Secondhand Crime & Mystery Bargain Book Box SP2993

Secondhand Crime & Mystery Bargain Book Box SP2993

Twenty-one crime and mystery classics — twelve Agatha Christie, three Raymond Chandler, three Nicolas Freeling, plus Dashiell Hammett, Patricia Wentworth, and Josephine Tey. The golden age of crime fiction in one box.

1. The Mystery of the Blue Train — Agatha Christie — Hercule Poirot investigates the murder of a wealthy American on the famous Blue Train to the Riviera: jewels, red herrings, and a cast of splendidly suspicious passengers.
2. By the Pricking of My Thumbs — Agatha Christie — Tommy and Tuppence Beresford investigate a sinister village and a disturbing painting: one of Christie's most atmospheric late novels.
3. Farewell, My Lovely — Raymond Chandler — Philip Marlowe searches for Moose Malloy's lost love through the nightclubs, gamblers, and corrupt cops of Los Angeles. Many consider it Chandler's finest novel.
4. The Lady in the Lake — Raymond Chandler — Marlowe heads to the California mountains to investigate a missing wife and finds a body in the lake: the twisting, brilliantly plotted fourth Marlowe novel.
5. Death on the Nile — Agatha Christie — A glittering cast of suspects on a Nile steamer, a beautiful woman shot dead, and Hercule Poirot to untangle the consequences. One of Christie's very best.
6. The Gazebo — Patricia Wentworth — Miss Silver investigates a murder at a country house: one of the classic cases of Wentworth's formidable elderly detective.
7. The Franchise Affair — Josephine Tey — Two women stand accused of abducting and imprisoning a young girl. Solicitor Robert Blair investigates — and discovers that the truth is more complex and disturbing than anyone supposed. Inspired by a real 18th-century case.
8. The Big Knock-Over and Other Stories — Dashiell Hammett — Short stories from the creator of Sam Spade: the Continental Op at his hardest and most brilliant, drawn from the pulp magazines of the 1920s.
9. Murder is Easy — Agatha Christie — Luke Fitzwilliam thinks an old lady on a train is confused when she claims to know who the village murderer is. Then she is killed too. A classic Christie puzzle.
10. The Man in the Brown Suit — Agatha Christie — A young woman witnesses a man fall under a tube train, picks up a paper he dropped, and finds herself aboard a ship to South Africa in the middle of a diamond conspiracy. An early Christie adventure.
11. Postern of Fate — Agatha Christie — Tommy and Tuppence, retired and moving house, find an old book with a hidden message: one last mystery for Christie's oldest detective pair.
12. Cat Among the Pigeons — Agatha Christie — Murder at a girls' boarding school: a gym mistress, a princess in disguise, stolen jewels, and Hercule Poirot arriving in the final third to make sense of everything.
13. Ordeal by Innocence — Agatha Christie — A man proves he has an alibi for a murder — two years after the wrong man was convicted and died in prison. One of Christie's darkest and most unsettling novels.
14. A Long Silence — Nicolas Freeling — Van der Valk's wife Arlette picks up her husband's investigations after his death: a strikingly original novel in the Van der Valk series.
15. This is the Castle — Nicolas Freeling — A psychological thriller from the creator of Van der Valk.
16. Gun Before Butter — Nicolas Freeling — Van der Valk investigates a case of jealousy and violence in Amsterdam: one of the Dutch detective's tightest cases.
17. Dumb Witness — Agatha Christie — Poirot receives a letter from an elderly woman who suspects someone is trying to kill her — and arrives to find she has already been murdered. Features the immortal dog Bob.
18. Hercule Poirot's Christmas — Agatha Christie — The most locked of locked-room mysteries: a miserly patriarch is murdered in his sealed room on Christmas Eve, with the whole family under one roof.
19. Hallowe'en Party — Agatha Christie — A girl at a Halloween party says she once witnessed a murder — and is drowned in the apple-bobbing tub before the evening is out. Poirot investigates.
20. The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side — Agatha Christie — A film star comes to St Mary Mead and a woman dies at her garden party: Miss Marple at her most precise and poignant, inspired by a real Hollywood tragedy.
21. The Little Sister — Raymond Chandler — Marlowe is hired to find a missing brother from Kansas and finds himself in the middle of Hollywood's blackmail, murder, and moral corruption.