Agatha Christie's beloved detective Hercule Poirot solves the murder of an American heiress by restaging her final journey by night train-with all of the suspects aboard. When the fabled Blue Train, the luxury overnight passenger express to the Riviera, arrives at Nice, a guard attempts to awaken Ruth Kettering from her slumbers. But the wealthy American socialite will never wake again, for a brutal blow has killed her, disfiguring her almost beyond...

The Lair of the White Worm (1911) is a novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. Published only a year before Stoker's death, The Lair of the White Worm helped to establish the Irish master of Gothic horror's reputation as a leading writer of the early-twentieth century. The novel is partly based on the legend of the Lambton Worm, a story from popular English folklore dating back to at least the 14th century. In 1860, an Australian named Adam Salton is...

In this classic espionage thriller, a chance meeting of doppelgängers threatens to plunge Europe into war
Crazed with thirst and fever, Everard Dominey staggers out of the jungle and awakens to find himself in German East Africa. His rescuer is Leopold von Ragastein, a colonial governor whose impeccable manners belie nefarious intentions. A loyal servant of the Kaiser, von Ragastein has been looking for a way to sneak into England....

May 1953. As the country prepares for the coronation of Elizabeth II, the optimistic mood is spoiled for DI Edgar Stephens and his wartime comrade, magician Max Mephisto, when they are informed by a high-ranking general that their old commander, Colonel Cartwright, has been murdered. This general found some puzzling items in Cartwight's pockets, not least a playbill featuring Tony "The Mind" Mulholland (deceased), and a playing card, the ace of hearts:...

The House Without a Key (1925) is a mystery novel by Earl Derr Biggers. The first in a series of novels featuring Chinese American detective Charlie Chan, The House Without a Key is notable for its nuanced depiction of race and class on the edges of American empire. Based in part on the life of Chinese Hawaiian detective Chang Apana, the character of Charlie Chan was intended by Biggers as an alternative to racist Yellow Peril stereotypes of the early...

The debut of Inspector Hanaud, France's most dazzling deductive mind Aix-les-Bains is a gorgeous place to spend a vacation, and Harry Wethermill is happy to be on its lake, enjoying his time away from it all. Just when it seems life could not get any better, he meets Celia Harland, the stunning companion to the wealthy Madame Dauvray, and falls for the girl immediately. Harry's courtship soon takes a dark turn, however, when Madame Dauvray turns up...

From the Collins Crime Club archive, the third standalone novel by Freeman Wills Crofts, dubbed 'The King of Detective Story Writers'. Seymour Merriman's holiday in France comes to an abrupt halt when his motorcycle starts leaking petrol. Following a lorry to find fuel, he discovers that it belongs to an English company making timber pit-props for coal mines back home. His suspicions of illegal activity are aroused when he sees the exact same lorry...

A policeman in the audience sees an all-too-real death scene on a London stage: "Good enough to satisfy the most critical reader of detective stories." —The New York Times
Inspector Roderick Alleyn has been invited to an opening night, a new play in which two characters quarrel and then struggle for a gun, with predictably sad results. Even sadder, the gun was not, in fact, loaded with blanks. And when it comes to interviewing...

A high society murder. A spirited lady detective. Can she out-class the killer before an innocent person takes the fall?

London, 1923. Olive Belgrave needs a job. Despite her aristocratic upbringing, she's penniless. Determined to support herself, she jumps at an unconventional job—looking into the background of her cousin's fiancé, Alfred. Alfred burst into the upper crust world of London's high society,

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Arthur Conan Doyle's Tales of Terror and Mystery (1922) is a haunting collection of twelve stories that highlights his extraordinary skills of storytelling. The first six stories are bloodcurdling tales of horror, and includes the macabre classic "The New Catacomb". The last six stories, closer in form to the Sherlock Holmes work, includes the classic railroad mystery, "The Lost Special". One of the stand-out works in the entire collection is "The...