Introducing Bombay CID's most dogged, dutiful officer, and one of the greatest, most engaging creations in all detective fiction, H.R.F. Keating's The Perfect Murder: The First Inspector Ghote Mystery includes a preface by Alexander McCall Smith, author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, in Penguin Modern Classics. One crime that couldn't have happened, one that probably hasn't. Nothing's ever...

In the stinking mud of a great tidal river, a body lies half submerged. Sir Tommy Best, adored British actor, has fallen to his death through a hole in the walkway above. The saintly Sir Tommy was friend to the starving and penniless, to kings and stars. He was also totally blind and reliant on his brilliant guide dog, Suzy....

Fast-talking, trouble-seeking private eye Philip Marlowe is a different kind of detective: a moral man in an amoral world. California in the ’40s and ’50s is as beautiful as a ripe fruit and rotten to the core, and Marlowe must struggle to retain his integrity amidst the corruption he encounters daily. In Playback, Marlowe is awakened early in the morning...

Some secrets are best kept hidden... Nick Paleologus is summoned to resolve a dispute that threatens to tear his family apart. His father, Michael, is a retired archaeologist and supposed descendant of the last Emperors of Byzantium. Michael has received a hugely generous offer for the family home in Cornwall, but refuses to sell - and refuses to divulge why....

Some crimes strike too close to home... Private detective Bill Smith is hurtled headlong into the most provocative - and personal - case of his career when he receives a chilling late night telephone call from the NYPD. They're holding his fifteen-year-old nephew Gary. But before he can find out what's going on, Gary escapes Bill's custody and disappears into...

An ex-cop with a death wish. A serial killer with a gruesome agenda... Detective Karin Schaeffer was a happily married mother until she got too close to catching a serial killer. The press nickname him The Domino Killer because he systematically murders whole families, leaving a trail of bloody dominoes as the only clues to his next victim. Having brutally...

As plain-clothes men go, Dangerous Davies looks like a non-starter. The small fry of petty larceny and minor disturbances in the backwaters of north-west London are his daily round. His philosophising Welsh drinking companion Mod, his outsized and unruly dog Kitty, his quarrels with his landlady Mrs Fulljames - none of these bodes well for the efficient solving of crimes...

Ollie Wing is barely surviving. Back home in Sligo, he collects trolleys in a supermarket car park and lives in a run-down house with a group of art students. He can't escape what has happened in London and is tormented by old fears and regrets. Finally, he decides to confront his demons. ...

Recovering from the tragic death of his wife, Tony Sheridan goes to stay with his sister-in-law, Lucy, and her husband.Their home is a bizarre moated house deep in the Rutland countryside, known as Otherways. Disturbed by memories of his wife, and a growing attraction to Lucy, Sheridan is also troubled by weird and vivid dreams. Soon he learns that Otherways...

Every year, on 31 December, Hank and his older brother Jacob make a pilgrimage to their father's grave. They have never been close - indeed, they have never even liked one another - but they keep this promise, made to their father before he died. This year Jacob's friend Lou comes with them. As they drive towards the cemetery in...

THE DEADLIEST WEAPON IS THE TRUTH. . . Discover the thrilling first instalment in the epic Templar series 'A rollercoaster experience' 5***** READER REVIEW 'Gripping and exciting from start to finish' 5***** READER REVIEW ________ After a life on the front lines, Army Ranger John Holliday is now teaching at West Point Military Academy. But when his uncle passes away,...

When everything has been taken from you . . . There's nothing left to lose. Martin Harris has been in a coma for three days. When he wakes up, otherwise unharmed, he is shocked to discover that no one knows who he is - he no longer exists. Worse still, another man is living Martin's life. His identity, his home,...

Some crooks have tried to snatch the plump son of a business tycoon, and have accidentally made off with his playmate instead. But they're not changing their plan: a payment is to be delivered to them or a small corpse is to be delivered to Inspector Ghote. But what kind of ransom can a mere tailor's boy demand? And, as...

Included here are some of the well-loved Father Brown detective stories, surely among the best in the genre, and a range of poetry, serious and light-hearted - Chesterton wrote some of the best nonsense and satirical verse in the language. The main bias of the selection, however, will be towards his non-fictional prose, where, Dr Ker argues, his real greatness...

John Kelly, once a reporter, always a maverick, has become embroiled in the mystery surrounding a series of disturbing deaths at a tough army training base in the heart of Dartmoor. Several young men and women have died suddenly and tragically, mostly from gunshot wounds that the army claims to have been self-inflicted. There is a plausible explanation for each...