles, naviguant à travers les rues sombres et les somptueuses demeures de l'Angleterre victorienne.

The elf had been murdered, that much was evident... Christmas is only days away, and Santa is facing the greatest crisis of his career. Pinkie Merryvale, head of the elves' union, has been brutally murdered, the most obvious suspect none other than Santa himself - for years he and Merryvale had clashed over the working conditions of the North Pole's workforce. The elves, worked to exhaustion, issue an ultimatum in response. If Santa can't find the killer and prove his innocence before Christmas Eve, they STRIKE, and Christmas worldwide will be ruined.

From V.C. Andrews, bestselling author of Flowers in the Attic (the first in a series of Lifetime movie events about the Dollanganger family), comes the tale of a young girl kept under the watchful eye of her adoptive parents, as if they fear who—or what—she’ll become… Sixteen-year-old...

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.

One of the most original and best adventure stories ever told, with spies, thrilling chase scenes, and explosions. With an introduction by Stella Rimington. May 1914. Britain is on the eve of war with Germany. Richard Hannay is living a quiet life in London, but after a chance encounter with a...

Brought to you by Penguin. A leak is traced to a small sub-section of the secret service, sparking off the inevitable security checks, tensions and suspicions. The sort of atmosphere, perhaps, where mistakes could be made? For Maurice Castle, it is the end of the line anyway, and time for him to...

Murder comes in two familiar forms. Whether as a crime of passion with high emotions or a cold dispassionate plot to take life in order to gain in some way, the act strikes us all as somehow inhuman. Beneath us as civilised beings. But however we cloak our animal instincts the need to remove a human being and gain relief from abuse or gain from money, the term is just the same – MURDER. Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, J M Barrie, W W Jacobs and many others bring their literary heft to bear in as calculating a way as any killer could.

In this classic Hawthorne short story set in the late 18th century, the ambitious young scientist Aylmer cannot bear the fact that his otherwise flawlessly beautiful wife Georgiana bears a tiny birthmark on her cheek, an imperfection that he believes his scientific methods can cure. Devoted wholeheartedly to her husband, Georgiana allows Aylmer to work his scientific wonders upon her, so that the blemish no may no longer torment him. But tampering with nature can prove a fearful business....

When a famous theatre actor is found dead in his changing room, it is initially labelled a suicide. But Inspector Alleyn believes there is more to it, and soon the cast of the production find themselves under suspicion.

A short story from the British Library Crime Classic collection Final Acts. Detective novelist Dorothy L. Sayers presents a look at morality and motive as playwright John Scales grows angrier and more resentful towards the actor who reinvented his script, and must decide how far he will allow his hatred to take him.

La historia se centra en dos mujeres, Martha y Mrs. Hale, quienes acompañan a sus esposos y al sheriff a la escena del crimen para recoger algunos objetos personales para la esposa encarcelada del granjero asesinado. A medida que los hombres buscan evidencias por toda la casa, las mujeres descubren pistas en la cocina que revelan una historia de desesperación y opresión.

Dos señores, cómplices en actividades deshonestas, se verán enfrentados por un negocio que no salió del todo bien. Intentarán resolverlo —no sin prescindir de sus artimañas— por medio de la correspondencia entre ambos, pero las cosas llegarán a estancias que estos dos ladinos ni siquiera podrían imaginar.