Classic Detective

A novelist ambles down the lanes of a cosy country village, replete with Tudor houses and quaint cottages. In her writer's mind she pictures the sordid truth beyond the veneer, a seemingly laughable proposition - until the coming of the letters. Anonymous letters from a poisoned pen, sowing discord and defaming everybody from the Rector to the 'queen of the village' Miss Decima Asprey. Naturally, where there is venom in the air and dark secrets are threatening to come to light, the shadow of death is not far behind.

Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to The Mysterious Affair at Styles and experience the compelling world of classic detective fiction, starring Belgian Hercule Poirot, private detective extraordinaire.

Peter Grant is learning magic fast. And it’s just as well - he's already had run-ins with the deadly supernatural children of the Thames and a terrifying killer in Soho. Progression in the police force is less easy, especially when you work in a department of two. A department that doesn't even officially exist. A department that if you did describe it to most people would get you laughed at.

The house called Sunset has been Marcia's summer home for her entire life. Both of her parents died there, and she and her brother spent their youth exploring its rambling hallways and seaside grounds. They love the old house, but Marcia's sister-in-law has never taken to it. Juliette loathes the sea, and soon comes to loathe her husband as well. After they divorce, Juliette pays a final visit to Sunset, demanding alimony. She is there for a few tense days before she disappears. It takes them a week to find her body.

Francis Pettigrew travels to Exmoor for a holiday with his wife - an area in which as a young boy he was traumatized by coming across a dead body on the moor. In an attempt to exorcise this trauma, Pettigrew walks across the moor to the place where the incident occurred - only to find another dead body. Moreover, when he returns to the scene with the police, the body is gone. Did he really see a body, or is it a hallucination conjured up by his return to the scene of the crime that has haunted him since childhood?

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson investigate the legend of a supernatural hound, a beast that may be stalking a young heir on the fog-shrouded moorland that makes up his estate. The best of the Holmes novels!

Morley's sequel to Parnassus on Wheels, his second love letter to the bookselling trade, The Haunted Bookshop, finds Mifflin and McGill now married and ensconced in Brooklyn. When Aubrey Gilbert, a young advertising man, visits the shop, he falls for Mifflin’s assistant, Titania. But something is amiss. The ghosts of literature aren’t the only mysterious visitors in Mifflin’s bookshop, where books disappear and reappear, but Mifflin is too distracted to notice. Gilbert takes Titania's safety into his own hands. Her life—and the Mifflins’—may depend on it.

As springtime comes, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn have developed a bad case of spring fever. When Tom's Aunt Sally invites them to Arkansas, their malady is instantly cured. But as the duo sets out on their steamer to get down river, they learn that Tom's Uncle Silas is in considerable trouble and needs their help. This classic is the perfect listen for audiences of all ages and encapsulates the essence of American literature.

An ancient ring stolen from a Holocaust victim. A stuffed raven that once belonged to Charles Dickens. An extra body in the New York City Morgue. Only one man could follow these clues to a solution: the legendary Jorge Luis Borges. "... highly recommended for classic detective story enthusiasts who look for complexity and intellectual challenges in their characters and stories." - Midwest Book Review Two years after their collaboration chronicled in The Philosophical Detective, Nick Martin again falls under the spell of the blind poet and fabulist who calls himself Jorge Luis Borges. ...

When Lord Peter hears of an elderly woman's sudden death, dismissed by authorities as perfectly ordinary, his razor-sharp instincts detect something amiss. Teaming up with the ever-reliable Detective Inspector Parker and his clever secretary Miss Climpson, Lord Peter unravels a chilling scheme rooted in greed, manipulation, and hidden motives. As secrets come to light, Wimsey must race against time to prevent another murder and expose a ruthless culprit.

After a corpse wearing pince-nez glasses is found in a bathtub, Lord Peter Wimsey undertakes the case and investigates the deed privately. But determining whether the corpse belongs to a well-known banker or a group of mischief-making medical students is just the beginning of this tangled mystery plot.

A prominent financier vanishes before bedtime, without his clothes. Hours later, a corpse is found in a bathtub wearing only pince-nez eyeglasses. When it’s determined that the body is not that of the financier, it’s up to amateur detective Lord Peter Wimsey to uncover the naked truth. As the part-time sleuth investigates what these men - one dead, one missing, both starkers - have in common, the pieces of two puzzles converge, and the case becomes more dangerous by the clue.

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes are overshadowed by the event with which they close - the meeting of the great detective and Moriarty, the Napoleon of Crime. When "The Final Problem" was first published, the struggle between Holmes and his arch nemesis, seemingly to the death, left many readers desolate at the loss of Holmes, but it also led to his immortality as a literary figure.

This is a story from the Murders in the Rue Morgue (The Dupin Stories) collection. Auguste Dupin, investigator extraordinaire, was the remarkable creation of Edgar Allan Poe. Written in the 1840s, Poe presented the acutely observant, shrewd but idiosyncratic character who, with his chronicler, provided the inspiration for the more famous Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

Scandal hits the staid publishing house of Barnabas when one of the directors is found dead in the strong-room. Suspicion immediately falls on his wife's lover, the junior partner in the firm. But how does an unpublished Restoration comedy come to feature in the tragedy? And what of the odd disappearance of another director twenty years before?

It’s Christmas Eve in New Chapel, Indiana. But this night will be anything but silent in a brand new Flower Shop Mystery Novella from New York Times bestselling author of Moss Hysteria and Yews With Caution. After being hired to deliver poinsettias to Churchill’s department store in downtown New Chapel, feisty flower shop owner Abby Knight finds herself mixed up in the disappearance of everyone’s favorite Santa Claus, Mr. Churchill himself. Promising Churchill’s daughter that the legendary Christmas Eve celebration will not go on without her father, Abby must recruit her whole staff...

As a dense yellow fog swirls through the streets of London, a deep melancholy has descended on Sherlock Holmes, who sits in a cocaine-induced haze at 221B Baker Street. His mood is only lifted by a visit from a beautiful but distressed young woman---Mary Morstan, whose father vanished ten years before. Four years later she began to receive an exquisite gift every year: a large, lustrous pearl.

Ten years ago, Mary Morstan’s father, an officer in an Indian regiment, vanished. Four years later, elegant pearls began to arrive, six in total, and now she holds an invitation to meet her mysterious anonymous benefactor. As Miss Morstan shares this peculiar tale with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, she urges the detectives to accompany her. Her only clues to her father’s disappearance: a map of a fortress with the names of four strangers and an assertion that she’s been dreadfully wronged.

This audiobook is wonderfully narrated by British actor Nigel Peever, who brings the story to life. Published by Chesterton Books.

Horace Manning, scientist, recluse and 'closed book' even to his friends, is found dead in his study at 4a.m., following a dinner in honour of his daughter's engagement. An ivory-handled carving knife rests between his shoulder blades as the houseguests gather round to witness the awful crime. The telephone line has been sabotaged - a calculated murder has been committed. Rewinding twelve hours, the events of the afternoon and evening unfold, revealing a multitude of clues and motives from a closed cast of suspects.