Detective Short Stories Mysteries

Seven stories of mystery and adventure from R Austin Freeman; including an audacious theft from London's National Gallery; the sudden self-confidence of a normally timid curate; a very remarkable funeral; a ghostly lawyer's repentance; a lucky find for a rural bricklayer; and two investigations for the celebrated forensic detective Dr. John Thorndyke...

The best-selling author of Harm Done and A Sight for Sore Eyes, Ruth Rendell has written dozens of gripping works under her own name and as Barbara Vine. She has received three Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America and four Dagger Awards from England’s Crime Writers Association. How frightening can a book be? Ambrose Ribbon, self-appointed editor and grammar police, is about to find out.

On Christmas Eve, Leger suffers the indignity of getting stuck trying to escape from a top floor window in front of a cluster of carol singers. So, he chooses to spend the most magical night of the year at his girlfriend, Ginger's home. This decision may be one he will live to regret as they wake up on Christmas morning with a basket of newborn kittens next to them. Leger vows to find the mother of the kittens before they lose their bond with her completely but it won't be easy. He has no idea where to start and nobody in the neighbourhood was pregnant in the first place. How will he begin ...

Leger's lifestyle has finally caught up with him and he is now living in hiding in the highlands with Annabella and Nicole. Life in the wilderness has many benefits but Leger finds it difficult to adjust to his new, temporary home and gets lost one evening. When he is rescued by a kindly American lady and her son and returned home by them, he is filled with gratitude. The visiting Americans invite their new Scottish friends for Thanksgiving dinner the following day, but Annabella has a bad feeling about this woman. Leger decides to throw himself into the celebrations until he accidentally ...

Disillusioned, with their dreams of running an island hotel shattered, the McInnes family return to Glasgow. Hugh and Annabella are planning to go travelling, leaving Leger in the care of the Goldsworthy family while they are gone. He wastes no time on self-pity though and throws himself back into his work. Shortly before arriving back in the city, he learns Nicole has been attacked. With the police taking too long to track down the culprit, Leger and Bob get on the case. However, Isabella can't stop flirting, Ginger is acting out of character and Amber is taking risks that put lives in ...

The neighbours of Glasgow's Creamery Crescent are taking a festive break. Of course, no trip would be complete without their pets so Leger and his closest friends travel north to enjoy the Christmas period in a secluded cottage in the Highlands. The celebratory mood changes when Nicole Goldsworthy witnesses a man and woman burying a body in a shallow grave. The murderers attempt to knock her down in their car but with help from her animal friends, old and new, Nicole survives the hit and run. The situation is complicated further by the arrival of Poppy, who followed the group from Glasgow ...

Two days before Hogmanay, after the Christmas glitter has settled, a mysterious new neighbour is poisoned. Knowing that Amber and this young man could not have met the same fate by coincidence, Leger begins the investigation into what happened, with Lily's help. When that leads him to the newly opened Queen Languoreth pub, he comes face to face and clashes with the new manager. To put his own safety and Annabella's happiness first, he resolves never to go back to the pub, even if this means that another life could be at stake. However, Lily has other ideas.

Returning to Glasgow after a brief spell in his new island home has left Leger feeling homesick and heartbroken. His son and daughter have grown up without him, his beloved Ginger has found a new tom and a thief is running amok in the area while his former sidekick, Amber, is uninterested in catching the culprit. On the plus side, the extra pounds he gained during his brief retirement have done nothing to ruin his appeal with the local mollies. Leger faces uneasy choices. Should he help Amber collect clues and point her in the right direction? How can he win back Ginger? Did he make the ...

Leger's beloved companion, Annabella, is wrongly accused of armed robbery. To clear her name, Leger must head out of the suburbs and go downtown where he will make new friends and face fresh dangers. He is reluctant to leave the neighbourhood at all as Ginger is pregnant with his kittens and due to give birth any day. However a betrayal by one of his close circle of friends convinces him it is best to concentrate on freeing Annabella but when Ginger's daughter Amber learns the truth there are tragic consequences. Will Leger be able to track down the real robber? Will he make it home in time...

Glasgow's finest feline sleuth, Leger McInnes, returns and this time he tackles his most disturbing case yet! His friend Winter is traumatised and unable to speak following the horrific experience of witnessing a murder. Leger vows to track down the murderer and find closure for Winter. This will not be an easy task for Leger. With Winter unable to help, despite knowing exactly what occurred and his sidekick Ginger incarcerated while she is in season, Leger struggles to piece together the events of the night of the murder. He seeks comfort from Samara, the pretty new Persian housecat who ...

He thought she was lost forever but he has finally tracked her down. Leger reunites with his friend, former housemate and fellow detective, Lily and she's back in his life just in time to help him solve a mystery. When John, the man of the house in Leger's temporary home, unexpectedly vanishes, Leger initially is not concerned. After all, he and John have never really seen eye to eye. Why would he care if John went for a really long walk? But, Lily suspects that John is in danger and with very little in the way of clues, something Lily heard might transpire to be invaluable to the ...

It’s the hottest heat wave of the summer and Gus’s air conditioner has decided to give up the ghost. It’s not the heat keeping Gus awake at night, though, but a nighttime visit from Father Xavier. He couldn’t sleep either due to the heat and decided it would be best that they didn’t sleep together. While the father was bothering Gus by telling him all about his recent visit to Italy, a welcome phone call came. Someone is going to be murdered at Deimos Technology. It doesn’t matter that the someone that is about to die is only an AI computer infected with a fatal computer virus. ...

SWITCH BACK is a novella (about 1/3 of a full-length novel, about 4-5 times longer than a short story) and takes place prior to BOARD STIFF (Elliott Lisbon Mystery #1). After inheriting an entire town, Ballantyne Foundation Director, Elliott Lisbon, travels to Texas to thank them. She quickly learns they don’t want her gratitude, they want their town back. And they’re willing to kill for it. Trapped in a small town full of big suspects, Elliott must unlock their secrets, or she’ll never get out alive. Now doesn’t that sound like fun? Read the whole series and gets even better. - - -...

The days are growing warmer and the nights are growing shorter... It's the perfect time to relax in the garden with this spring-themed collection from legendary mystery writer Agatha Christie. Blossoming flowers and countryside strolls may sound innocent enough, but not when there’s murder in the air. Beware of secluded cottages, stolen treasure and fatal revenge schemes. This compendium of short stories, some featuring beloved detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, is an essential omnibus for Christie fans and the perfect gift for mystery lovers.

This is a story from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes V collection. Dr Watson comments: 'The stage lost a fine actor' when Holmes chose to devote his formidable talents to the solution of crime. Two of these stories, "The Reigate Squire" and "The Adventure of Beryl Coronet", Sherlock Holmes demonstrates his thespian powers as he unravels the mysteries.

Dr. Watson's introduction to this Holmes case among the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, entitled "The Adventure of Silver Blaze" ( Strand magazine, December 1892) is succinct and impossible to improve upon: "There was but one problem before the public which could challenge his powers of analysis, and that was the singular disappearance of the favourite for the Wessex Cup, and the tragic murder of its trainer."

The rather disgruntled pair of Tommy and Tuppence are sequestered in the Grand Adlington Hotel, having made a pig's ear out of their latest case. But, while mournfully sipping cocktails, with Tommy oddly dressed as a parson, they are gleefully accosted by their old acquaintance Mr. Bulger, who has London's most beautiful stage actress, Gilda Glen, in tow. Featherbrained and a little confused, Gilda takes Tommy for a real clergyman and scrawls out a desperate note to meet him away from the hotel. While Tommy and Tuppence mull over the note, in storms an old flame of Gilda's, claiming he wants to wring someone's neck.

As the early years of detective fiction gave way to two separate golden ages - of hard-boiled tales in America and intricately-plotted, so-called “cozy” murders in Britain - the legacy of Sherlock Holmes, with his fierce devotion to science and logic, gave way to street smarts on the one hand and social insight on the other, but even though these new sub-genres went their own ways, their detectives still required intelligence and clear-sightedness as characterized the earliest works of detective fiction: the trademarks of Sherlock Holmes, and of all the detectives featured here.

Horace Rumpole, the comic, courageous, and corpulent “great defender of muddled and sinful humanity”, is joined by a winning cast of villains and victims in this collection of six tales in which wry humor and sparkling wit deftly send up the British legal system. In Rumpole and the Angel of Death, our hero achieves new, resounding triumphs over the forces of prejudice and mean-mindedness.

Hailed by The New York Times as "a master of the British Mystery", award-winning author Elizabeth George is cherished by readers on both sides of the Atlantic. Her first collection of short stories is an extraordinary offering that deftly explores the lengths to which people will go to get what they want most.