Paul Madvig was a cheerfully corrupt ward-heeler who aspired to something better: the daughter of Senator Ralph Bancroft Henry, the heiress to a dynasty of political purebreds. Did he want her badly enough to commit murder? And if Madvig was innocent, which of his dozens of enemies was doing an awfully good job of framing him? Dashiell Hammett’s tour de force of detective fiction combines an airtight plot, authentically venal characters, and writing of telegraphic crispness. A one-time detective and a master of deft understatement, Hammett invented the noir crime novel.

On a quiet fall evening in the small, peaceful town of Mill Valley, California, Dr. Miles Bennell discovers an insidious, horrifying plot. Silently, subtly, almost imperceptibly, alien life-forms are taking over the bodies and minds of his neighbors, his friends, his family, the woman he loves, and the world as he knows it.

Born into a family of modest means and respectability, Danny Fisher was gradually driven downward into the world of crime, racketeering and poverty. His bitterness, his homesickness over the loss of the house in Brooklyn that was given to him for his eighth birthday, and his feud with his harsh father, pulled him one way; his natural decency and his love for a sweet Italian girl, Nellie Petito, pulled him another.

When Sam Spade gets drawn into the Maltese Falcon case, we know what to expect: straight talk, hard questions, no favors, and no way for anyone to get underneath the protective shell he wears like a second skin. We know that his late partner, Miles Archer, was a son of a bitch; that Spade is sleeping with Archer's wife, Iva; that his tomboyish secretary, Effie Perine, is the only innocent in his life. What we don't know is how Spade became who he is. Spade & Archer completes the picture.

Miss Julia, a recently bereaved and newly wealthy widow, is only slightly bemused when one Hazel Marie Puckett appears at her door with a youngster in tow and unceremoniously announces that the child is the bastard son of Miss Julia's late husband. Suddenly, this longtime church member and pillar of her small Southern community finds herself in the center of an unseemly scandal - and the guardian of a wan nine-year-old whose mere presence turns her life upside down.

Demobilised officer, finding peace incredibly tedious, would welcome diversion. Legitimate if possible; excitement essential. When Captain Hugh Drummond, DSO, MC placed that advertisement, he was looking for adventure. What he finds is an international plot headed by the greatest criminal mastermind in the world.

You probably haven't noticed them. But they've noticed you. They notice everything. That's their job. Sitting quietly in a nondescript car outside a bank making note of the tellers' work habits. Lagging a few car lengths behind the Brinks truck on its daily rounds. Surreptitiously jiggling the handle of an unmarked service door at the racetrack. They're heisters.

This collection of nine short stories by Flannery O'Connor was published posthumously in 1965. The flawed characters of each story are fully revealed in apocalyptic moments of conflict and violence that are presented with comic detachment.

The Miracle Worker demonstrates the true miracle of love, compassion, and determination. Helen Keller, a young woman struck blind and deaf as a young child, finds the way out of her prison walls of silence and darkness through the love and determination of Anne Sullivan.

It is 1936, and on the East Side of Manhattan, a would-be writer named Don Birnam decides to have a drink. And then another, and then another, until he's in the midst of what becomes a five-day binge. A classic tale of one man's struggle with alcoholism, this revolutionary novel remains Charles Jackson's best-known book - a daring autobiographical work that paved the way for contemporary addiction literature.

Cab driver Chet Conway was hoping for a good tip from his latest fare, the sort he could spend. But what he got was a tip on a horse race; which might have turned out okay, except that when he went to collect his winnings, Chet found his bookie lying dead on the living room floor. Chet knows he had nothing to do with it.

Considered one of the great dystopian novels - alongside Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange and Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World - Ira Levin's frightening glimpse into the future continues to fascinate listeners even 40 years after publication. The story is set in a seemingly perfect global society. Uniformity is the defining feature; there is only one language and all ethnic groups have been eugenically merged into one race called "The Family".

Helmut Schauffler, a young Nazi working in the small English village of Comerford, sets out to play upon the post-war sensibilities and fears by terrorizing his new neighbors.

Everyone wants a piece of millionaire Bennett Marshfield, owner of Marshfield Manor, but now it's up to new curator Grace Wheaton and handsome groundskeeper Jack Embers to protect dear old Marshfield. But to do this, they'll have to investigate a botched Ponzi scheme, some torrid Wheaton family secrets-and sour grapes out for revenge.

Something is happening to the children of Eastbury, Massachusetts.... Something that causes healthy babies to turn cold in their cribs. Something that strikes at the heart of every parent's darkest fears. Something unexplained that is taking the children, one by one.