This special collection of Agatha Christie's greatest suspense plays includes The Mousetrap (the longest running play in history), Ten Little Indians, Witness for the Prosecution, Appointment with Death, The Hollow, Towards Zero, Go Back to Murder, and The Verdict.

    This sharp, ironic, tightly written thriller takes place during a single night, during which our narrator, editor of a small-city newspaper, shows what stuff journalists were made of then by consuming a truly epic amount of alcohol and unweaving an artfully tangled web.

     The Episode of the Wandering Knife: What’s a mother to do? When her daughter-in-law is slashed to death, the first thing is to hide the hunting knife that’s sure to implicate her innocent son. But it doesn’t stay hidden for long. It’s just turned up in a second victim, only to vanish once again. Whatever the cunning motive is for the ghastly crimes, the game of hide-and-seek with a deadly weapon is just beginning.  The Man Who Hid His Breakfast: A woman’s been found strangled in her bed. The only other person in the house is her daughter, Emma. Given Emma’s motive for wanting to escape the clutches of her domineering mother, the case seems open and shut. Except Inspector Tom Brent insists Emma couldn’t possibly have done it. His career depends on proving it. And it all starts with a very peculiar breakfast.  The Secret: Hilda Adams, the Homicide Bureau’s undercover “Miss Pinkerton,” is enlisted to investigate the odd behavior of Tony Rowland. The woman has suddenly broken off her engagement to a man she loves, crashed a car, and now keeps her elderly mother locked in her room. Does the Rowland family have reason to fear the neurotic woman? Or is Tony herself the one who’s afraid? If so, of what?

    You'll howl with delight as the icon-toppling Amy tackles stuffed-shirts, law enforcement, gargantuan gourmet meals and crime with equal aplomb. Another rollicking Amy Brewster classic from the glory days of the 1940s. Legendary detective-novelist Sam Merwin, Jr.'s A Knife in My Back begins when Christopher Horton is given the shocking news that, "You're not going to die after all!" by a great heart specialist. Buoyed by the meeting, Chris returns home to find the body of his lawyer's secretary, Lolly Parker, sprawled on his floor with a knife in her back. Clearly someone close to Chris, who stands to profit from his death has framed him neatly for murder. But who? Enter Amy Brewster, cigar in hand, sprinkling curses as liberally as she spreads caviar on a cracker. Can the 1/8th ton Amy move quickly enough to spot and stop the killer before he or she strikes again? Or will she, too, end up with a knife in the back. "I prize the work of Sam Merwin, Jr., especially his Amy Brewster mysteries." Dashiell Hammett.

    Buck --Before the party / W. Somerset Maugham --Murder in the fishing cat / Edna St. Vincent Millay --The juryman / John Galsworthy --The murder / John Steinbeck --Monk / William Faulkner --The limitations of Pambé Serang / Rudyard Kipling --Tabloid news / Louis Bromfield --The killers / Ernest Hemingway --Hunted down / Charles Dickens --Paul's case / Willa Cather --The stolen white elephant / Mark Twain --The Gioconda smile / Aldous Huxley --The hand / Guy de Maupassant --The letters in evidence / C.S. Forester --Haircut / Ring Lardner --An ideal craftsman / Walter de la Mare --The catbird seat / James Thurber --Markheim / Robert Louis Stevenson --Mr. Brisher's treasure / H.G. Wells --London night's entertainment / Margery Sharp --Sense of humor / Damon Runyon --The verdict / Frank Swinnerton --Clerical error / James Gould Cozzens --Guilty / Fannie Hurst.