Hangman's Holiday: A Collection of Short Mysteries


Dorothy L. Sayers - 1933
    This sumptuous feast of criminal doings and undoings includes a vintage double identity and a horrid incident of feline assassination that will tease the minds of cat-lovers everywhere. Not to be missed are "The Incredible Elopement of Peter Wimsey" (with a lovely American woman-turned-zombie) and eight more puzzlers penned in inimitable style by the mistress of murder.Includes:The image in the mirror --The incredible elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey --The queen's square --The necklace of pearls --The poisoned dow '08 --Sleuths on the scent --Murder in the morning --One too many --Murder at Pentecost --Maher-Shalal-Hashbaz --The man who knew how --The fountain plays.

The Thursday Murder Club


Richard Osman - 2020
    Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves. When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case. As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it’s too late?

Filth


Irvine Welsh - 1998
    The last thing Robertson needs is a messy, racially fraught murder, even if it means overtime—and the opportunity to clinch the promotion he craves. Then there's that nutritionally demanding (and psychologically acute) intestinal parasite in his gut. Yes, things are going badly for this utterly corrupt tribune of the law, but in an Irvine Welsh novel nothing is ever so bad that it can't get a whole lot worse. . .

Oscar Wilde and a Death of No Importance


Gyles Brandreth - 2007
    Published in the USA simultaneously in hardcover and paperback.Lovers of historical mystery will relish this chilling Victorian tale based on real events and cloaked in authenticity. Best of all, it casts British literature's most fascinating and controversial figure as the lead sleuth. A young artist's model has been murdered, and legendary wit Oscar Wilde enlists his friends Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Sherard to help him investigate. But when they arrive at the scene of the crime they find no sign of the gruesome killing -- save one small spatter of blood, high on the wall. Set in London, Paris, Oxford, and Edinburgh at the height of Queen Victoria's reign, here is a gripping eyewitness account of Wilde's secret involvement in the curious case of Billy Wood, a young man whose brutal murder served as the inspiration for The Picture of Dorian Gray. Told by Wilde's contemporary -- poet Robert Sherard -- this novel provides a fascinating and evocative portrait of the great playwright and his own "consulting detective," Sherlock Holmes creator, Arthur Conan Doyle. (Oscar Wilde and a Death of No Importance was first published in the UK as Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders.)

The Diary of a Nobody


George Grossmith - 1889
    Yet he always seems to be troubled by disagreeable tradesmen, impertinent young office clerks and wayward friends, not to mention his devil-may-care son Lupin with his unsuitable choice of bride. Try as he might, he cannot avoid life's embarrassing mishaps. In the bumbling, absurd, yet ultimately endearing figure of Pooter, the Grossmiths created an immortal comic character and a superb satire on the snobberies of middle-class suburbia - one which also sends up late Victorian crazes for spiritualism and bicycling, as well as the fashion for publishing diaries by anybody and everybody.

London Fields


Martin Amis - 1989
    The main entry for ISBN 9780099748618 can be found here.London Fields is Amis's murder story for the end of the millennium. The murderee is Nicola Six, a "black hole" of sex and self-loathing intent on orchestrating her own extinction. The murderer may be Keith Talent, a violent lowlife whose only passions are pornography and darts. Or is the killer the rich, honorable, and dimly romantic Guy Clinch?

The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll


Lewis Carroll - 1897
    Included are: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass, Sylvie and Bruno, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, "The Hunting of the Snark," and Lewis' poetry, phantasmagoria, stories, miscellany, and "acrostics, inscriptions, and other verse."The following have also never appeared in print except in their original editions: "Resident Women Students," "Some Popular Fallacies about Vivisection," "Lawn Tennis Tournaments," "Rules for Court Circular," "Croquet Castles," "Mischmasch," "Doublets," "A Postal Problem," "The Alphabet-Cipher," and "Introduction to The Lost Plum Cake."

The Affair of the Blood-Stained Egg Cosy


James Anderson - 1975
    Inspector Wilkins is called in to investigate, but it's going to take some intricate sleuthing to uncover who killed whom and why.

The Big Over Easy


Jasper Fforde - 2005
    Ovoid D-class nursery celebrity Humpty Stuyvesant Van Dumpty III, minor baronet, ex-convict, and former millionaire philanthropist, is found shattered to death beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. All the evidence points to his ex-wife, who has conveniently shot herself. But Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his assistant Mary Mary remain unconvinced, a sentiment not shared with their superiors at the Reading Police Department, who are still smarting over their failure to convict the Three Pigs of murdering Mr. Wolff. Before long Jack and Mary find themselves grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, bullion smuggling, problems with beanstalks, titans seeking asylum, and the cut and thrust world of international chiropody. And on top of all that, the JellyMan is coming to town . . .

About a Boy


Nick Hornby - 1998
    He's single, child-free, goes to the right clubs and knows which trainers to wear. He's also found a great way to score with women: attend single parents' groups full of available (and grateful) mothers, all hoping to meet a Nice Guy.Which is how Will meets Marcus, the oldest twelve-year-old on the planet. Marcus is a bit strange: he listens to Joni Mitchell and Mozart, looks after his mum and has never owned a pair of trainers. But Marcus latches on to Will - and won't let go. Can Will teach Marcus how to grow up cool? And can Marcus help Will just to grow up?

What a Carve Up!


Jonathan Coe - 1994
    A tour de force of menace, malicious comedy, and torrential social bile, this book marks the American debut of an extraordinary writer.

Naked Came the Manatee


Carl HiaasenTananarive Due - 1997
    A story of suspense written serially by thirteen Florida writers--including Dave Barry, Carl Hiaasen, and Elmore Leonard--features such strange occurances as a riot in Coconut Grove and an appearance by Fidel Castro.

Strip Tease


Carl Hiaasen - 1993
    Film simply can't catch the layers of humor, satire, and imagination that author Carl Hiaasen creates in each of his novels. When a deranged Florida congressman falls for a gorgeous but virtuous stripper, he dedicates himself to pursuing this tasselled princess. Not only is she a real beauty, she's a damsel in distress. The effects of his quest will ripple through the spotlights of the strip joint, the sugar cane fields of south Florida, and some powerful political careers. Fueled by innocent lust and dizzy miscalculations, this story will keep you howling with surprise. George Wilson's colorful narration is the perfect vehicle for Carl Hiaasen's twisted fairy tale.

Dead Famous


Ben Elton - 2001
    and no evidence.Dead Famous is a killer read from Ben Elton – Reality TV as you've never seen it before.

Thus Was Adonis Murdered


Sarah Caudwell - 1981
    But poor, romantic Julia - how could she possibly have guessed that the ravishing fellow Art Lover for whom she conceived a fatal passion was himself an employee of the Inland Revenue? Or that her hard-won night of passion with him would end in murder- with her inscribed copy of the current Finance Act subsequently discovered just a few feet away from the corpse...