Classic Thrillers

Saddam Hussein is gone. Yasser Arafat is dead. A New Iraq is rising. Now White House advisors Jon Bennett and Erin McCoy find themselves facing a terrifying new threat triggered by an ancient mystery.

Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest has left an indelible mark on the literature of our time. Turning conventional notions of sanity and insanity on their heads, the novel tells the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially tyrannical Big Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her.

The sinister Madame de Rougierre is employed as governess to the young Maud Ruthven, bringing with her a dark cloud of impending doom that hangs over the whole household. The governess eventually leaves, in possession of a dark secret, but that is not the end of her, much to Maud’s dismay.

Riddle of the Sands is set during the long suspicious years leading up to the First World War and is a classic of spy fiction.

A small southern town in the 1960s. A musician found dead on the highway. It’s no surprise when white detectives arrest a black man for the murder. What is a surprise is that the black man - Virgil Tibbs - is not the killer but a skilled homicide detective, passing through racially tense Wells, South Carolina, on his way back to California. Even more surprising, Wells’s new police chief recruits Tibbs to help with the investigation.

Based in part on Donn Pearce’s own experiences working on a Florida road gang, this classic story of Cool Hand Luke, the defiant survivor who refused to be defeated by the forces of corrupt authority, is earthy, sensitively written, and revealing.

Laura Hunt was the ideal modern woman: beautiful, elegant, highly ambitious, and utterly mysterious. No man could resist her charmsnot even the hardboiled NYPD detective sent to find out who turned her into a faceless corpse. As this tough cop probes the mystery of Lauras death, he becomes obsessed with her strange power.

The country doctor had come to 221B Baker Street, the famous lodgings of Sherlock Holmes, with an eerie tale---the legend of the Hound of the Baskervilles, the devil-beast that haunted the lonely moors around the Baskervilles' ancestral home. The tale warned the descendants of that ancient family never to venture out on the moor "in those dark hours when the powers of evil are exalted."

The year 1942 marked the turning point of World War II. The Americans destroyed the Japanese Battle Fleet in the decisive engagements of Midway and the Coral Sea. General Montgomery defeated General Rommel at El Alamein. But for President Roosevelt, 1942 was the darkest hour of the war. He knew the Germans were developing the atomic bomb. Our victories would be meaningless if the Nazis perfected the “A” bomb first. There was only one man who could find out the biggest Nazi secret of the war: Lanny Budd.

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?

It sounds idyllic: a leisurely drive through the sun-drenched landscape of Provence. But Charity's dream holiday turns into a nightmare when she becomes embroiled in a sinister plot to kidnap a young boy. She soon finds herself in a deadly pursuit and must uncover whom to trust...and whom to fall for.

If you thought magic was confined to one country - think again. Trier: famous for wine, Romans, and being Germany's oldest city. When a man is found dead with his body impossibly covered in a fungal rot, the local authorities know they are out of their depth. But fortunately this is Germany, where there are procedures for everything. Enter Tobias Winter, an investigator for the Abteilung KDA, the branch of the German Federal Criminal Police which handles the supernatural.

Anne Beddingfeld is always ready for an adventure. So when she witnesses a man wearing a brown suit die at a tube station in London, she searches for clues and finds a mysterious piece of paper nearby. The message it contains leads her on a confounding chase full of secret aliases and codes as she seeks to solve the case and catch the murderer. Featuring an appearance from Secret Service agent Colonel Race, this story from renowned mystery writer Agatha Christie is a true classic that blends adventure and suspense with the detective story.

The Cotswolds, 1924. At the Old Forge in the quiet village of Maybury-in-the-Marsh a cry of anguish rings out: lady of the house Amy Phelps has been discovered dead. But with all the windows and doors to her room locked from inside, how – and by whom – was she killed? Arbuthnot ‘Arbie’ Swift finds himself in the unlikely position of detective. The celebrated author of The Gentleman’s Guide to Ghost-Hunting is staying at the Old Forge to investigate a suspected spectre, but now the more pressing matter of Amy’s murder falls to him too.

A sparkling new translation of this flashback to the start of Inspector Maigret's career, part of the new Penguin Maigret series. The profession he had always yearned for did not actually exist...he imagined a cross between a doctor and a priest - a man capable of understanding another's destiny at first glance. The very first investigation by eager young police secretary Jules Maigret leads him to a wealthy Paris family's dark secrets.

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. He made his fifth appearance in this brilliant collection of ingenious short stories. 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.

Life’s always an adventure for the Athena Club...especially when one of their own has been kidnapped! After their thrilling European escapades rescuing Lucina van Helsing, Mary Jekyll, and her friends return home to discover that their friend and kitchen maid Alice has vanished - and so has their friend and employer Sherlock Holmes! As they race to find Alice and bring her home safely, they discover that Alice and Sherlock’s kidnapping are only one small part of a plot that threatens Queen Victoria, and the very future of the British Empire.

The year 1894. The monstrous Hound of the Baskervilles has been dead for five years, along with its no less monstrous owner, the naturalist Jack Stapleton. Sir Henry Baskerville is living contentedly at Baskerville Hall with his new wife, Audrey, and their three-year-old son, Harry. Until, that is, Audrey’s lifeless body is found on the moors, drained of blood. It would appear some fiendish creature is once more at large on Dartmoor and has, like its predecessor, targeted the unfortunate Baskerville family.

When Shai is caught replacing the Moon Scepter with her nearly flawless forgery, she must bargain for her life. An assassin has left the Emperor Ashravan without consciousness, a circumstance concealed only by the death of his wife. If the emperor does not emerge after his hundred-day mourning period, the rule of the Heritage Faction will be forfeit and the empire will fall into chaos.

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.