A Guide to Some of the Greatest Detective Fiction
Explore the finest detective fiction with our curated guide to the greatest books in the genre. Uncover classic mysteries, thrilling whodunits, and masterful sleuths in this must-read list for crime fiction lovers.
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The Oxford Book of Victorian Detective Stories
by Michael Cox
Short, enticing tales of mystery and detection were part of the Victorian readers' staple diet. The detective story celebrated the human ability to explain and comprehend. In this entertaining anthology, Michael Cox has assembled a wide-ranging selection of 31 stories from authors such as J.S. Le Fanu, Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Mrs Henry Wood, Wilkie Collins, M.P. Shiel, Baroness Orczy, Sax Rohmer, Robert Barr, and, inevitably, Arthur Conan Doyle. There are police detectives, gentlemen amateurs, lady detectives, professional consulting detectives, even an 'anti-detective' (who devises a crime for himself to solve) and a psychic detective. The villains against whom they pit their wits are equally various, as are their crimes - from fraud and forgery to theft, abduction, and of course, murder most foul, whether by poison, bullet, or blade.
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The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories
by Patricia Craig
Essential reading for all armchair detectives, this collection of 33 classic whodunits is the cream of crime writing.
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Strong Poison
by Dorothy L. Sayers
Mystery novelist Harriet Vane knows all about poisons, and when her fiance dies in a manner described in one of her books, a jury of her peers think a hangman's noose is the answer. But Lord Peter Wimsey is determined to find Harriet innocent--and make her his wife. Originally published in 1930.
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And Then There Were None
by Agatha Christie
And Then There Were None is the signature novel of Agatha Christie, the most popular work of the world's bestselling novelist. It is a masterpiece of mystery and suspense that has been a fixture in popular literature since it was originally published in 1939. First there were ten-a curious assortment of strangers summoned to a private island off the coast of Devon. Their host, an eccentric millionaire unknown to any of them, is nowhere to be found. The ten guests have precious little in common except that each has a deadly secret buried deep in their own past. And, unknown to them, each has been marked for murder. Alone on the island and trapped by foul weather, one by one the guests begin to fall prey to the hidden murderer among them. With themselves as the only suspects, only the dead are above suspicion.
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The Maltese Falcon
by Dashiell Hammett
FEATURING THE CHARACTER THAT INSPIRED THE AMC SERIES MONSIEUR SPADE STARRING CLIVE OWEN ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME Detective Sam Spade is a private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. When his partner is killed during a stakeout, he is drawn into the hunt for a fantastic treasure with a dubious provenance—a golden bird encrusted with jewels. Also on the trail are a perfumed grifter named Joel Cairo, an oversized adventurer named Gutman, and Spade’s new client Brigid O’Shaughnessy, a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime. These are the ingredients of Dashiell Hammett’s coolly glittering gem of detective fiction, a novel that has haunted generations of readers. *With a new introduction by Richard Russo*
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The New York Trilogy
by Paul Auster
The remarkable, acclaimed series of interconnected detective novels City of Glass, Ghosts, and The Locked Room, from New York Times bestselling author Paul Auster “Exhilarating . . . a brilliant investigation of the storyteller’s art guided by a writer-detective who’s never satisfied with just the facts.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer City of Glass: As a result of a strange phone call in the middle of the night, Quinn, a writer of detective stories, becomes enmeshed in a case more puzzling than any he might have written. Ghosts: Blue, a student of Brown, has been hired by White to spy on Black. From a window of a rented room on Orange Street, Blue keeps watch on his subject, who is across the street, staring out of his own window. The Locked Room: Fanshawe has disappeared, leaving behind his wife and baby and a cache of extraordinary novels, plays, and poems. What happened to him and why is the narrator, Fanshawe’s boyhood friend, lured obsessively into his life? Moving at the breathless pace of a thriller, this is a uniquely stylized trilogy of detective novels that The Washington Post Book World has classified as “post-existential private eye. . . . It’s as if Kafka has gotten hooked on the gumshoe game and penned his own ever-spiraling version.”
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18 Best Stories by Edgar Allan Poe
by Edgar Allan Poe
A chilling compilation of some of Edgar Allen Poe's best-loved stories, edited by Vincent Price and Chandler Brossard and with an introduction by Vincent Price, including: The Black Cat - The Fall of the House of Usher - The Masque of the Red Death - The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar - The Premature Burial - Ms. Found in a Bottle - A Tale of the Ragged Mountains - The Sphinx - The Murders in the Rue Morgue - The Tell-Tale Heart - The Gold-Bug - The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether - The Man That Was Used Up - The Balloon Hoax - A Descent Into the Maelstrom - The Purloined Letter - The Pit and The Pendulum - The Cask of Amontillado
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The Face of a Stranger
by Anne Perry
Victorian sleuth William Monk wakes up in a hospital with no memory, but Police Inspector Runcorn, insisting that Monk is a detective, assigns him to investigate a "gentleman's" brutal murder involving the underside of British society. Reissue.
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Fire and Fog
by Dianne Day
"With her independent spirit and youthful determination, Miss Jones is virtually invincible," raved The New York Times Book Review upon meeting Dianne Day's spunky and appealing new heroine in her debut, The Strange Files of Fremont Jones. Now Fremont Jones returns, awakened by a terrible rumbling, and nearly crushed by a falling armoire, to find herself in the midst of the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. In the confusion and devastation that ensues, Fremont volunteers for the Red Cross, and learns to drive an automobile to transport supplies and handsome doctors, sparking romances along the way. Her sleuthing cohort, the elusive Michael Archer, vanishes, leaving Fremont alone to sleuth the mysteries uncovered by the earthquake and to wrestle with her romantic feelings for Michael. A smuggler's cache unearthed by the disaster leads Fremont straight into danger: kidnapped by murderous Ninjas, Fremont must find her way to safety--thwarted at every turn, as even friends become suspect. Alone Fremont picks her way through the menacing ruins of San Francisco and narrowly escapes with her life.
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The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
by Agatha Christie
A widow's sudden suicide sparks rumors that she murdered her first husband, was being blackmailed, and was carrying on a secrey affair with the wealthy Roger Ackroyd. The following evening, Ackroyd is murdered in his locked study, but not before receiving a letter identifying the widow's blackmailer. Kings Abbot is crawling with suspects and it's up to famous detective, Hercule Poirot, to solve the case.
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Death on the Nile
by Agatha Christie
A murder on a cruise ship on the Nile baffles everyone except ace detective Hercule Poirot.
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The Club Dumas
by Arturo P?rez-Reverte
Lucas Corso, a rare book hunter, is called in to authenticate a fragment of the original manuscript of Alexandre Dumas's "The Three Musketeers," found in the possession of a murdered bibliophile, and soon finds himself involved in an adventure in which life imitates literature.
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The Mousetrap and Other Plays
by Agatha Christie
A collection of classic theatrical whodunnits includes Ten Little Indians, Witness for the Prosecution, and The Mousetrap, the longest running play in history. Reissue.