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The Daughter of Time
by Josephine TeyWhat does a great detective do when he's stuck in bed? Inspector Grant is used to prowling the streets, solving crimes and unraveling mysteries, so when he finds himself bedridden in the hospital, he needs something to occupy his mind.<P> He turns his attention to the figure of Richard III--generally considered a murderous monster by history. But is the reputation really earned? Soon the inspector has his friends delivering stacks of history books to him, but can any detective, even one of his skill, solve a 400-year-old mystery? In 1990, the UK Crime Writers' Association ranked it at number one on their list of The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Master Crook's Crime Academy: Robbery For Rascals (PDF)
by Terry DearyAfter sending dozens of innocent people to jail, cruel Judge Fumble decides to rest at his country mansion. But he must ensure that the Fumble fortune remains safe on the journey home. . . On the other side of town, the students of the world's first crime academy are getting set for another lesson in crime-this time from the greatest highway robber Wildpool has ever seen. Books this funny should be against the law!
Poirot: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (PDF)
by Agatha ChristieRoger Ackroyd knew too much. He knew that the woman he loved had poisoned her brutal first husband. He suspected also that someone had been blackmailing her. Now, tragically, came the news that she had taken her own life with a drug overdose. But the evening post brought Roger one last fatal scrap of information. Unfortunately, before he could finish the letter, he was stabbed to death.
Short Story Collection: The Continental Op (PDF)
by Dashiell Hammett'An acknowledged literary landmark' Robert Graves Dashiell Hammett is the true inventor of modern detective fiction and the creator of the private eye, the isolated hero in a world where treachery is the norm. The Continental Op was his great first contribution to the genre and these seven stories, which first appeared in the magazine Black Mask, are the best examples of Hammett's early writing, in which his formidable literary and moral imagination is already operating at full strength. The Continental Op is the dispassionate fat man working for the Continental Detective Agency, modelled on the Pinkerton Agency, whose only interest is in doing his job in a world of violence, passion, desperate action and great excitement.
The Woman in White
by Wilkie CollinsOne of the earliest and most entrancing mystery novels ever written. The young Walter Hartright is employed as the wealthy Limmeridge House. He meets Laura, the patriarch's niece, and the mysterious white-clad Anne, her near-double, and becomes enmeshed in a dastardly plot by Laura's new husband, the scheming Percival Glyde, to steal her fortune. It will take all of Walter's wiles to solve the mystery of the woman in white and set things right. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Unseemly Science
by Rod DuncanIn the divided land of England, Elizabeth Barnabus has been living a double life - as both herself and as her brother, the private detective. Witnessing the hanging of Alice Carter, the false duchess, Elizabeth resolves to throw the Bullet Catcher's Handbook into the fire, and forget her past. If only it were that easy!There is a new charitable organisation in town, run by some highly respectable women. But something doesn't feel right to Elizabeth. Perhaps it is time for her fictional brother to come out of retirement for one last case...? Her unstoppable curiosity leads her to a dark world of body-snatching, unseemly experimentation, politics and scandal. Never was it harder for a woman in a man's world...File Under: FantasyFrom the Paperback edition.
The Thin Man
by Dashiell HammettThe Thin Man stars Nick Charles, a retired private detective, and his wife Nora, who get sucked into investigating a murder case, and have to navigate the complicated Wynant family, along with cops and criminals, and bring their best to the table in order to solve the crime. It was Dashiell Hammett's last novel, though its 1934 film adaptation did lead to five sequels. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Maltese Falcon
by Dashiell HammettOne of the most influential mystery novels ever written, and the only one to star the legendary and iconic Sam Spade. When Spade's partner is killed on what appears to be a routine case, Spade is drawn into the search for a mysterious, valuable object known as the Maltese Falcon, and must contend with the eclectic criminals looking for it, any of which would happily kill Spade (or each other), or use him for their own ends. It has been adapted for film three times, most famously starring Humphrey Bogart. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Moll Flanders
by Daniel Defoe G. A. Starr Linda Bree'Twelve Year a Whore, fives times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest, and died a Penitent' So the title page of this extraordinary novel describes the career of the woman known as Moll Flanders, whose real name we never discover. And so, in a tour-de-force of writing by the businessman, political satirist, and spy Daniel Defoe, Moll tells her own story, a vivid and racy tale of a woman's experience in the seamy side of life in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England and America. Born in Newgate prison, and seduced in the home of her adoptive family, she learns to live off her wits, defying the traditional depiction of women as helpless victims. First published in 1722, and one of the earliest novels in the English language, its account of opportunism, endurance, and survival speaks as strongly to us today as it did to its original readers.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
by Sir Arthur Conan DoyleThis splendid collection of mysteries carries readers back to a gas-lit era, when literature's greatest detective team lived on Baker Street. A dozen of Holmes and Watson's best-known cases include "The Speckled Band," "The Red-Headed League," "The Five Orange Pips," "The Copper Beeches," and "A Scandal in Bohemia."
Black Caesar's Clan: A Florida Mystery Story
by Albert Payson TerhuneThis is an entertainment book. For the action-loving people, the rattlesnakes will definitely thrill you.
The Old English Baron
by Clara ReeveClara Reeve (1729-1807), novelist, was the author of several novels, of which only one is remembered -- "The Old English Baron" (1777), written in imitation of, or rivalry with, the "Castle of Otranto" by Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, with which it has often been printed. Her novel has noticeably influenced Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein." Her innovative history of prose fiction, "The Progress of Romance" (1785), can be regarded generally as a precursor to modern histories of the novel and specifically as upholding the tradition of female literary history.
Little Brother
by Cory DoctorowMarcus, aka "w1n5t0n," is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works-- and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school's intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems. But his whole world changes when, having skipped school, he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison, where they're mercilessly interrogated for days. When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state, where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself. Can one teenage hacker fight back against a government out of control? Maybe, but only if he's really careful . . . and very, very smart.
The Riddle of the Sands
by Erskine ChildersThe story reflects on an earlier time when men and guns crossed easily across frontiers and the most important thing to take on a cruise besides a "prismatic compass" was a pound of your favorite pipe tobacco.
A Prince of Sinners
by E. Phillips OppenheimSet in the late Victorian period of England, this book tells the story of Kingston Brooks, a young lawyer; his relationships with people of various socio-economic classes; and his efforts at reform. There are also several romantic entanglements. The characters are well-drawn and interesting.
Six Great Sherlock Holmes Stories
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle6 stories are: A Scandal in Bohemia, The Red-headed League, The Adventure of the Speckled Band, The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb, The Final Problem, and The Adventure of the Empty House.
File No. 113
by Emile GaboriauIn the Paris evening papers of Tuesday, February 28, 1866, under the head of /Local Items/, the following announcement appeared: "A daring robbery, committed against one of our most eminent bankers, M. Andre Fauvel, caused great excitement this morning throughout the neighborhood of Rue de Provence. "The thieves, who were as skilful as they were bold, succeeded in making an entrance to the bank, in forcing the lock of a safe that has heretofore been considered impregnable, and in possessing themselves of the enormous sum of three hundred and fifty thousand francs in bank-notes.
The Widow Lerouge (Monsieur Lecoq #1)
by Emile GaboriauEmile Gaboriau (1833-1873) is an important figure in the history of detective fiction. A French journalist and novelist, he created the "roman policier" with a series of books involving private detective Monsieur Lecoq, who works logically. Lecoq was based on a real-life thief turned policeman named Francois Vidocq (1775-1857), whose memoirs mixed fiction and fact. Gaboriau's huge following was eclipsed by Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Interestingly, Holmes may have been at least partly based on another of Gaboriau's characters, consulting detective Father Tabaret, whose methods Monsieur Lecoq adopts in the first Lecoq book.