Mystery

In Agatha Christie's classic mystery 4:50 From Paddington, a woman in one train witnesses a murder occurring in another passing one...and only Miss Marple believes her story.

For an instant the two trains ran side by side. In that frozen moment, Elspeth McGillicuddy stared helplessly out of her carriage window as a man tightened his grip around a woman's throat. The body crumpled. Then the other train drew away. But who, apart from Mrs. McGillicuddy's friend Jane Marple, would take her story seriously? After all, there are no other witnesses, no suspects, and no case -- for there is no corpse, and no one is missing.

Miss Marple asks her highly efficient and intelligent young friend Lucy Eyelesbarrow to infiltrate the Crackenthorpe family, who seem to be at the heart of the mystery, and help unmask a murderer.

When Ruth Galloway learns that her old university friend Dan Golding has died in a house fire, she is shocked and saddened. But when she receives a letter that Dan had written just before he died, her sadness turns to suspicion.

The letter tells of a great archaeological discovery, but Dan also says that he is scared for his life. Was Dan's death linked to his find? The only clue is his mention of the Raven King, an ancient name for King Arthur.

When she arrives in Lancashire, Ruth discovers that the bones reveal a shocking fact about King Arthur--and that the bones have mysteriously vanished. The case draws in DCI Nelson, determined to protect Ruth and their eighteen-month-old daughter, Kate. But someone is willing to kill to keep the bones a secret, and it is beginning to look as if no one is safe.

"Another gem packed with offbeat, well-developed characters and a quirky, challenging mystery."--Kirkus

"As with all Ruth Galloway mysteries, the application of forensic archaeology is intriguing . . . readers are in for a really good time with this flesh-and-blood bone expert."--Booklist, starred

"...Sweeping and intimate, warm and gripping. I loved it!" --Louise Penny, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Chief Inspector Gamache novels

A single twist of fate puts a servant girl to work in Queen Victoria's royal kitchen, setting off a suspenseful, historical mystery by the New York Times bestselling author of The Tuscan Child and The Victory Garden.

Isabella Waverly only means to comfort the woman felled on a London street. In her final dying moments, she thrusts a letter into Bella's hand. It's an offer of employment in the kitchens of Buckingham Palace, and everything the budding young chef desperately wants: an escape from the constrictions of her life as a lowly servant. In the stranger's stead, Bella can spread her wings.

Arriving as Helen Barton from Yorkshire, she pursues her passion for creating culinary delights, served to the delighted Queen Victoria herself. Best of all, she's been chosen to accompany the queen to Nice. What fortune! Until the threat of blackmail shadows Bella to the Riviera, and a member of the queen's retinue falls ill and dies.

Having prepared the royal guest's last meal, Bella is suspected of the poisonous crime. An investigation is sure to follow. Her charade will be over. And her new life will come crashing down--if it doesn't send her to the gallows.

A sadistic practical joker is haunting the popular music halls of London, interfering with the actors and interrupting their acts by orchestrating humiliating disasters that take place in view of the audience. A trapeze artist misses her timing when the trapeze ropes are shortened. A comedian who invites the audience to sing along with him finds the words of his song "shamefully" altered. Mustard has been applied to a sword swallower's blade. A singer's costume has been rigged. The girl in a magician's box is trapped. Then the mischief escalates to murder. Or was murder intended all along? That indomitable detective team, Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray of Scotland Yard, must track down the elusive criminal.

The Absolution is the third installment in Queen of Icelandic crime fiction Yrsa Sigurdardóttir's series about the psychologist Freyja and the police officer Huldar.

The police find out about the crime the way everyone does: on Snapchat. The video shows a terrified young woman begging for forgiveness. When her body is found, it is marked with a number "2".

Detective Huldar joins the investigation, bringing child psychologist Freyja on board to help question the murdered teenager's friends. Soon, they uncover that Stella was far from the angel people claim, but who could have hated her enough to kill?

Then another teenager goes missing, more clips are sent to social media, and the body with a "3" is found. Freyja and Huldar can agree on two things at least: the truth is far from simple. The killer is not done yet. And is there an undiscovered body carrying the number "1" out there?

From the bestselling author of Black Run comes Antonio Manzini's mesmerizing second mystery novel featuring detective Rocco Schiavone.

Six months after being exiled from his beloved Rome, Deputy Police Chief Rocco Schiavone has settled into a routine in the cold, quiet, chronically backward alpine town of Aosta: an espresso at home, breakfast in the piazza, and a morning joint in his office.

A little self-medication helps Rocco deal with the morons that almost exclusively comprise the local force. Especially on a day like today. It's his girlfriend's birthday (if you could call her that; in his mind, Rocco's only faithful to his late wife), he has no gift--and he's about to stumble upon a corpse.

It begins when a maid reports a burglary in Aosta. But there's no sign of forced entry, and after Rocco picks the lock, he notices something off about the carefully ransacked rooms. That's when he finds the body: a woman, the maid's employer, left hanging after a grisly suicide. Or is it? Rocco's intuition tells him the scene has been staged. In other words, it's murder--a pain in the ass of the highest order.

In this stylish international mystery, Antonio Manzini further establishes Rocco Schiavone as one of the most acerbic, complicated, and entertaining antiheroes crime fiction has seen in years.

Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautifully bound pocket-sized gift editions of much loved classic titles. Bound in real cloth, printed on high quality paper, and featuring ribbon markers and gilt edges, Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is perhaps the greatest collection of detective short stories ever written. From his residence at 221B Baker Street, Sherlock Holmes solves a series of baffling and bizarre cases using his inimitable deductive powers, recounted to us by the faithful though sometimes bemused Dr Watson.

With an Afterword by David Stuart Davies, a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, and an authority on Sherlock Holmes. He has written the Afterwords for all the Macmillan Collector's Library Holmes volumes.

Stories in this edition are:
A Scandal in Bohemia
The Red-Headed League
A Case of Identity
The Boscombe Valley Mystery
The Five Orange Pips
The Man with the Twisted Lip
The Blue Carbuncle
The Speckled Band
The Engineer's Thumb
The Noble Bachelor
The Beryl Coronet
The Copper Beeches

The New York Times bestselling author of More Than You Know, Leeway Cottage, and Death at Breakfast delivers the second installment in her clever romp of a mystery series combining social comedy and dark-hearted murder--a novel set at a girls' boarding school in a picturesque Hudson River town with more than its share of secrets.

Since retiring as head of a famous New York City private school, Maggie Detweiler is busier than ever. Chairing a team to evaluate the faltering Rye Manor School for girls, she will determine whether, in spite of its fabled past, the school has a future at all. With so much on the line for so many, tensions on campus are at an excruciating pitch, and Maggie expects to be as welcome as a case of Ebola virus.

At a reception for the faculty and trustees to "welcome" Maggie's team, no one seems more keen for all to go well than Florence Meagher, a star teacher who is loved and respected in spite of her affliction--that she can never stop talking.

Florence is one of those dedicated teachers for whom the school is her life, and yet the next morning, when Maggie arrives to observe her teaching, Florence is missing. Florence's husband, Ray, an auxiliary policeman in the village, seems more annoyed than alarmed at her disappearance. But Florence's sister is distraught. There have been tensions in the marriage, and at their last visit, Florence had warned, "If anything happens to me, don't assume it's an accident."

Two days later, Florence's body is found in the campus swimming pool.

Maggie is asked to stay on to coach the very young and inexperienced head of Rye Manor through the crisis. Maggie obviously knows schools, but she also knows something about investigating murder, having solved a mysterious death in Maine the previous year when the police went after the wrong suspect. She is soon joined by her madcap socialite friend Hope, who is jonesing for an excuse to ditch her book club anyway, before she has to actually read Silas Marner.

What on earth is going on in this idyllic town? Is this a run-of-the-mill marital murder? Or does it have something to do with the school board treasurer's real estate schemes? And what is up with the vicious cyber-bullying that's unsettled everyone, or with the disturbed teenaged boy whom Florence had made a pet of? And is it possible that someone killed Florence just so she'd finally shut up?

Out of the frozen depths of a forest in Ormberg, Sweden, a woman stumbles onto the road. Her arms are covered with scratches, her feet are bare, and she has no memory of who she is. Local police identify her as psychological profiler Hanne Lagerlind-Schön, who, with her partner, had been helping investigate the cold case of a young woman's murder. Hanne begins to recover but cannot recall anything about where her partner is, or what their investigation had uncovered before her disappearance. Police have only one lead: a young woman in a sequined dress who was spotted nearby the night Hanne was found.

The young woman doesn't come forward because she doesn't exist: Jake Birgersson, a local teenager, had been out walking in his mother's dress and sister's makeup, his secret shame and thrill. Terrified of discovery, Jake hid and watched Hanne get into a car, leaving behind her diary.

Reading Hanne's notebook, Jake realizes that it contains the key to a major breakthrough in the case--but turning it in would mean admitting the truth about who he is. When another murder victim is found in the woods, Jake realizes that Hanne herself is in danger, and his only choice is to find and warn her so that together, they can stop the killer before he strikes again.

Praise for After She's Gone

"[A] stellar crime novel . . . Grebe delivers an unflinching, heart-wrenching message about the plight of refugees in this scorching thriller."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The legacy of the Second World War persists in this multi-layered tale of vengeance and retribution.

1950s Bordeaux is a city plagued by memories of the Second World War. The scars of collaboration and resistance are more keenly felt than ever and citizens struggle to move on. But across the sea, another war has already begun. The young men of France are sent in droves to Algeria, where they wage brutal battle in a conflict so new it hasn't yet been given a name.

Twenty-year-old Daniel has heard the stories. Whispers of massacres and mutilations, of ambushes and patrols played out under a burning north African sun. He knows that he is next in line to join the fight, but with just a month left before his departure he is unsure of his path. The loss of his parents and sister in the atrocities of the last war haunt him, and leave him questioning why he is going to fight in the first place.

Meanwhile, Albert Darlac, the godfather of Bordeaux, finds himself tormented by a past that won't disappear. Corrupt police chief, fascist sympathizer and one-time collaborator, Darlac soon discovers that some things won't remain buried. Before long, a series of explosive events will set off a spiral of violence that will bring the horrific legacy of wars past and present to the streets of Bordeaux.

Hervé Le Corre has produced a truly uncompromising, multi-layered masterpiece set in a world driven by and built on vengeance.

Nat is not only a spy, he is a passionate badminton player. His regular Monday evening opponent is half his age: the introspective and solitary Ed. Ed hates Brexit, hates Trump and hates his job at some soulless media agency. And it is Ed, of all unlikely people, who will take Prue, Florence and Nat himself down the path of political anger that will ensnare them all. Agent Running in the Field is a chilling portrait of our time, now heartbreaking, now darkly humorous, told to us with unflagging tension by the greatest chronicler of our age.

"The 16 tales in this entertaining Akashic noir anthology cover the entire state of Alabama...The flaws are few and far between, and as is so often the case for the series, each contributor consistently embraces the setting."
--Publishers Weekly

Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct location within the geographic area of the book.

Brand-new stories by: Ace Atkins, Tom Franklin, Anita Miller Garner, Suzanne Hudson, Kirk Curnutt, Wendy Reed, Carolyn Haines, Anthony Grooms, Michelle Richmond, Winston Groom, Ravi Howard, Thom Gossom Jr., Brad Watson, Daniel Wallace, D. Winston Brown, and Marlin Barton.

From the introduction by Don Noble:

Some locales seem to come with their own soundtrack. Don Ho and his tiny bubbles provide the background music for Hawaii, Edith Piaf for Paris. The reggae of Bob Marley evokes Jamaica. The soundtrack for Alabama is without question provided by our troubled troubadour Hank Williams. The 2016 biography Hank by Mark Ribowsky paints a dark picture of the musician's short, alcoholic, drug-filled life: a life of loneliness and pain. He goes so far as to call Hank's life story "noir-ish"...

In