Classic Fiction Mysteries

The Bellona Club is the picture of old-world respectability—a gentleman’s retreat where war veterans and aristocrats gather for quiet conversation, brandy, and a game of chess. But on Armistice Day, the peace is shattered when the body of General Fentiman is discovered slumped in his usual chair. At first glance, it seems the elderly war hero simply passed away, but something doesn’t add up. The time of death is unclear, his stiff posture is unnatural, and an inheritance worth half a million pounds hangs in the balance.

Briseis has a gift: she can grow plants from tiny seeds to rich blooms with a single touch. When Briseis’ aunt dies and wills her a dilapidated estate in rural New York, Bri and her parents decide to leave Brooklyn behind for the summer. Hopefully there, surrounded by plants and flowers, Bri will finally learn to control her gift. But their new home is sinister in ways they could never have imagined - it comes with a specific set of instructions, an old-school apothecary and a walled garden filled with the deadliest botanicals in the world.

The girl in the photograph has been missing for five years. Neither her body nor the secret documents she was carrying have ever been found. Now, post-war England's economic recovery depends on finding her and getting the papers back. But the two young Brits working undercover for the ministry know only that her name was Jane Finn, and the only photo of her is in the hands of her rich American cousin.

This Puritan classic, first published in the late 17th century, sets forth the biblical teaching of God and his interaction in our lives. No detail is too small or insignificant for God; he is there, working out "all things for good". And in that promise, every believer can take comfort that God truly has a purpose for every single person and will unfold his plan, which includes every detail in our daily lives.

MI6's man in Havana is Wormold, a former vacuum-cleaner salesman turned reluctant secret agent out of economic necessity. To keep his job, he files bogus reports based on Charles Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare and dreams up military installations from vacuum-cleaner designs. Then his stories start coming disturbingly true....

When Miles Hammond is invited to a meeting of the Murder Club in London, he is met instead with just two other guests and is treated to a strange tale of an impossible crime in France years before; the murder of a man on a tower with only one staircase, under watch at the time at which the murder took place. With theories of levitating vampires abounding, the story comes home to Miles when he realises that the librarian he has just hired for his home is none other than Fay Seton, a woman at the heart of this bizarre and unsolved past murder.

Chesterton's allegorical masterpiece is a surreal, psychologically thrilling novel that centres on seven anarchists in turn of the century London who call themselves by the names of days of the week. The story begins when poet Gabriel Syme is recruited as a detective to a secret anarchist division of Scotland Yard by a shrouded, nameless person. Syme infiltrates a secret meeting of anarchists who are intent on destroying the world and becomes known as 'Thursday', one of the seven members of the Central Anarchist Council.

In Clouds of Witness, Dorothy L. Sayers presents another brilliant case for the charismatic Lord Peter Wimsey. This time, the stakes are personal. When his brother, the Duke of Denver, is accused of murder after the death of their sister's fiancé, Lord Peter must race against time to uncover the truth and clear his family's name. Set against the backdrop of English aristocracy and filled with Sayers’ signature wit and intricate plotting, this classic detective novel takes listeners through a maze of lies, secrets, and conflicting testimonies.

This hugely engaging story of murder, superstition, religious politics and drama in a medieval monastery was one of the most striking novels to appear in the 1980s. The Name of the Rose is a thrilling story enriched with period detail and laced with tongue-in-cheek allusions to fictional characters, the most striking of which is the Franciscan friar William of Baskerville, who displays many characteristics of Sherlock Holmes.

Solstice Winters has spent most of her life halfway between normal society and the world of her magical parents. However, when getting caught between two worlds becomes more than metaphorical, being able to summon light or open locks might not be enough.

The snow is thick, the phone line is down, and no one is getting in or out of Warbeck Hall. All is set for a lovely Christmas, with friends and family gathered round the fire, except as the bells chime midnight, a murder is committed. But who is responsible? The scorned young lover? The lord's passed-over cousin? The social-climbing politician's wife? The Czech history professor? The obsequious butler? And perhaps the real question is: Can they survive long enough to find out?

In noir master Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister, a movie starlet with a gangster boyfriend and a pair of siblings with a shared secret lure private eye Philip Marlowe into the less than glamorous and more than a little dangerous world of Hollywood fame. Chandler's first foray into the industry that dominates the company town that is Los Angeles.

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.

Jim Thompson's classic The Grifters is one of the best novels ever written about the art of the con, an ingeniously crafted story of deception and betrayal that was the basis for the critically acclaimed film by Stephen Frears and Martin Scorcese. To his friends, to his coworkers, and even to his mistress Moira, Roy Dillon is an honest hardworking salesman. He lives in a cheap hotel just within his pay bracket. He goes to work every day. He has hundreds of friends and associates who could attest to his good character.

A few weeks after marrying an attractive widow, Gordon Cloade is tragically killed by a bomb blast in the London blitz. Overnight, the former Mrs. Underhay finds herself in sole possession of the Cloade family fortune. Shortly afterward, Hercule Poirot receives a visit from the dead man's sister-in-law who claims she has been warned by "spirits" that Mrs. Underhay's first husband is still alive. Poirot has his suspicions when he is asked to find a missing person guided only by the spirit world.

When a postwar search for London lodgings introduces ailing doctor John H. Watson to quirky chemist Sherlock Holmes, their collaboration in the art of observation and deduction begins. Congenial flatmates and even better colleagues, the pair is quickly drawn into a case of murder and revenge that has Scotland Yard at their wits’ end.

This collection brings together over 50 of the greatest detective stories ever written, featuring iconic characters and masterful plots from some of the most celebrated authors of the mystery genre. In The Classic Detective Collection, readers will be immersed in the thrilling worlds of famous sleuths such as Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown, and Lord Peter Wimsey, whose brilliant minds and unique methods have defined the art of solving crime.

The Classic Crime Collection is a collection of 18 classic detective novels, read by esteemed cast of award-winning narrators. Included here are stories by some of the most iconic crime writers in history, including Dorothy L. Sayers; Arthur Conan Doyle; Agatha Christie; Dashiell Hammett; Wilkie Collins; Josephine Tey; and more.

James Bond is not an easily intimidated man, but it’s hard not to feel unnerved in the presence of Mr. Big. A ruthless Harlem gangster who uses superstition and fear to control his vast criminal empire, he’s also one of SMERSH’s top American operatives. Mr. Big has been smuggling British pirate treasure to New York from a remote Jamaican island and funneling the proceeds to Moscow.

The tulip craze of 17th century Holland has a dark side! Cornelius van Baerle, a wealthy but naive tulip grower, finds himself entangled in the deadly politics of his time, and he must decide where his true love lies.