Subject: Crime & Mystery Fiction

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The Chinese Parrot Earl Derr Biggers

A mysterious millionaire with a penchant for strange pets takes a flyer on a string of pearls and finds that death is the broker. Charlie Chan embarks on an incognito journey across the desert to find the answer to a question – a question posed by a dead parrot who spoke in Chinese . . .Chan dons a disguise and goes…Read More »
Red Aces Edgar Wallace

J. G. Reeder is a shabby little man with red hair and weak eyes. However, his extraordinary mind is rapier sharp. Red Aces is the fourth and last of Edgar Wallace's JG Reeder books, featuring the diffident sleuth with the furled umbrella in three novelette-length adventures. Here are three thrilling episodes torn …Read More »
The Squealer Edgar Wallace

Both Scotland Yard and the criminal community of London are trying to discover the identity of "the Squealer". This mysterious fence forces criminals to sell him their wares for a pittance. When some object, he "squeals" to the police. The story is based on the age-old saw ‘Thou shalt not blab’. The main question se…Read More »
Fifty Candles Earl Derr Biggers

50 Candles starts in a courthouse in Honolulu, moves to China, then to fog-shrouded San Francisco. Many of the elements used in the Charlie Chan series are present: Chinese characters (both sinister and sympathetic), the Honolulu legal system, a shrewd detective (in this case, the lawyer Mark Drew rather than a poli…Read More »
The Murder on the Links Agatha Christie

Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is summoned to France after receiving a distressing letter with an urgent cry for help. Upon his arrival in Merlinville-sur-Mer, the investigator finds the man who penned the letter, the South American millionaire Monsieur Renauld, stabbed to death and his body flung into a freshly-d…Read More »
Poirot Investigates Agatha Christie

The very first collection of superb short stories featuring Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings…

First there was the mystery of the film star and the diamond… then came the ‘suicide’ that was murder… the mystery of the absurdly cheap flat… a suspicious death in a locked gun-room… a million dollar bond robbery… the …Read More »
The Mask of Fu Manchu Sax Rohmer

After discovering the tomb of El Mokanna - the Veiled Prophet - and retrieving the precious relics buried there, the eminent archaeologist Sir Lionel Barton blows up the tomb. The heretic sect faithful to Mokanna interpret the fireball as their prophet's second coming, and a violent uprising begins.

Meanwhile, the …Read More »
The Man in the Brown Suit Agatha Christie

Newly-orphaned Anne Beddingfeld is a nice English girl looking for a bit of adventure in London. But she stumbles upon more than she bargained for! Anne is on the platform at Hyde Park Corner tube station when a man falls onto the live track, dying instantly. A doctor examines the man, pronounces him dead, and leave…Read More »
Charlie Chan Carries On Earl Derr Biggers

Inspector Duff, a Scotland Yard detective and friend of Chan's, is pursuing a murderer on an around-the-world voyage; so far, there have been murders in London, France, Italy and Japan. While his ship is docked in Honolulu, the detective is shot and wounded by his quarry; though he survives, he is unable to continue…Read More »
Keeper of the Keys Earl Derr Biggers

In the 6th and final book in the mystery series featuring the Chinese-American detective Charlie Chan, we find our hero in Lake Tahoe, California. Chan has been invited as a house guest. He meets a glamorous Out of Printera singer, Ellen Landini, and she is murdered by a gunshot during a party. Her servants and four…Read More »
The Power-House John Buchan

When his friend Charles Pitt-Heron vanishes mysteriously, Sir Edward Leithen is at first only mildly concerned. But a series of strange events that follow Pitt-Heron’s disappearance convinces Leithen that he is dealing with a sinister secret society. Their codename is ‘The Power-House’. The authorities are unable to…Read More »
Darkness at Pemberley T. H. White

Described by T.H. White as a study in claustrophobia and fear. Police Inspector Buller is called upon to investigate two mysterious deaths in a Cambridge College. The Inspector is able to solve the mystery, but cannot find sufficient evidence to convict the clever murderer. The murderer and Buller are reunited when …Read More »
The Black Camel Earl Derr Biggers

In Charlie Chan's fourth outing the 'camel', or death itself according to the Chinese proverb, has 'knelt by the gate' of a glamorous Hollywood actress who is visiting Honolulu. More accurately, she has been murdered-stabbed through the heart-and Inspector Chan must unravel the web of secrets and intrigue that s…Read More »
Plain Murder C. S. Forester

At the Universal Advertising Agency on the Strand, London, a murder is being planned. Three men have been discovered taking bribes and face the grim prospect of the dole queue, unless they can get rid of the person who caught them. Their ringleader, thick-set and vicious Mr Morris, soon discovers that killing is far…Read More »
The Shadow of the Rope E. W. Hornung

Rachel Minchin stands in the dock, accused of murdering the dissolute husband she was preparing to leave. The trial is sensational, and public opinion vehemently and almost universally against her. When the jury astonishes and outrages the world with a vedict of not Guilty, Rachel quickly finds herself in need of pr…Read More »
The Tracer of Lost Persons Robert W. Chambers

Mr. Gatewood is a grumpy man whose friend wishes to find a woman to entertain him. A soldier continues to see visions of a woman he'd seen once on a train and wishes to find her before he must return to duty. A young man falls in love with the lifelike remains of an Egyptian dancing girl and wishes for her to come t…Read More »
Behind That Curtain Earl Derr Biggers

The third novel in the Charlie Chan series, set almost exclusively in California, tells the story of the former head of Scotland Yard, a detective who is pursuing the long-cold trail of a murderer. Fifteen years ago, a London solicitor was killed in circumstances in which the only clue was a pair of Chinese slippers…Read More »
No Hero E. W. Hornung

No Hero…A woman from his past…A mysterious, sealed letter…A mountain with a deadly reputation…What brings these things together? And will they confirm or deny a man's assertion that he is no hero? The scene is laid in Switzerland, with a background of piquant hotel gossip, the narrative being in the words of…Read More »
The Little Sister Raymond Chandler

Philip Marlowe heads to Hollywood exploring the underworld of glitter capital, trying to find a sweet young thing's missing brother; a movie starlet with a gangster boyfriend and a pair of siblings with a shared secret. Her name is Orfamay Quest and she's come all the way from Manhattan, Kansas, to find her missing …Read More »
The House Without a Key Earl Derr Biggers

In this classic novel, Charlie Chan makes his debut as Inspector of the Honolulu Police Department. Earl Derr Biggers brings Honolulu to life with deft descriptions of the landscape and of its hybrid ethnic communities. With the creation of Detective Chan, Biggers also shatters stereotypes and was ahead of its time …Read More »
Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club Dorothy L. Sayers

90-year-old General Fentiman was definitely dead, but no one knew exactly when he had died – and the time of death was the determining factor in a half-million-pound inheritance. Lord Peter Wimsey would need every bit of his amazing skills to unravel the mysteries of why the General's lapel was without a red poppy …Read More »
Brat Farrar Josephine Tey

What begins as a ploy to claim an inheritance ends with the impostor’s life hanging in the balance. In this tale of mystery and suspense, a stranger enters the inner sanctum of the Ashby family posing as Patrick Ashby, the heir to the family's sizable fortune. The stranger, Brat Farrar, has been carefully coached on…Read More »
Ziska Marie Corelli

Armand Gervase has it all. He is a famous artist, his paintings are hung in national galleries, and he is celebrated worldwide. His best-known painting, depicting an alluring Egyptian woman about to murder her lover, is known for its minute, historic detail, yet Armand has no experience with Egypt's ancient past…o…Read More »
Trouble is My Business Raymond Chandler

Trouble is My Business is a collection of four riveting novellas from Raymond Chandler. In the first of the four cases LA PI Philip Marlowe is offered a job that leaves a bad taste in the mouth: smearing a girl who's 'got her hooks into a rich man's pup'. Before too long Marlowe's up to his neck in corpses and cop…Read More »
The Gracie Allen Murder Case S. S. Van Dine

The zany plot follows nitwit Gracie Allen trying to help master sleuth Philo Vance solve a murder. Allen's uncle fixes her up with Bill at a company picnic. When the two go out to a nightclub that night, Gracie inadvertently links Bill to the murder of a thug after finding the dead body and Bill's cigarette case at …Read More »
The Lust of Hate Guy Boothby

In this the third of Boothby's Dr. Nikola novels, Nikola applies his almost hypnotic persuasion to convince an out-of-luck Australian, formerly from England, named Gilbert Pennethorne to assist Nikola unwittingly in an evil scheme. Nikola takes advantage of Pennethorne's intense desire for revenge against a former b…Read More »
The Kidnap Murder Case S. S. Van Dine

This new Van Dine kidnap-murder case deals with two of the most unusual crimes in the whole record of Philo Vance's criminological researches. Kasper Kenting, a playboy and ne'er-do-well, disappears from his ancestral home, the 'Purple House,' in West 86th Street, with all the indications pointing to a kidnapping. B…Read More »
The Kennel Murder Case S. S. Van Dine

It was exactly three months after the startling termination of the Scarab murder case* that Philo Vance was drawn into the subtlest and the most perplexing of all the criminal problems that came his way during the four years of John F.-X. Markham's incumbency as District Attorney of New York County.
Fear Stalks the Village Ethel Lina White

It was a model English village, filled with flowers, Tudor cottages, and cobbled streets. Joan Brook loved working there as a companion to Lady d'Arcy, living in the huge mansion with its surrounding park. And small though the village was, it was not too small for Joan to have found a man there whom she could love. …Read More »
To Love and Be Wise Josephine Tey

When a young strikingly handsome photographer mysteriously disappears, it's up to Inspector Alan Grant to discover whether he accidentally drowned, committed suicide, or met his death at the hands of one of his many female admirers.