Christie's first published novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles is notable for introducing many of the character types, plot twists, and red herrings that would become commonplace during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. Set in a remote country ... View details
In An Autobiography, written toward the end of her life, Agatha Christie gives an account of the genesis of The Mysterious Affair at Styles, her first published novel written some fifty years earlier....
In the sleepy little English country village of St Mary Mead, all is not as it seems. Under a seemingly peaceful exterior lurks intrigue, guilt, deception - and murder. Colonel Protheroe, local magistrate and overbearing landowner, is the most detest... View details
It is difficult to know quite where to begin this story, but I have fixed my choice on a certain Wednesday at luncheon at the Vicarage. The conversation, though in the main irrelevant to the matter in...
In Dashiell Hammett's famous crime novel, we meet one of the detective-story master's most enchanting creations, Nick and Nora Charles, a rich, glamorous couple who solve homicides in between wisecracks and martinis. At once knowing and unabashedly r... View details
1 I was leaning against the bar in a speakeasy on Fifty-second Street, waiting for Nora to finish her Christmas shopping, when a girl got up from the table where she had been sitting with three other ...
An LAPD homicide detective must choose between justice and vengeance as he teams up with the FBI in this "thrilling" novel filled with mystery and adventure (New York Times Book Review).
For maverick LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch, the body i... View details
The smoke carried up from the Cahuenga Pass and flattened beneath a layer of cool crossing air. From where Harry Bosch watched, the smoke looked like a gray anvil rising up the pass. The late afternoo...
A murder in a crowded Broadway theater presents a full house of suspects-the first in this classic mystery series starring Ellery Queen! Despite the dismal Broadway season, Gunplay continues to draw crowds. A gangland spectacle, it's packed to the gi... View details
DJUNA HAD just cleared the table of the dinner dishes and was serving coffee to the two Queens at six-thirty that evening when the outer doorbell rang. The little man-of-all-work straightened his tie,...
From Dorothy L. Sayers, "one of the greatest mystery story writers of the [twentieth] century" (Los Angeles Times), the first mystery featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.
A corpse has been found in the bath of an architect's flat, wearing nothing but a pair... View details
‘I’m afraid it’s an awkward place to turn in,’ said Lord Peter, answering the thought rather than the words. His long, amiable face looked as if it had generated spontaneously from his top hat, as whi...
Anthony Award for Best Novel Nominee
Barry Award for Best Novel Nominee
Macavity Award for Best Novel
LibraryReads #1 Pick ... View details
A bottle of wine. A family-sized packet of Nacho Cheese Flavoured Tortilla Chips and a jar of hot salsa dip. A packet of cigarettes on the side (I know, I know). The rain hammering against the windows...
IT WAS AS BLACK IN THE CLOSET AS OLD BLOOD. THEY had shoved me in and locked the door. I breathed heavily through my nose, fighting desperately to remain calm. I tried counting to ten on every intake ...
Thanks to a bungled robbery at a fancy hotel, the already-married Eva Griffin has been caught in the company of a prominent congressman. To protect the politico, Eva's ready to pay the editor of a sleazy tabloid his hush money.
But Perry Mason has ot... View details
Perry Mason sat at the big desk. There was about him the attitude of one who is waiting. His face in repose was like the face of a chess player who is studying the board. That face seldom changed expr...
A coolly glittering gem of detective fiction that has haunted three generations of readers, from one of the greatest mystery writers of all time.
A treasure worth killing for. Sam Spade, a slightly shopworn private eye with his own solitary code of ... View details
Samuel Spade’s jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another, smaller, v. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal. The v mot...