A novelist ambles down the lanes of a cosy country village, replete with Tudor houses and quaint cottages. In her writer's mind she pictures the sordid truth beyond the veneer, a seemingly laughable proposition - until the coming of the letters. Anonymous letters from a poisoned pen, sowing discord and defaming everybody from the Rector to the 'queen of the village' Miss Decima Asprey. Naturally, where there is venom in the air and dark secrets are threatening to come to light, the shadow of death is not far behind.

Miss Busby helped Major Heathcliff Lennox solve a series of murders at Bloxford in the Cotswolds. Now, she finds herself drawn into a new murder, but this time, it's just her, and she must rely on her sharp mind and sharper wits to catch a Cotswolds killer, along with a handsome police inspector and a reporter who's keen to make her mark.

Dimpson McCabe - Dimpsie - has invited his closest friends of the theatre world to join him for Christmas at his castle on a private island some hours' drive from Edinburgh. The festivities have barely begun when Dimpsie is found draped atop the Christmas tree, electrocuted by the lights. It's labelled Accidental Death, but in the swirling snow suspicion is dancing among the flakes. The dogged Inspector Smith begins to circle, seeking to find the leading man or prima donna responsible.

The reverend Dodd, vicar of the quiet Cornish village of Boscawen, spends his evenings reading detective stories by the fireside - but heaven forbid that the shadow of any real crime should ever fall across his seaside parish. But the vicar's peace is shattered one stormy night when Julius Tregarthan, an ill-tempered magistrate, is found at his house in Boscawen with a bullet through his head. The local police inspector is baffled by the lack of clues.

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.

Chief Inspector Macdonald has been invited to a treasure hunt party at the house of the Graham Coombe, the celebrated publisher of Murder by Mesmerism. The clues of the hunt have been devised by Coombe's thriller-writer friends, disguised on the night under literary pseudonyms. The fun comes to an abrupt end, however, when 'Samuel Pepys' is found murdered in the telephone room in bizarre circumstances.

In The Red Thumb Mark, the doctor works to clear young Reuben Hornby of stealing a parcel of diamonds from his uncle's safe, despite the apparently damning evidence. Then, in The Eye of Osiris, an amateur Egyptologist abruptly goes missing, leaving behind a strangely vexatious will. In The Mystery of 31 New Inn, Thorndyke's long-time collaborator Dr. Jervis consults his mentor regarding a mystery who may be being slowly poisoned. And in A Silent Witness, someone is making very determined attempts to murder inoffensive newly-qualified Doctor Humphrey Jardine.

Travelling home from a European holiday, Iris Carr ends up alone at the station after a quarrel with her friends. Struck by a mysterious assailant and waking up just in time to board the train which will take her on her journey to London, things seem to be looking up after a chance meeting with the affable Miss Froy. But when Iris passes out and reawakens, Miss Froy is nowhere to be found. The other passengers deny any knowledge of her existence and as the train speeds across Europe, Iris spirals deeper and deeper into a strange conspiracy.

Horace Manning, scientist, recluse and 'closed book' even to his friends, is found dead in his study at 4a.m., following a dinner in honour of his daughter's engagement. An ivory-handled carving knife rests between his shoulder blades as the houseguests gather round to witness the awful crime. The telephone line has been sabotaged - a calculated murder has been committed. Rewinding twelve hours, the events of the afternoon and evening unfold, revealing a multitude of clues and motives from a closed cast of suspects.

Mr. Richard Dodsley, owner of a fine second-hand bookshop on Charing Cross Road, has been found murdered in the cold hours of the morning. Shot in his own office, few clues remain besides three cigarette ends, two spent matches and a few books on the shelves which have been rearranged. In an investigation spanning the second-hand bookshops of London and the Houses of Parliament - since an MP's new crime novel Death at the Desk appears to have some bearing on the case - John Ferguson's series sleuth MacNab is at hand to assist Scotland Yard in an atmospheric fair-play bibliomystery.

As a rousing Strauss piece is reaching its crescendo in Maningpool Civic Hall, the talented yet obnoxious conductor Sir Noel Grampian is shot dead in full view of the Municipal Orchestra and the audience. It was no secret that he had many enemies - musicians and music critics among them - but to be killed mid-flow suggests an act of the coldest calculation. Told through the letters and documents sent by DI Alan Hope to his wife as he puzzles through the dauntingly vast pool of suspects and scant physical evidence in the case.

A short story from the British Library Crime Classic collection Final Acts. Detective novelist Dorothy L. Sayers presents a look at morality and motive as playwright John Scales grows angrier and more resentful towards the actor who reinvented his script, and must decide how far he will allow his hatred to take him.

While hot on the heels of serial coupon-racketeer Gordon Ginner, Chief Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard receives word of an intriguing incident up in Lancashire – the summer cottage of local farmer Giles Hoggett has been broken into, with an assortment of seemingly random items missing which include a complete reel of salmon line, a large sack, and two iron dogs from his fireplace. What first appears as a simple break-in quickly spirals into a mystery of contested land grabs for fishing between farmers, made all the more enticing to MacDonald when a body is then found in the river.

Vivian Lestrange - celebrated author of the popular mystery novel The Charterhouse Case and total recluse - has apparently dropped off the face of the Earth. Reported missing by his secretary Eleanor, whom Inspector Bond suspects to be the author herself looking for publicity, it appears that crime is afoot when Lestrange's housekeeper is also found to have disappeared. Bond and Warner of Scotland Yard set to work to investigate a murder with no body and a potentially fictional victim.

The first of the classic mysteries featuring governess-turned-detective Miss Silver, who investigates a deadly conspiratorial ring. Charles Moray has come home to England to collect his inheritance. After four years wandering the jungles of India and South America, the hardy young man returns to the manor of his birth, where generations of Morays have lived and died. Strangely, he finds the house unlocked, and sees a light on in one of its abandoned rooms. Eavesdropping, he learns of a conspiracy to commit a fearsome crime.

When Sasha receives a call from her old university friend Gabby inviting her to spend Christmas at Gabby’s remote Scottish lake house, Sasha knows she shouldn’t go. Twelve years ago, on Christmas Eve, when Sasha and her five closest friends were celebrating the festive season, something truly horrific happened that would change the course of their friendship forever. Something that meant Sasha hasn’t spoken to any of them since that night.

After the killing of a prominent mob lawyer, NYPD homicide detectives Jacob Jackson and Caitlin Grimes start receive chilling, written “rules” for how to commit the perfect murder. "Rule number one for the perfect murder: Evidence is your enemy. Leave none behind." Jackson (Reid Scott) and Grimes (Cobie Smulders) race to find the killer, setting them on a collision course with the city’s crime underbelly, and a perpetrator who seems happy to toy with them. “Rule number two. No crimes of passion. The perfect murder is always business, never pleasure.”

England, 1914. The world is at war. Captain Hastings, injured and shaken, is invited to Styles Court to recover. It’s a grand old country house - the family home of his old friend - and a perfect haven. Or so it seems. But in the blistering summer heat, trouble is afoot. Simmering tensions are tearing the family apart, and it all comes to a head in the most horrifying way.

Jenny sits in the same seat on the same train every week, seeing familiar faces come and go. Until a chance encounter shatters her world. Sixteen years ago, Jenny survived a traumatic ordeal that left her best friend, Susie, missing and presumed dead. The world has its theories about what happened to Susie Patterson, and one of those theories points the finger at Jenny. Now she lives a quiet life, volunteering at a crisis helpline while trying to deal with her own anxiety and the true crime fans obsessed with finding her missing friend.

Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of best-selling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity's notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn't expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read.

Kidnappers grabbed Jenna in broad daylight, right in front of her children and their horrified classmates. Her family was issued an insane ransom demand: $25 million in cash and jewels, payable by the end of the school day, otherwise they’ll never see her again. As Jenna’s mother scrambles to gather the money, detectives Mo Butler and George Ortega follow the trail of the kidnappers, which will lead them through a sordid landscape of jealous lovers, broken dreamers, and twisted schemers. But every second counts, and there’s one thing Jenna Wade doesn’t have: very much time.

When Heather McKinley dreamed of becoming a doctor, she imagined curing sick kids and sporting pink stethoscopes. She never anticipated the sleepless nights, grueling exams, and endless labs. And she certainly never knew that her medical school earned the nickname Dead Med thanks to the tragic history of students overdosing on illegal drugs. But Heather would never consider doing anything like that. That is, until her longtime boyfriend dumps her, she finds herself failing anatomy, and her world starts to crumble.

Cassie thinks she has met the perfect man. Joel is sweet, handsome, romantic, and best of all, he’s crazy about Cassie. She thinks she’s found the guy she’ll spend the rest of her life with. Have children with. Grow old with. Yes, she knows about his perfect ex-girlfriend, Francesca. The beautiful, brilliant chef, beloved by all his friends. But she thinks Francesca is out of the picture. She thinks Francesca is gone for good. Think again, Cassie.

Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down.

Everyone thinks my husband is dead. Just like we planned. Eleven years ago, my husband disappeared. Eleven long hard years I waited, my heart breaking for our son, who didn’t know his father was coming back. Today, my hands shake as I try to understand what I’ve just learned: my husband has a new wife. This wasn’t part of our plan. Eleven years ago, my husband made a terrible mistake. I sacrificed everything to help him fix it. But now he’s put our son and me in danger again. We had a plan. He broke the rules. But who will pay the price?

Some women give birth to murderers, some go to bed with them, and some marry them. Lina Aysgarth had lived with her husband for nearly eight years before she realized that she was married to a murderer.

Travelling home from a European holiday, Iris Carr ends up alone at the station after a quarrel with her friends. Struck by a mysterious assailant and waking up just in time to board the train which will take her on her journey to London, things seem to be looking up after a chance meeting with the affable Miss Froy. But when Iris passes out and reawakens, Miss Froy is nowhere to be found. The other passengers deny any knowledge of her existence and as the train speeds across Europe, Iris spirals deeper and deeper into a strange conspiracy.

A novelist ambles down the lanes of a cosy country village, replete with Tudor houses and quaint cottages. In her writer's mind she pictures the sordid truth beyond the veneer, a seemingly laughable proposition - until the coming of the letters. Anonymous letters from a poisoned pen, sowing discord and defaming everybody from the Rector to the 'queen of the village' Miss Decima Asprey. Naturally, where there is venom in the air and dark secrets are threatening to come to light, the shadow of death is not far behind.

After Arthur Penfold’s wife reveals she is leaving him to care for her ailing aunt, he sets upon a path of murder and deceit to avoid the social embarrassment of a second marital breakdown. But the purchase of a poetry book triggers a sequence of events that begins to unravel both Arthur and a seemingly open-and-shut murder case.

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.

Hugh Everton was intent on nothing more than quietly drinking in the second-rate hotel he found himself in on England's south coast—and then in walked his old flame Lucy and her new husband and ex-Judge, Gregory Bath. Entreated by Lucy to join her party for an evening back at the Bath residence, Hugh is powerless to resist, but when the night ends with the judge's inexplicable murder he is pitched back into a world of chaos and crime—a world he had tried to escape for good.

Four men had arranged to fly to Dublin. When their aeroplane descended as a fireball into the Irish Sea, only three of them were on board. With the identities of the passengers lost beneath the waves, a tense and perplexing investigation begins to determine the living from the dead, with scarce evidence to follow beyond a few snippets of overheard conversation and one family’s patchy account of the three days prior to the flight.

Uncle Willie has come to stay with the Redpaths for the holidays. It is just their luck for him to be found dead the morning after Christmas day, dressed in his Santa Claus costume, seemingly poisoned by his favourite chocolates. Or was there something sinister in the mince pies? If so, was it the ones stashed in his room or those sent to him mysteriously by post? More importantly, since his will was recently redrafted, who stands to gain by this unseasonable crime?

A short story from British Library Crime Classic The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories. A brutal murder and a shocking deathbed confession - the love triangle of Karen Garborg, Thord Jensen and Olaf Kinck proves deadly on the Norwegian ski slopes.

Horace Manning, scientist, recluse and 'closed book' even to his friends, is found dead in his study at 4a.m., following a dinner in honour of his daughter's engagement. An ivory-handled carving knife rests between his shoulder blades as the houseguests gather round to witness the awful crime. The telephone line has been sabotaged - a calculated murder has been committed. Rewinding twelve hours, the events of the afternoon and evening unfold, revealing a multitude of clues and motives from a closed cast of suspects.

In the Welsh borders, isolated by heavy snow and flooding from the thaw, cut off from telephone access, a tragedy has occurred. Old Dr Robinson known to be 'a menace' on the roads has met his end in a car crash, his big saloon thrown from the track down the steep hillside. But when the police arrive there is more to the tragedy than meets the eye: why was there a second body - an outsider to these parts - in the back of the vehicle?

Chief Inspector Macdonald has been invited to a treasure hunt party at the house of the Graham Coombe, the celebrated publisher of Murder by Mesmerism. The clues of the hunt have been devised by Coombe's thriller-writer friends, disguised on the night under literary pseudonyms. The fun comes to an abrupt end, however, when 'Samuel Pepys' is found murdered in the telephone room in bizarre circumstances.

Welworth Garden City in the 1940s is a forward-thinking town where free spirits find a home - vegetarians, socialists, and an array of exotic religious groups. Chief among these are the Children of Osiris, led by the eccentric High Prophet, Eustace K. Mildmann. The cult is a seething hotbed of petty resentment, jealousy and dark secrets - which eventually lead to murder. The stage is set for one of Inspector Meredith's most bizarre and exacting cases.

Mr. Richard Dodsley, owner of a fine second-hand bookshop on Charing Cross Road, has been found murdered in the cold hours of the morning. Shot in his own office, few clues remain besides three cigarette ends, two spent matches and a few books on the shelves which have been rearranged. In an investigation spanning the second-hand bookshops of London and the Houses of Parliament - since an MP's new crime novel Death at the Desk appears to have some bearing on the case - John Ferguson's series sleuth MacNab is at hand to assist Scotland Yard in an atmospheric fair-play bibliomystery.

When Miles Hammond is invited to a meeting of the Murder Club in London, he is met instead with just two other guests and is treated to a strange tale of an impossible crime in France years before; the murder of a man on a tower with only one staircase, under watch at the time at which the murder took place. With theories of levitating vampires abounding, the story comes home to Miles when he realises that the librarian he has just hired for his home is none other than Fay Seton, a woman at the heart of this bizarre and unsolved past murder.