But Miss Wonderley is in fact the beautiful and treacherous Brigid O'Shaughnessy, and when Spade's partner Miles Archer is shot while on Thursby's trail, Spade finds himself both hunter and hunted: can he track down the jewel-encrusted bird, a treasure worth killing for, before the Fat Man finds him?

    Lee SeriesWilkie Collins:The Woman in WhiteNo NameArmadaleThe MoonstoneThe Haunted HotelThe Law and The LadyThe Dead SecretMiss or Mrs?R. Austin Freeman:Dr. Thorndyke SeriesOther MysteriesAgatha Christie:The Mysterious Affair at StylesThe Secret AdversaryH. C. McNeile:Bulldog DrummondThe Black GangG. K. Chesterton:The Innocence of Father BrownThe Wisdom of Father BrownArthur Morrison:Martin Hewitt SeriesDorrington & Hicks StoriesErnest Bramah:Max Carrados StoriesVictor L. Whitechurch:The Canon in ResidenceThrilling Stories of the RailwayThomas W. Hanshew:Hamilton Cleek SeriesE. W. Hornung:A. J. Raffles SeriesMystery NovelsJ. S. Fletcher:Mystery NovelsPaul Campenhaye – Specialist in CriminologyRober Barr:The Triumph of Eugéne ValmontJennie Baxter, JournalistThe Adventures of Sherlaw KombsThe Adventure of the Second SwagFrank Froest Mystery NovelsC. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson Mystery NovelsIsabel Ostander Mystery Novels

    But when an old sailor lands a rowing boat containing a fresh corpse with a stab wound to the chest, the Inspector's investigation immediately comes up against several obstacles. The vicar, whose boat the body was found in, is clearly withholding information, and the victim's niece has disappeared. There is clearly more to this case than meets the eye - even the identity of the victim is called into doubt. Inspector Rudge begins to wonder just how many people have contributed to this extraordinary crime and whether he will ever unravel it. . .In 1931 Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and 10 other crime writers from the newly formed Detection Club collaborated in publishing a unique crime novel. In a literary game of consequences, each author would write one chapter, leaving G.K. Chesterton to write a typically paradoxical prologue and Anthony Berkeley to tie up all the loose ends. In addition, all of the authors provided their own solutions in sealed envelopes, all of which appeared at the end of the book, with Agatha Christie's ingenious conclusion acknowledged at the time to be 'enough to make the book worth buying on its own'. The authors of this novel are G.K. Chesterton, Canon Victor Whitechurch, G.D.H. Cole and Margaret Cole, Henry Wade, Agatha Christie, John Rhode, Milward Kennedy, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ronald Knox, Freeman Wills Crofts, Edgar Jepson, Clemence Dane and Anthony Berkeley.©1931, 2011 The Detection Club (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

    Lewis, was the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Possibly the greatest satirist of his age, Lewis wrote novels that present a devastating picture of middle-class American life in the 1920s. Although he ridiculed the values, the lifestyles, and even the speech of his characters, there is often affection behind the irony. Lewis began his career as a journalist, editor, and hack writer. He became an important literary figure with the publication of Main Street. His seventh novel, Babbitt, is considered by many critics to be his greatest work. One of his major works The Job begins: Captain Lew Golden would have saved any foreign observer a great deal of trouble in studying America. He was an almost perfect type of the petty small-town middle-class lawyer. He lived in Panama, Pennsylvania. He had never been captain of anything except the Crescent Volunteer Fire Company, but he owned the title because he collected rents, wrote insurance, and meddled with lawsuits. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

    Inspector Richard Q, sneezing snuff; a thin, multi-faced, small "Old Man"; and the Inspector's large writer son Ellery, puffing cigarettes, investigate. They start with maps of theater, the victim's bedroom, and a list of names appended with flavorful commentary: the finder of the body is "cranially a brachycephalic", and Dolly "a lady of reputation". The flavor of 1929 costume and culture, with evening attire de rigeur, and hip flasks full of bootleg liquor.

    When the official verdict is suicide, his wealthy father hires fledgling private investigator Cordelia Gray to find out what led him to self-destruction. What she discovers instead is a twisting trail of secrets and sins, and the strong scent of murder. An Unsuitable Job for a Woman introduces P. D. James's courageous but vulnerable young detective, Cordelia Gray, in a top-rated puzzle of peril that holds you all the way (The New York Times).

    After his body was found in a shallow grave in the woods two months later, the repercussions were felt for years.Janet Manning has been haunted by the murder since the day she lost sight of her brother in the park. Now, with the twenty-fifth anniversary of Justin’s death looming, a detective and a newspaper reporter have started to ask questions, opening old wounds and raising new suspicions. Could the man convicted of the murder — who spent more than two decades in prison — really be innocent? Janet’s childhood friend and high school crush, who was in the park with her that day, has returned to Dove Point, where he is wrestling with his own conflicted memories of the events. And a strange man appears at Janet’s door in the middle of the night, claiming to know the truth.Soon, years of deceit will be swept away, and the truth about what happened to Janet’s brother will be revealed. And the answers that Janet has sought may be found much closer to home than she ever could have imagined.

    First published in 1935, this novel reaffirmed James M. Cain as a virtuoso of the roman noir.

    Razor-sharp dialogue. Plots that catch and hold like a noose. These are the hallmarks of crime legend Ruth Rendell. From Doon with Death, now in a striking new paperback edition, is her classic debut novel -- and the book that introduced one of the most popular sleuths of the twentieth century.There is nothing extraordinary about Margaret Parsons, a timid housewife in the quiet town of Kingsmarkham, a woman devoted to her garden, her kitchen, her husband. Except that Margaret Parsons is dead, brutally strangled, her body abandoned in the nearby woods. Who would kill someone with nothing to hide? Inspector Wexford, the formidable chief of police, feels baffled -- until he discovers Margaret's dark secret: a trove of rare books, each volume breathlessly inscribed by a passionate lover identified only as Doon. As Wexford delves deeper into both Mrs. Parsons’ past and the wary community circling round her memory like wolves, the case builds with relentless momentum to a surprise finale as clever as it is blindsiding. In From Doon with Death, Ruth Rendell instantly mastered the form that would become synonymous with her name. Chilling, richly characterized, and ingeniously constructed, this is psychological suspense at its very finest.

    Her malicious intrigues fuel the plot of this gripping melodrama: a tale of confused identities, inherited curses, romantic rivalries, espionage, money—and murder. The character of Lydia Gwilt horrified contemporary critics, with one reviewer describing her as "One of the most hardened female villains whose devices and desires have ever blackened fiction." She remains among the most enigmatic and fascinating women in nineteenth-century literature and the dark heart of this most sensational of Victorian "sensation novels."

    On the top half was rudely cut with a pen-knife M. ASSHE . . . What was puzzling, however, was the apparent motive of robbery about the crime. "

    Then, before he can learn any more about her other than that her name is Mary and she is running to Chicago, she is gone. But Tryon cannot forget Mary's beautiful face and spirit. Soon he finds himself trying desperately to solve the mystery that surrounds her . . . a mystery that could overwhelm them both. And he determines to discover the true identity of the young woman he longs to protect—and love

    Now, in 1137, the ambitious head of Shrewsbury Abbey has decided to acquire the sacred remains for his Benedictine order. Native Welshman Brother Cadfael is sent on the expedition to translate and finds the rustic villagers of Gwytherin passionately divided by the Benedictine's offer for the saint's relics. Canny, wise, and all too wordly, he isn't surprised when this taste for bones leads to bloody murder.The leading opponent to moving the grave has been shot dead with a mysterious arrow, and some say Winifred herself held the bow. Brother Cadfael knows a carnal hand did the killing. But he doesn't know that his plan to unearth a murderer may dig up a case of love and justice...where the wages of sin may be scandal or Cadfael's own ruin.

    But Lythe was once the heart of an Elizabethan feudal estate and home to a young English tutor named William Shakespeare, and as Isobel investigates the strange history of her family, her neighbors, and her village, she occasionally gets caught in Shakespearean time warps. Meanwhile, she gets closer to the shocking truths about her missing mother, her war-hero father, and the hidden lives of her close friends and classmates. A stunning feat of imagination and storytelling, Kate Atkinson's Human Croquet is rich with the disappointments and possibilities every family shares.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.