Secondhand Crime Fiction & Thriller Bargain Book Box SP2884

Secondhand Crime Fiction & Thriller Bargain Book Box SP2884

Twenty-one classic crime novels built around three of the genre's great figures — Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe, Dorothy L. Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey, and John Buchan's Richard Hannay — with Simenon's Maigret, Patricia Highsmith, and two Agatha Christies rounding out a remarkable box.

1. Three Doors to Death — Rex Stout (Rex Stout Library, intro by Jonathan Kellerman) — Three Nero Wolfe novellas, each beginning with a death and ending with Wolfe's characteristic armchair deduction.
2. The Animal Lover's Book of Beastly Murder — Patricia Highsmith — Short stories in which animals take revenge on their human tormentors — darkly funny, morally inverted Highsmith operating in a minor key no less precise than her novels.
3. Might as Well Be Dead — Rex Stout — Wolfe is hired to find a missing man, finds him quickly, and then discovers the real problem has only just begun.
4. If Death Ever Slept — Rex Stout — Corporate espionage, a suspicious secretary, and Archie going undercover in a tycoon's household — one of the more comedic Wolfe novels.
5. Strong Poison — Dorothy L. Sayers — The novel in which Lord Peter Wimsey falls hopelessly in love with Harriet Vane, on trial for the murder of her former lover — the beginning of the great romance at the heart of the series.
6. They Do It With Mirrors — Agatha Christie — Miss Marple visits an old school friend whose husband runs a criminal rehabilitation programme — and a murder happens during a carefully staged distraction.
7. Curtain: Poirot's Last Case — Agatha Christie — Written during WWII and locked in a safe until 1975: Poirot's final hours at Styles, and the most surprising solution of his career.
8. Homicide Trinity — Rex Stout (Rex Stout Library, intro by Stephen Greenleaf) — Three Nero Wolfe novellas, as compact and efficient as Stout always was in the shorter form.
9. Maigret Has Scruples — Simenon (Penguin Crime) — A man believes his wife is trying to poison him — Maigret's study in domestic suspicion and the impossibility of proving a negative.
10. Trouble in Triplicate — Rex Stout (Rex Stout Library, intro by Randy Russell) — Three more Wolfe novellas — three locked problems, three elaborate solutions, three vintage Archie narrations.
11. Death of a Doxy — Rex Stout (Rex Stout Library, intro by Sandra West Prowell) — A young woman strangled in her apartment, Wolfe's operatives implicated — he takes the case out of loyalty and because the puzzle genuinely interests him.
12. Lord Peter Views the Body — Dorothy L. Sayers — Twelve short stories showing Wimsey at his most entertainingly eccentric — ghost stories, impossible crimes, and at least one episode of genuine menace.
13. The Five Red Herrings — Dorothy L. Sayers — Six artists, one dead colleague, and five of them with motive and opportunity — Wimsey in Scotland, navigating railway timetables and artistic temperament.
14. The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club — Dorothy L. Sayers — An elderly general found dead in his London club on Armistice Day — whether he died before or after his wealthy sister is worth a fortune.
15. Trio for Blunt Instruments — Rex Stout (Rex Stout Library) — Three Wolfe novellas involving blunt objects and crimes that look random but aren't.
16. Murder in Style — Rex Stout, intro by Kingsley Amis — A Nero Wolfe collection introduced by Kingsley Amis, whose admiration for the series is evident in an introduction worth reading for its own sake.
17. Not Quite Dead Enough — Rex Stout (Rex Stout Library, intro by John Lutz) — Two wartime Wolfe novellas in which the detective is persuaded to help the war effort in his own inimitable fashion.
18. And Four to Go — Rex Stout (Rex Stout Library, intro by Jane Haddam) — Four seasonal Wolfe novellas — Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving — each with a holiday-appropriate murder.
19. Greenmantle — John Buchan (Penguin Books) — Richard Hannay back in action in a WWI adventure that takes him across Europe and into Turkey — the sequel to The Thirty-Nine Steps, arguably even more gripping.
20. The Three Hostages — John Buchan (Penguin Books) — Hannay drawn out of retirement when a criminal mastermind uses post-war shell-shock to control his victims — one of Buchan's best.
21. Murder Must Advertise — Dorothy L. Sayers — Wimsey undercover as a copywriter in an advertising agency — funny, precise, and one of the most distinctive settings in the Wimsey series.