Historical Traditional Detectives

Inspector Gregson approaches Holmes to help him with a murder that has taken place at night at Number 3, Lauriston Gardens, near Brixton Road, London. The murder is weird, because nothing has been stolen from the dead man. And there are no marks to indicate a fight. To top all of this, the man lies murdered in a house that has been vacant for a long time. And yes..."RACHE" is written with blood on the wall near the man. Now, obviously there are many questions....

Marcus Didius Falco discovers that rank brings problems, the most gruesome of which is a corpse buried under the tiles of his new bath house. The contractors have fled to Britain where, as the Fates have it, Falco is ordered. A local chief and ally of the Romans is having a Palace built by the Emperor Vespasian. However, the project is running late, and fatal accidents keep happening. Falco, troubleshooting for the Emperor, is without an ally and now next on the list for assassination.

England, 1819. Two enigmatic Americans arrive in London and soon after, a bank collapses. A man is found dead on a building site; another goes missing in the teeming stews of Seven Dials. A deathbed vigil ends in an act of theft and a beautiful heiress flirts with her inferiors. A strange destiny links each of these events to the American boy Edgar Allen Poe, brought to England by his foster father and sent to the leafy village of Stoke Newington to be educated.

London, 1782. The sole survivor of an ill-fated expedition to Jamaica has gone missing upon his return home. Dr. Thomas Silkstone had been entrusted to catalog all the New World specimens and therefore feels compelled to investigate the disappearance. Meanwhile, a rumor circulates that a potion with the power to raise the dead is afoot, and the formula is thought to be in the missing botanist's journal.

In the notorious mental hospital known as Bedlam, Dr. Thomas Silkstone seeks out a patient with whom he is on intimate terms. But he is unprepared for the state in which he finds Lady Lydia Farrell. Shocked into action, Thomas vows to help free Lydia by appealing to the custodian of her affairs, Mr. Nicholas Lupton.

Ledbury, December 1892. Detective Inspector Ravenscroft looks forward to spending a quiet Christmas with his family. Then he receives news that an old friend stands accused of a brutal murder. Ravenscroft and Detective Sergeant Crabb travel to the old Worcestershire market town of Bromsgrove to investigate. But events soon take a deadly dramatic turn. As the bad weather closes in on the two detectives, Ravenscroft begins to wonder whether they will make it home for Christmas.

An early Agatha with romantic heroine, Anne Beddington, up against an unknown evil tyrant. Great fun as the mystery progresses from England to on shipboard. A charming change of pace for Agatha fans from Poirot and Marple. An American narrator.

It's 1914, and a bold, young American called Mary Russell is about to experience a rather dynamic change of life. Deep in the rural English countryside, she meets a retired beekeeper by the name of Sherlock Holmes. Although many years have passed since he astonished Watson by solving Scotland Yard's most baffling crimes, The Great Detective is still very much in possession of his excellent faculties. Surprisingly for both of them, he sees Mary's untapped potential for his old line of work.

A single death could plunge the Empire into chaos... Silus, a member of Emperor Caracalla's elite assassins, the Arcani, is dispatched to Numidia. Rumours of assassination plots against Marcellus, the Emperor's closest aide, are rife. Silus must stop them. But the forces arrayed against the Arcani are now as powerful as they are clandestine. Inducted into the Emperor’s bodyguard, his Lions, Silus soon discovers secrets that should have stayed hidden. And as the Emperor becomes ever more reckless in battle, Silus unearths a conspiracy that runs deeper than his worst nightmares.

When a man is found dead in a freshly dug grave adjacent to a golf course, Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings arrive on the scene only to be met by a hostile local police detective who is unwilling to share information. But Poirot's methodical investigation slowly and surely reveals the real killer amid a host of suspects and clues, including an impassioned love letter and heavy lead piping found near the body. However, as Poirot and Hastings rush to solve the murder, a similarly slain corpse and fresh clues are discovered.

Yorkshire 1855. When Colonel Aubrey Tarleton walks into the path of a speeding train, he is crushed to death on the track. The famous Railway Detective, Inspector Robert Colbeck, is immediately put on the case to determine why such a well-respected man would have resorted to suicide. Tarleton's wife had recently gone missing, but was the colonel responsible for her disappearance? It's up to Colbeck and his trusty sergeant Victor Leeming to uncover the truth.

Here for the first time are three never-before-published mysteries by Edmund Crispin, Ngaio Marsh and Leo Bruce. Together with a newly unearthed short story by Ethel Lina White that inspired Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes, and a complete short novel by Christianna Brand, this diverse mix of tales by some of the world’s most popular classic crime writers contains something for everyone.

Many of Holmes's more fantastic cases have yet to see publication, since their grotesque and outré nature would have stretched the reader's sensibilities beyond any normal boundaries. They are, in a word, unbelievable, and I have held these cases in abeyance at Holmes' request to protect both his reputation and my own small credibility as narrator.

Can Lord Peter Wimsey prove that Harriet Vane is not guilty of murder - or find the real poisoner in time to save her from the gallows? Impossible, it seems. The Crown's case is watertight. The police are adamant that the right person is on trial. The judge's summing-up is also clear. Harriet Vane is guilty of the killing her lover. And Harriet Vane shall hang. But the jury disagrees.

On a reluctant visit to her painfully respectable brother and his wife, Angela Marchmont finds herself once again caught up in murder when a local farmer is shot dead, apparently at the hands of his sworn enemy. But the case is not as simple as it seems, for other motives and suspects soon come to light. With reporters hot on the scent and her friend, Inspector Jameson, battling a conflict of interest, Angela must use all her ingenuity to unravel the case and bring the murderer to justice - or more than one person will suffer the consequences.

November, 1940. Tom Tyler, Detective Inspector of the small Shropshire town of Whitchurch, is a troubled man. The preceding summer had been a dark one for Britain, and even darker for Tom's own family and personal life. So he jumps at the opportunity to help out in the nearby city of Birmingham, where an explosion in a munitions factory has killed or badly injured several of the young women who have taken on dangerous work in support of the war effort.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are called in on the murder of a wealthy English country squire. The deductive powers of Sherlock Holmes are on full display as he flushes the killer from a group of suspects with perfect alibis.

When an unwelcome figure from her past turns up unexpectedly, Angela Marchmont has no idea that she is about to become the most notorious woman in Britain. Forced to reveal secrets she has kept to herself for many years - and which she had thought were safely buried - Angela faces a fight for her very life that she looks almost certain to lose without the help of the man she loves.

Dogged by depression, doubt, and - as a trip to the Mayo Clinic has revealed - emphysema, 66-year-old Sherlock Holmes is preparing to return to England when he receives a shock: a note slipped under his hotel room door, from a vicious murderer he'd nearly captured in Munich in 1892. The murderer, known as the Monster of Munich, announces that he has relocated to Eisendorf, a tiny village near the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson become involved in a case that begins with blackmail and then takes a horrifying turn. Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard calls in Holmes for assistance in this baffling mystery. The case of The Iron Dog requires all of the deduction skills that Holmes can conjure as he weaves through deceit and murder. Dr. Watson is there to catalogue all the action in this new thriller.