International Mysteries Fiction

A game of cross and double-cross in Venice, one of the most beautiful cities on earth. From his office on the Street of the Assassins, Nathan Sutherland enjoys a steady but unexciting life translating Italian DIY manuals. All this changes dramatically when he is offered a large sum of money to look after a small package containing an extremely valuable antique prayer book illustrated by a Venetian master. But is it a stolen masterpiece - or a brilliant fake?

The year is 2026. The US military has a new weapon in its arsenal: an intelligent life-form so versatile that it can not only create a new generation of weapons but can become a weapon itself - entering a host’s body to manipulate (or kill) them. Admiral James Curtiss is tasked with deploying the new weapons, first in Cuba, then Venezuela, then China. But the news of the military’s breakthrough has gotten out and there are menacing forces trying to steal it. What’s more, a single man has somehow harnessed the new power and has become something more than human - godlike.

About the best that can be said of wealthy Maggie Baird is that inside her middle-aged body, there still beats the heart of a beautiful tart. So when her car catches fire with Maggie in it, there are five likely suspects right on the premises of her luxurious Highlands cottage. Lochdubh police constable Hamish Macbeth has to question Maggie's timid niece and four former lovers, one of whom Maggie had intended to pick for her husband. All five are equally poor - with ample motive and opportunity to monkey with Maggie's car.

Easter weekend is approaching, and snow is gently falling in Siglufjörður, the northernmost town in Iceland. Ari Thór Arason is now a police inspector, but he’s separated from his girlfriend, who lives in Sweden with their three-year-old son. A family reunion is planned for the holiday, but a violent blizzard is threatening and there is an unsettling chill in the air. Three days before Easter, a 19-year-old local girl falls to her death from the balcony of a house on the main street. A perplexing entry in her diary suggests that this may not be an accident.

A lavish weekend party, a practical joke that goes murderously wrong, and stolen state secrets all transpire in The Seven Dials Mystery, by Agatha Christie. Full of her usual sly wit this clever murder mystery is a classic detective story featuring some of the characters from an earlier novel, The Secret of Chimneys: Lady Eileen (Bundle) Brent, Lord Caterham, Bill Eversleigh, George Lomax, Tredwell, and Superintendent Battle.

La croisière promettait d'être sublime. Mais peu après avoir levé l'ancre, le luxueux Queen Charlotte est le théâtre d'un mystérieux assassinat : celui de lady Em, une riche octogénaire. Et son inestimable collier d'émeraudes, censé avoir appartenu à Cléopâtre, a disparu... Le coupable est à bord, sans aucun doute. Mais qui est-ce ? Son assistante apparemment dévouée ? Le jeune avocat qui voulait persuader lady Em de rendre le collier à l'Égypte, son propriétaire légitime ?

Two bodies have been found in a park in the fashionable London neighborhood of Callander Square. While Inspector Thomas Pitt is fighting to get the square’s aristocratic residents to speak with him, his pretty, well-born wife, Charlotte, decides to do some detective work of her own. Soon she is unearthing secrets in every house on the square, while Thomas tries to discover what would drive a person to murder.

A new translation of this moving novel about the destructive power of greed. Poor Cécile! And yet she was still young. Maigret had seen her papers: barely 28 years old. But it would be difficult to look more like an old maid, to move less gracefully, in spite of the care she took to be friendly and pleasant. Those black dresses that she must make for herself from bad paper patterns, that ridiculous green hat!

Redoutant toujours les enquêtes sur des lieux incendiés, Tempe est appelée à analyser les dépouilles des victimes d’un brasier mortel, et voit ses inquiétudes confirmées. L’immeuble dévasté se trouve dans Foggy Bottom, un quartier coloré au passé tumultueux. Pour cette enquête, Tempe s’adjoint une nouvelle alliée en la personne d’Ivy Doyle, une journaliste de la télé. Ensemble, elles apprennent que, dans les années 1930 et 1940, l’immeuble était le repaire de contrebandiers et de trafiquants connus comme le « gang de Foggy Bottom ».

Felix Olliphant was found stabbed to death at a New Year's Eve costume party for the turn of the millennium. Seemingly liked by everyone, motives for his murder are hard to find. There was one suspect, but no evidence. Hillary struggles to solve this baffling case. And she has to contend with a new colleague, Jake Barnes. Young and rich, he says he wants to give something back to the community, but Hillary has her doubts. Will Hillary finally be defeated by this cold case and will she lose her boss and love interest to a new job?

When a well-known British TV historian, Marmaduke Godolphin, is found murdered in the canals of Venice during carnival, stabbed by a stiletto blade, the Venetian police are eager to have the case solved and cleared up within a day—murder is bad for tourism! The police recruit the help of retired archivist, Arnold Clover. Godolphin had hired his services on arriving in Venice to help sort through some historical papers of note. These dusty documents may contain previously unknown information about the assassination of the murderer, Lorenzino de' Medici, 500 years previously.

Paislee's custom sweater and yarn business, Cashmere Crush, is the sole support for not only the single mum and her 10-year-old son, Brody, but also her eccentric Gramps and Wallace, their black Scottish terrier. So when her landlord, Shawn Marcus, serves her an eviction notice and then pulls a disappearing act, she'll go to any lengths to find the man and reason with him.

When retired police detective, Albert Smith, and his dog wander into a small town in the French mountains, no one expects the trouble they will uncover. A body has been unearthed at a nearby archaeological dig and it's clear no one was ever supposed to find it. The locals deny all knowledge; they have no idea who it could be, but there is something disturbing about how they all give the exact same answer. And what of the archaeologists? What were they really looking for? It wasn't the Stone Age settlement they claim to be after. Does everyone in this town have a secret they don't want exposed?

Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies. This collection, with voices of French and English writers, visits many neighborhoods and combines them into something that is, if not totally coherent, at least as coherent as the beautiful mess that is Montreal....

The monsoon has started and as Bombay grapples with rain-induced chaos, a new case arrives at Malabar House. A man has been found frozen in the foothills of the Himalayas, near the town of Dehra Dun, his face crushed. The case is handed to the unflappable Inspector Persis Wadia and the man is christened 'The Ice Man' by the national media. Who is he? How long has he been there? Why was he killed?

In Lace and Lies, the knitting shop's been chosen to appear on TV with celebrity knitting designer Teddy Lamont, but things go wrong on and off the camera, and somebody doesn't make it to the final credits.

Berlin Game begins with a plea from “Brahms Four,” one of Britain’s most valuable agents stationed in East Germany: He wants to cross the Iron Curtain and come to the West. Bernard Samson, the former field agent now stationed in London, is tasked with the rescue. But before he even sets out on the mission, suspicions arise that there is a traitor in the MI6, likely one of his closest colleagues.

The body of a young woman is found by a river outside Belfast and Detective Sergeant Ryan McBride makes a heart-wrenching discovery at the scene, a discovery he chooses to hide even though it could cost him the investigation—and his career. The victim was a loner but well-liked. Why would someone want to harm her? And is her murder connected to a rapist who's stalking the local pubs? As Ryan untangles a web of deception and lies, his suspects die one by one, leading him to a dangerous family secret and a murderer who will stop at nothing to keep it.

No one would ever accuse famous opera star Dame Serena Levante of lacking a flare for the dramatic. Unfortunately, it's curtains down on the dysfunctional diva when she's found dead at the bottom of a staircase in her elegant home. Solving an opera singer's murder may not be the typical hairdresser's aria of expertise. But Dame Serena was the mother of Daisy's best friend Floria, so Daisy must do-or-dye her best to get to the roots of the case.

Jack Sigler, call sign King, and the elite Chess Team operatives have been relentlessly hunting for their abducted former leader, Tom Duncan. An urgent call from George Pierce's shadowy Cerberus Group catapults them to the treacherous Southern Ocean, where they clash with ferocious prehistoric nightmares in a fight for survival.