Showing titles in Traditional Detectives

A new unabridged Agatha Christie mystery, featuring the young adventurers Lady ‘Frankie’ Derwent and Bobby Jones.While playing an erratic round of golf, Bobby Jones slices his ball over the edge of a cliff. His ball is lost, but on the rocks below he finds the crumpled body of a dying man. With his final breath the man opens his eyes and says, ‘Why didn’t they ask Evans?’Haunted by these words, Bobby and his vivacious companion, Frankie, set out to solve a mystery that will bring them into mortal danger…

When editor Susan Ryeland is given the tattered manuscript of Alan Conway's latest novel, she has little idea it will change her life. She's worked with the revered crime writer for years, and his detective, Atticus Pund, is renowned for solving crimes in the sleepy English villages of the 1950s. As Susan knows only too well, vintage crime sells handsomely. It's just a shame that it means dealing with an author like Alan Conway.... But Conway's latest tale of murder at Pye Hall is not quite what it seems.

When James McGrath needed someone to take a memoir to a publisher and to return letters to the woman who wrote them, he chooses his friend Anthony Cade, who agrees to take on the two jobs. But on Anthony's first night in London, the letters are stolen from his hotel room. He soon finds himself embroiled in a web of intrigue, conspiracy, and secrets that leads all the way to the top levels of government.

Some said it was tragic, what happened to the Van Laars. Some said the Van Laars deserved it. That they never even thanked the searchers who stayed out for five nights in the freezing forest trying to help find their missing son. Some said there was a reason it took the family so long to call for help. That they knew what happened to the boy. Now, fifteen years later, the daughter the family had in their grief has gone missing in the same wilderness as her brother.

It's 1194, and Sir Faucon de Ramis, the shire's newly appointed keeper of the pleas, must do his duty and make an official declaration of the cause of a miller's death. Saddled with a clerk who names Faucon his "penance", the shire's first crowner must thread the tangled relationships between the sheriff, the village of Priors Holston, and the priory that once ruled it. As a simple task takes a turn to the political, what seems obvious isn't, and what appears safe turns out to be more dangerous than he could imagine.

Just after midnight, a snowdrift stopped the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train was surprisingly full for the time of the year. But by the morning there was one passenger fewer. An American lay dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside.

A classic Marple mystery, read by the inimitable Richard E. Grant. Rex Fortescue, king of a financial empire, was sipping tea in his ‘counting house' when he suffered an agonising and sudden death. On later inspection, the pockets of the deceased were found to contain traces of cereals. Yet, it was the incident in the parlour which confirmed Jane Marple's suspicion that here she was looking at a case of crime by rhyme.

Little did Anthony Cade suspect that a simple errand on behalf of a friend would make him the centrepiece of a murderous international conspiracy. Someone would stop at nothing to prevent the monarchy being restored in faraway Herzoslovakia. The combined forces of Scotland Yard and the French Surete can do no better than go in circles - until the final murder at Chimneys, the great country estate that yields up an amazing secret.

In the peace and tranquility of the woods at Pinehills on a Saturday afternoon, a mobile phone begins to ring. The phone belongs to DC Smith, and it isn't unusual that the call is from Kings Lake Central police station; what is unusual is the fact that he seems to be the subject of an investigation rather than taking part in one. What can the links be between a prisoner's violent death in another county, the disappearance of two teenagers, and the highest profile case in Kings Lake for many years?

The world’s greatest detective, Hercule Poirot – legendary star of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile – puts his little grey cells to work solving a baffling Christmas mystery.

It is Christmas Eve. The Lee family reunion is shattered by a deafening crash of furniture, followed by a high-pitched wailing scream. Upstairs, the tyrannical Simeon Lee lies dead in a pool of blood, his throat slashed. But when Hercule Poirot, who is staying in the village with a friend for Christmas, offers to assist, he finds an atmosphere not of mourning but of mutual suspicion. It seems everyone had their own reason to hate the old man.

Meet The Honourable Richard Rollison—a.k.a the Toff. A debonair aristocrat and ace amateur sleuth, he's the scourge of London's criminal underworld: sometimes working alone, sometimes hand-in-glove with the police. But wherever he goes, he leaves his distinctive calling card: a jaunty caricature featuring a top hat, a monocle, a bow tie and a cigar. In these two gripping thrillers, he finds himself involved in rural intrigue and a wedding-day mystery.

What begins as a routine journey on the luxurious Orient Express soon unfurls into Agatha Christie's most famous murder mystery. This all-star production features lead performances from Tom Conti ( The Dark Knight Rises, Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence) as Hercule Poirot, Sophie Okonedo ( After Earth, Hotel Rwanda and Ace Ventura) and Eddie Marsan ( Sherlock Holmes, V for Vendetta and Hancock) plus a full supporting cast.

When a worker goes missing from a North Sea gas platform, there seem to be just two possible explanations - it was a tragic accident or a suicide. It does not take Smith and his detectives long, however, to discover that James Bell led a double life back onshore in Kings Lake, a life complicated enough to make him at least one dangerous enemy. Before the case can be unraveled, Smith must get a new team working together.

Tommy and Tuppence Beresford have just become the proud owners of an old house in an English village. Along with the property, they have inherited some worthless bric-a-brac, including a collection of antique books. While rustling through a copy of The Black Arrow, Tuppence comes upon a series of apparently random underlinings.

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 curse of a pharoah's tomb...a jewel robbery by the sea...the abduction of a Prime Minister...the disappearance of a banker...a phone call from a dying man...and, finally, the mystery of the missing will.

Jackson Brodie has relocated to a quiet seaside village in North Yorkshire, in the occasional company of his recalcitrant teenage son Nathan and ageing Labrador Dido, both at the discretion of his former partner Julia. It’s a picturesque setting, but there’s something darker lurking behind the scenes. Jackson’s current job, gathering proof of an unfaithful husband for his suspicious wife, seems straightforward, but a chance encounter with a desperate man on a crumbling cliff leads him into a sinister network - and back into the path of someone from his past.

An entertaining selection of Sherlock Holmes short stories narrated by renowned actors including Sir John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson.

An unknown wounded man in a church. A fatal riding accident. A corpse and a tape measure. Whether in St Mary Mead or further afield, there is always much wickedness lurking below the surface, should, like Jane Marple, you have the eyes to see it. Published posthumously, this collection of tales, seven of them featuring Agatha Christie’s much loved Miss Marple, plus two stand-alone stories, is a treasure trove.

When an archaeological investigation of an old prisoner of war camp turns up several bodies in unmarked graves, it should be an open and shut case for DCI John Blizzard. But on a foggy November morning, his instinct that something is not quite right is confirmed when forensics show that while most of the victims died during a flu epidemic after the Second World War, one of the deaths was far more recent. Who is this man? Why was he killed? As Blizzard and his team investigate, they begin to uncover a cruel crime and a promise of revenge that goes back generations.