Classic Thrillers

In the first of all the Sherlock Holmes stories, Dr. John Watson, discharged from military service after suffering severe wounds, is at a loose end until a chance encounter leads him to take rooms with a remarkable young man. The arrogant, irascible Sherlock Holmes is a master chemist, a talented musician, and an expert on all aspects of crime.

It starts in a laboratory. A man-made strain of flesh-eating virus. Created by a power-hungry cartel. Capable of turning victims into brain-dead carnivores. Smuggled aboard a cruise ship that's about to set sail . . .One by one, the passengers are exposed. A U.S. senator. A young couple. An undercover agent. A beautiful assassin. Some will be infected. Others will survive. But no one will be spared if the outbreak isn't contained and the dead outnumber the living.

A new translation of Simenon's gripping novel about lives transformed by deceit and the destructive power of lust. It was all real: himself, the room, Andrée still lying on the ravaged bed. For Tony and Andrée, there are no rules when they meet in the blue room at the Hôtel des Voyageurs. Their adulterous affair is intoxicating, passionate - and dangerous. Soon it turns into a nightmare from which there can be no escape.

Tom Ripley is struggling to stay one step ahead of his creditors and the law when an unexpected acquaintance offers him the chance to start over. Ripley wants money, success, and the good life and he's willing to kill for it. When his newfound happiness is threatened, his response is as swift as it is shocking.

London’s Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, Sir John Appleby, is invited on a break to the Scottish Highlands for a trout-fishing weekend but his detective skills are soon put to the test when he discovers the body of their host, and all the guests seem to have a motive for murder....

Our story begins in 1785 when a young seafarer, Captain Thornhill, disappears while visiting the shop of a barber in London, a certain Sweeney Todd whose shop in Fleet Street is situated by St. Dunstan's church, just round the corner from the famous and popular meat pie shop run by Mrs. Lovett. Thornhill was carrying a string of pearls as a gift for Johanna Oakley, the sweetheart of his friend Mark Ingestrie who is missing, presumed lost at sea.

Kell is plagued by his guilt. Restless, and having given up smuggling, he is visited by dreams of ominous magical events, waking only to think of Lila. As Red London prepares for the Element Games - an extravagant international competition of magic - a certain pirate ship draws closer. But another London is coming back to life, a shadow that was gone in the night reappears in the morning. Black London has risen again - and so to keep magic's balance, another London must fall.

A collection of 20 horror/thriller stories with surprise endings to chill you and thrill you to the bone. The terrors include: THE REFRIGERATOR: A man finds a message for help in a used refrigerator once owned by vampires in the house where his father died ten years before. BLACK AS NIGHT: Two teenagers try to rescue a helpless woman from being buried alive by a masked rider on Halloween. NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS: Four friends make New Year’s resolutions to overcome phobias each of them has in the coming year. A month later, three of them have met with unexplained deaths, and the survivor ...

Twenty years ago, 16-year-old Tara Martin disappeared from a small town in the heart of England. Now, her sudden return and the mind-bending tale of where she’s been will challenge our very perception of the truth. For 20 years after Tara Martin disappeared, her parents and her brother, Peter, lived in denial of the grim fact that she was gone for good. Then suddenly on Christmas Day, the doorbell rings at her parents’ home, and there, dishevelled and slightly peculiar looking, Tara stands. It’s a miracle, but alarm bells are ringing for Peter. Tara’s story just does not add up.

Georges Simenon's haunting tale about the lengths to which people will go to escape from guilt, translated by Linda Coverdale as part of the new Penguin Maigret series. A first ink drawing showed a hanged man swinging from a gallows on which perched an enormous crow. And there were at least twenty other etchings and pen or pencil sketches that had the same leitmotif of hanging. On the edge of a forest: a man hanging from every branch.

In this gripping work of historical fiction, Endore's werewolf, an outcast named Bertrand Caillet, travels across pre-Revolutionary France seeking to calm the beast within. Stunning in its sexual frankness and eerie, fog-enshrouded visions, this audiobook was decidedly influential for the generations of horror and science fiction authors who came afterward.

A new translation of Georges Simenon's sensational tale of deceit and back-stabbing in an isolated community, part of the new Maigret series. Maigret has been interrogating Carl Andersen for 17 hours without a confession. He's either innocent or a very good liar. So why was the body of a diamond merchant found at his isolated mansion? Why is his sister always shut away in her room? And why does everyone at Three Widows Crossroads have something to hide?

A visit from the tall, thin woman he arrested many years ago - now married to a hapless burglar - leads Maigret on a tortuous investigation in which he struggles with a formidable suspect. This novel has been published in previous translations as Maigret and the Burglar's Wife.'

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.

Twenty-three great Sherlock Holmes mysteries as published in Strand Magazine. These stories have won over readers in the thousands and have helped make Sherlock Holmes the most popular and most famous detective of all times. Arthur Conan Doyle, was born in Scotland in 1859. He was educated in Jesuit schools in England and Austria. In 1881 he finished a medical degree and signed on as a surgeon aboard a whaling vessel in the Arctic. After an unsuccessful medical practice, Doyle started writing. Sherlock Holmes was an instant success.

Hopalong Cassidy, the iconic western cowboy hero conceived by Clarence Mulford, was immortalized in a highly popular film series starring William Boyd from 1935-1948. A tough-talking and violent character in print, Hopalong Cassidy was remade into a clean-cut screen hero who roamed the West with his sidekicks and fought villains who took advantage of the weak. Here Cassidy is drawn as Mulford originally conceived; rough-and-tumble, foul-mouthed, and thriving on brawls and gunplay.

Oscar Wilde brings his enormous gifts for astute social observation and sparkling prose to The Picture of Dorian Gray, the dreamlike story of a young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty. This dandy, who remains forever unchanged---petulant, hedonistic, vain, and amoral---while a painting of him ages and grows increasingly hideous with the years, has been horrifying and enchanting readers for more than 100 years.

In this classic Hawthorne short story set in the late 18th century, the ambitious young scientist Aylmer cannot bear the fact that his otherwise flawlessly beautiful wife Georgiana bears a tiny birthmark on her cheek, an imperfection that he believes his scientific methods can cure. Devoted wholeheartedly to her husband, Georgiana allows Aylmer to work his scientific wonders upon her, so that the blemish no may no longer torment him. But tampering with nature can prove a fearful business....

The streets of London have been home to many great detectives since the days of Sherlock Holmes and Watson, with some of the best authors in the genre taking to the short story form to pit their sleuths against crimes ranging from murders on the Tube to heists from the capital's finest jewellers. Featuring a roster of Scotland Yard's meticulous best, a cohort of daring doctors and a cadre of characterful private investigators, this new selection by Martin Edwards includes 18 vintage mystery stories which showcase the city's most compelling classic cases.

While on a sailing trip in the Baltic Sea, two young adventurers-turned-spies uncover a secret German plot to invade England. Widely recognized as the first modern spy thriller, this 1902 lone masterpiece by World War I Royal Navy officer Erskine Childers was written as a wake-up call to the British government to attend to its North Sea defenses. It accomplished that task and has been considered a classic of espionage literature ever since.