The murder, a brutal stabbing, definitely took place on Guy Fawkes' night. It was definitely by the bonfire on the village green. There were definitely a number of witnesses. And yet, was it definitely clear to anybody exactly what they had seen? In the writhing, violent shadows, it seems as if the truth may have gone up in smoke. Julian Symons' phenomenal 1960 novel is a searing drama of wrongful accusation, twisty police procedural and account of grim murder all rolled together. This edition also includes the resonant short story 'The Tigers of Subtopia'.

In the peaceful seaside town of Broadgate, an impossible crime occurs. The operator of the cliff railway locks the empty carriage one evening; when he returns to work next morning, a dead body is locked inside - a man who has been stabbed in the back.Jimmy London, a newspaper reporter, is first on the scene. He is quick on the trail for clues - and agrees to pool his knowledge with Inspector Shelley of Scotland Yard, who is holidaying in the area. Mistrustful of the plodding local policeman, Inspector Beech, the two men launch their own investigation into the most baffling locked-room mystery - a case that could reignite Jimmy's flagging career, but one that exposes him to great danger.

Number one New York Times bestselling author Jocko Willink's fast-paced and exciting thriller Final Spin is a story of love, brotherhood, suffering, happiness and sacrifice - a story about life. Johnny . . . Shouldn't be in a dead-end job. Shouldn't be in a dead-end bar. Shouldn't be in a dead-end life. But he is. It's a hamster-wheel existence. Stocking warehouse store shelves by day, drinking too much whisky and beer by night. In between, Johnny lives in his childhood home, making sure his alcoholic mother hasn't drunk herself to death, and looking after his idiosyncratic older brother Arty, whose world revolves around his laundromat job. Rinse and repeat. Then Johnny's monotonous life takes a tumble. The laundromat where Arty works, and the one thing that gives him happiness, is about to be sold. Johnny doesn't want that to happen, so he takes measures into his own hands. Johnny, along with his friend Goat, come up with a plan to get the money to buy the laundromat. But things don't always go as planned . . .

The second book in Charles Cumming's gripping new thriller series surrounding BOX 88 - a covert intelligence organization that operates below the radar. A spy in one of the most dangerous places on Earth... 1993: Student Lachlan Kite is sent to Russia by secret intelligence agency BOX 88. To the outside world, he is there as a language teacher. In reality, he is there as a spy. But Kite's mission soon goes wrong and he is left stranded with a former KGB officer on his trail. An old enemy looking for revenge... 2020: Kite discovers he has been placed on the 'JUDAS' list -enemies of Russia who have been targeted for assassination. His only hope of survival is to confront the Russian secret state head on... Who will come out on top in this deadly game of cat and mouse? 'Judas 62 has all you could want from a tense, topical and intelligent spy thriller' The Times Books of the Year

London Private Investigator Jack Barclay is hired by Phillip Jordan to find his missing son Alex, who has recently been released from prison. Alex has been recruited by Jaymar - an international gang of hit men - and Jack finds himself embroiled in the murky world of vengeance, murder and erotic photography as he trawls the underbelly of London to find him. Alex's father has his own agenda for wanting his son found quickly and as he puts pressure on Jack to find him, Jaymar attack Jack's girlfriend. As the mob turn up the heat, Jack realises it is only a matter of time before the brutal trail of murder and violence reaches his own door.

The Number One Australian Bestseller 'A heart-wrenching mystery' - Jane Harper, bestselling author of The Dry 'A stunning debut' - Ann Cleeves Dirt town. Dirt and hurt - that's what others would remember about our town . . . When twelve-year-old Esther Bianchi disappears on her way home from school in the small town of Durton in rural Australia, the local community is thrown into a state of grief and suspicion. The Detective As Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels begins her investigation, she questions those who knew the girl, attempting to unpick the secrets which bind them together. The Mother The girl's mother, Constance, believes that her daughter going missing is the worst thing that can happen to her. But as the search for Esther develops, she learns that things can always get worse. The Friends Ronnie is Esther's best friend and is determined to bring her home. So when her classmate Lewis tells her that he saw Esther with a strange man at the creek the afternoon she went missing, Ronnie feels she is one step closer to finding her. But why is Lewis refusing to speak to the police? And who else is keeping quiet about what happened to Esther? Dirt Town by Hayley Scrivenor is an atmospheric crime novel set in rural Australia, for fans of Jane Harper's The Dry and Chris Whitaker's We Begin at the End.

Agatha Christie's first ever murder mystery, now presented as a sumptuous special edition hardback. 'Beware! Peril to the detective who says: "It is so small - it does not matter..." Everything matters.' After the Great War, life can never be the same again. Wounds need healing, and the horror of violent death banished into memory. Captain Arthur Hastings is invited to the rolling country estate of Styles to recuperate from injuries sustained at the Front. It is the last place he expects to encounter murder. Fortunately he knows a former detective, a Belgian refugee, who has grown bored of retirement... The first Hercule Poirot mystery, now published with a previously deleted chapter and introduced by Agatha Christie expert Dr John Curran.

When the body of a Bushman is discovered near the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, the death is written off as an accident. But all is not as it seems.

An autopsy reveals that, although he’s clearly very old, his internal organs are puzzlingly young. What’s more, an old bullet is lodged in one of his muscles … but where is the entry wound? When the body is stolen from the morgue and a local witch doctor is reported missing, Detective ‘Kubu’ Bengu gets involved. But did the witch doctor take the body to use as part of a ritual? Or was it the American anthropologist who’d befriended the old Bushman? As Kubu and his brilliant young colleague, Detective Samantha Khama, follow the twisting trail through a confusion of rhino-horn smugglers, foreign gangsters and drugs manufacturers, the wider and more dangerous the case seems to grow.

A fresh, new slice of ‘Sunshine Noir’, Dying to Live is a classic tale of greed, corruption and ruthless thuggery, set in one of the world’s most beautiful landscapes, and featuring one of crime fiction’s most endearing and humane heroes.

When Dr Raymond Ferens moves to a practice at Milham in the Moor in North Devon, he and his wife are enchanted with the beautiful hilltop village lying so close to moor and sky. At first they see only its charm, but soon they begin to uncover its secrets - envy, hatred and malice. Everyone says that Sister Monica, warden of a children's home, is a saint - but is she? A few months after the Ferens' arrival her body is found drowned in the mill race. Chief Inspector Macdonald faces one of his most difficult cases in a village determined not to betray its dark secrets to a stranger.

Duchlan Castle is a gloomy, forbidding place in the Scottish Highlands. Late one night the body of Mary Gregor, sister of the laird of Duchlan, is found in the castle. She has been stabbed to death in her bedroom - but the room is locked from within and the windows are barred. The only tiny clue to the culprit is a silver fish's scale, left on the floor next to Mary's body.Inspector Dundas is dispatched to Duchlan to investigate the case. The Gregor family and their servants are quick - perhaps too quick - to explain that Mary was a kind and charitable woman. Dundas uncovers a more complex truth, and the cruel character of the dead woman continues to pervade the house after her death. Soon further deaths, equally impossible, occur, and the atmosphere grows ever darker. Superstitious locals believe that fish creatures from the nearby waters are responsible; but luckily for Inspector Dundas, the gifted amateur sleuth Eustace Hailey is on the scene, and unravels a more logical solution to this most fiendish of plots.Anthony Wynne wrote some of the best locked-room mysteries from the golden age of British crime fiction.This cunningly plotted novel - one of Wynne's finest - has never been reprinted since 1931, and is long overdue for rediscovery.

'Funny, violent, real and with characters you love to love - and hate...' JANICE HALLETT She will leave your surfaces sparkling. But she may well leave you dead... Maria is a good woman and a good cleaner. She cleans for Elsie, the funny old bird who's losing her marbles, with the terrible husband. She cleans for Brian, the sweet man with the terrible boss. She cleans for the mysterious Mr Balogan, with the terrible neighbours. If you're thinking of hiring her, you should probably know that Maria might have killed the terrible husband, the terrible boss and the terrible neighbours. She may also have murdered the man she loved. She didn't set out to kill anyone, of course, but her clients have hired her to clean up their lives, and she takes her job seriously - not to mention how much happier they all are now. The trouble is, murder can't be washed out. You can only sweep it under the carpet, and pray no one looks too closely... Darkly funny and completely gripping from the first page to the last, Make Me Clean is one thriller you won't be able to scrub from your mind. Perfect for fans of Harriet Tyce, Fiona Cummins and My Sister the Serial Killer.

Aunt Mildred declared that no good could come of the Melbury family Christmas gatherings at their country residence Flaxmere. So when Sir Osmond Melbury, the family patriarch, is discovered - by a guest dressed as Santa Klaus - with a bullet in his head on Christmas Day, the festivities are plunged into chaos. Nearly every member of the party stands to reap some sort of benefit from Sir Osmond's death, but Santa Klaus, the one person who seems to have every opportunity to fire the shot, has no apparent motive. Various members of the family have their private suspicions about the identity of the murderer, and the Chief Constable of Haulmshire, who begins his investigations by saying that he knows the family too well and that is his difficulty, wishes before long that he understood them better. In the midst of mistrust, suspicion and hatred, it emerges that there was not one Santa Klaus, but two. The Santa Klaus Murder is a classic country-house mystery that is now being made available to readers for the first time since its original publication in 1936.

No observer, ignorant of the situation, would have guessed that death lurked nearby, and that only a little distance from the glitter of silver and glass and the hum of voices two victims lay silent on a studio floor.'On a fine autumn weekend Lord Aveling hosts a hunting party at his country house, Bragley Court. Among the guests are an actress, a journalist, an artist and a mystery novelist. The unlucky thirteenth is John Foss, injured at the local train station and brought to the house to recuperate - but John is nursing a secret of his own.Soon events take a sinister turn when a painting is mutilated, a dog stabbed, and a man strangled. Death strikes more than one of the house guests, and the police are called. Detective Inspector Kendall's skills are tested to the utmost as he tries to uncover the hidden past of everyone at Bragley Court.This country-house mystery is a forgotten classic of 1930s crime fiction by one of the most undeservedly neglected of golden age detective novelists.

Christmas is a mysterious, as well as magical, time of year. Strange things can happen, and this helps to explain the hallowed tradition of telling ghost stories around the fireside as the year draws to a close. Christmas tales of crime and detection have a similar appeal. When television becomes tiresome, and party games pall, the prospect of curling up in the warm with a good mystery is enticing - and much better for the digestion than yet another helping of plum pudding. Crime writers are just as susceptible as readers to the countless attractions of Christmas. Over the years, many distinguished practitioners of the genre have given one or more of their stories a Yuletide setting. The most memorable Christmas mysteries blend a lively storyline with an atmospheric evocation of the season. Getting the mixture right is much harder than it looks.This book introduces readers to some of the finest Christmas detective stories of the past. Martin Edwards' selection blends festive pieces from much-loved authors with one or two stories which are likely to be unfamiliar even to diehard mystery fans. The result is a collection of crime fiction to savour, whatever the season.

SOME THINGS ARE TOO PERFECT TO BE TRUE... 'A sharp, compelling take on modern motherhood' HEAT 'A nail-biting, dark thriller' PLATINUM 'Fiendishly entertaining... A suspenseful and unsettling cautionary tale' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY *** Rose O'Connell aspires to be the perfect mother. And when she receives an unexpected invitation into The Circle, an elite clique of beautiful, wealthy and connected mums at her son's exclusive school, it seems her dreams are about to come true. Every mother would kill for an invitation, and once she joins, Rose's social status soars. But what is each woman hiding beneath her immaculate exterior? Why did a previous member take their own life? And why have they singled out unassuming Rose to take her place? Rose is about to find out that darkness lies at the heart of The Circle. And it's far too late to run... From the author of That Woman comes a razor-sharp, dark and nail-bitingly gripping new thriller. Dare you enter The Circle? -- Readers LOVE Such a Good Mother 'Enthralling, chilling, compulsive... keeps the reader gripped from start to finish, an absolute must-read for fans of thrillers' 'You will be hanging off every word as the story evolves and goes from dark to pitch black' 'A deliciously wicked ride' 'The ending is just brilliant, I was completely shocked... You will be hanging on every word as the story unfolds. I couldn't put it down. A great page turner!' 'A well-written dark read with plenty of twists' 'This will have you on the edge of your seat for sure!' 'Oh my goodness, not for the faint-hearted. A must-read for anyone who loves the thriller genre' 'Will leave you itching to get to the end. There are so many twists & turns you don't see coming as it's a story of manipulation & deceit on a whole new other level!'

'Jefferson Farjeon is quite unsurpassed for creepy skill in mysterious adventures.'Dorothy L. SayersRichard Temperley arrives at Euston station early on a fogbound London morning. He takes refuge in a nearby hotel, along with a disagreeable fellow passenger, who had snored his way through the train journey. But within minutes the other man has snored for the last time - he has been shot dead while sleeping in an armchair. Temperley has a brief encounter with a beautiful young woman, but she flees the scene. When the police arrive, Detective Inspector James discovers a token at the crime scene: 'a small piece of enamelled metal. Its colour was crimson, and it was in the shape of the letter Z.'Temperley sets off in pursuit of the mysterious woman from the hotel, and finds himself embroiled in a cross-country chase - by train and taxi - on the tail of a sinister serial killer. This classic novel by the author of the best-selling Mystery in White is a gripping thriller by a neglected master of the genre.