Traditional Publishing

Detective Chief Inspector C. D. Sloan of the Calleshire CID is used to the occasional oddity in his relatively quiet part of the English countryside. But lately, things have taken a strange turn. First, in the center of a yew maze, a body is spotted by Miss Daphne Pedlinge, the elderly chatelaine of Aumerle Court. By the time the groundskeeper actually makes it to the center, he, too, spies the body, and it is indeed dead.

Revelations from the despatch box of Doctor John Watson. These seven stories previously featured in various volumes of The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories and other anthologies. They come together in their own collection for the first time.

Over the years, Ian Rankin has amassed an incredible portfolio of short stories. Published in crime magazines, composed for events, broadcast on radio, they all share the best qualities of his phenomenally popular Rebus novels. Brought together for the first time, and including brand-new material, this is the ultimate Rebus short-story collection and a must-have book for crime lovers and for Ian's millions of fans alike. No Rankin aficionado can go without it.

The first three mysteries in the Inspector Marco series: The Cardiff Bay Murders, The Cardiff City Murders and The Roath Park Murders. Have you met Inspector Marco? He’s a detective in Cardiff, the capital of Wales. He loves his mother and football - not always in that order. And he loves to lock up the bad guys.

Did you ever wonder where Sherlock Holmes found the Persian slipper he keeps his shag tobacco in? Had Holmes and Watson ever met before that day at St. Barts? Did Holmes really believe in curses when he said he did? Dr. John Watson reveals the answers to these questions in The Persian Slipper and Other Stories, along with cases involving the putative Naval Man, a night spent at a gentlemen’s club, Holmes’ second marriage proposal, a movable tree, and a surprising wedding ending.

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In The Meaning of the Act, Margery Allingham crafts a clever and suspenseful short mystery featuring the ever-charming and sharp-witted detective Albert Campion. What starts as an ordinary social engagement soon turns into a puzzling case of crime, deception, and hidden motives. When a seemingly harmless act during a gathering takes on a sinister significance, Campion is called upon to decipher the true meaning behind it. As he digs deeper, he uncovers secrets that threaten to expose long-buried truths.

A visit from a young woman with a guilty conscience causes Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson to investigate the arrest of her ex-fiance. Imprisoned while awaiting trial for the murder of the lover of his wife-to-be, he seems certain to receive the ultimate punishment.

When the luxurious overnight passenger train from Calais to the Riviera, known as the Blue Train, arrives in Nice, a guard goes into the compartment of American heiress, Ruth Kettering and attempts to wake her. Unfortunately, she will never wake up, as she is dead, having been killed by a heavy blow to her head, disfiguring her almost beyond recognition. What is more, her precious ruby, known as the 'Heart of Fire', is missing. The prime suspect is Ruth’s estranged husband, but detective Hercule Poirot, who also just happens to be a passenger on the train, is not convinced.

Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are summoned to Theobald Grange, the Warwickshire home of Lady Heminworth. Being of a nervous and superstitious disposition, her Ladyship lives in fear. Her husband and elder son were recently murdered, apparently by the ghost of a court jester who was executed on the site centuries before. The apparition has warned that she, too, is to die. Holmes rejects a supernatural explanation, although his adversary seems unaffected by gunfire and is able to take flight and disappear.

In this first novel by Agatha Christie, she introduces the inimitable Hercule Poirot, who would go on to appear in 33 Christie novels and 54 short stories. Outside of Sherlock Holmes and perhaps Philip Marlowe, he is the best-known detective in the history of the genre. The Mysterious Affair at Styles deals with the case of an old woman poisoned with strychnine for her money. Nothing is obvious, however, in the way Christie handles a plot.

The discovery of Sir Robert Boniface's body on the floor of his limousine was made quite accidentally on a sultry Friday evening towards the end of June. The industrial and financial tycoon, and former stalwart of the British Cabinet, was shot in the head and left in the quiet Vale of Health. Nearby, a rejected portrait of Sir Robert is found riddled with bullets in the studio of the now missing artist Matt Caldwell.

"The Chocolate Box" immerses readers in a tantalizing short story featuring Agatha Christie's iconic detective Hercule Poirot. In this narrative, Poirot reflects on a case from his past, one that has lingered in his memory for its personal significance.

In Agatha Christie’s short story “The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb”, the widow of a famous Egyptologist consults Poirot on the suspicious death of her husband and an American financier, Bleibner. The mystery takes Poirot and Hastings to Egypt to investigate the site of an archaeological dig. But who could want the two men dead?

A radio play version of the Sherlock Holmes adventure in which the Enfield Rope, a famous string of pearls, is substituted for counterfeits in an attempt to discredit the British Royal Family. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson must find the criminals responsible, and stop the scandal by recovering the genuine pearls. First published as a story in Secrets from the Deed Box of John H. Watson M.D.

If you love Arthur Conan Doyle’s original, do not miss this collection of artfully-constructed new tales.

An American starlet with a mysterious diamond, a suicide that may be more than it appears, an impossibly cheap flat, a locked room murder, a million dollar robbery, an ancient pharaoh’s curse, a precious stolen jewel, a political abduction, a disappeared banker, a phone call form a dying man, and a missing will … Who could possibly solve such varied, gruesome, and dastardly crimes? None other than Agatha Christie’s beloved Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot!

The day Clay Shelton is set to be hanged, he requests to speak with the inspector who arrested him, Arnold “Betcher” Long. He tells Long that the Gallows Hand will have its revenge. Assuming he is a dead man trying to delay the inevitable, Long ignores him. But when the judge who sentenced Shelton is murdered, he finally starts to take notice.

Why Meiringen? Sherlock Holmes fans have always asked why did Holmes go to Meiringen? And did Moriarty follow him there? And if Holmes did not die in the Falls, what happened next? The familiar stories tell us little. For the first time, this book gives us the answers we've always wanted.

In Catherine Aird’s Stiff News, a letter received by an old woman’s son after her death alerts Detective Inspector C. D. Sloan that one woman’s death by natural causes in a local nursing home may actually be murder. But that is just the beginning of the odd goings-on in this nursing home catering to former members of a WWII regiment.