Recommendations based on "The Mystery of Mrs. Christie A Novel"

A brand new Agatha Christie omnibus, bringing together all four stand-alone novels she wrote in the 1920s âe" The Secret Adversary, The Man in the Brown Suit, The Secret of Chimneys and its sequel The Seven Dials Mystery. Agatha Christieâe(tm)s imaginative crime novels and thrillers made her a household name from the 1920s right through to her final books in the early 1970s. Best known as the creator of Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple, her prolific output would bring her publisher William Collins at least one book every year. Twenty of her contemporary crime novels were to feature neither Poirot or Marple, instead a wide range of ingenious plots would be played out by a selection of amateur sleuths, professional detectives, young adventuresses or unwary bystanders caught up in unforeseen events. This collection of five omnibuses gathers together the twenty stand-alone novels, presenting them chronologically and providing a fascinating window on a changing world though six decades of investigation. Presented in this way, recurring characters âe" including Superintendent Battle, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, Colonel Johnny Race and Ariadne Oliver âe" rub shoulders with many who would appear only in one book, and the result is a selection of some of the finest mystery writing ever. Here is the answer to the question of what Agatha Christie might have been had she not invented Poirot or Marple âe" and the answer undoubtedly is still The Queen of Crime!

Bestselling author Maureen Johnson’s Truly Devious trilogy is a hilarious and inspiring whodunit that weaves together the story of a cold case from 1936 and the story of teen sleuth Stevie Bell in the present. The Truly Devious box set includes all three paperbacks in the series and is perfect for gift-giving and binge reading.The Truly Devious case—an unsolved kidnapping and triple murder that rocked Ellingham Academy in 1936—has consumed Stevie for years. It’s the very reason she came to the Academy. But after she arrives, more students turn up dead. Teen detective Stevie is on the case until she solves every mysterious death—from the past and the present.Praise for Truly Devious:“Parallel mysteries unfold with cleverly written dialogue, pate-turning brilliance, and a young sleuth as captivating as Hercule Poirot.” —USA Today“The Agatha Christie-like ecosystem pairs with lacerating contemporary wit. A multilayered, modern detective story.” —The New York Times Book ReviewPraise for The Vanishing Stair:“Take it from the world’s most impatient reader: If the Truly Devious series is basically one long mystery book, The Vanishing Stair is middle part so enjoyable you won’t even want to skip to the end.” —Entertainment WeeklyPraise for The Hand on the Wall:“A richly satisfying, Poirot-like ending for Johnson's inspired and inspiring teen sleuth.” —Kirkus Reviews

Enola Holmes is hiding from the world’s most famous detective—her own brother, Sherlock Holmes. But when she discovers a hidden cache of bold, brilliant charcoal drawings, she can’t help but venture out to find who drew them: young Lady Cecily, who has disappeared from her bedroom without a trace. Braving midnight streets where murderers roam, Enola must unravel the clues—a leaning ladder, a shifty-eyed sales clerk, political pamphlets—but in order to save Lady Cecily from a powerful villain, Enola risks revealing more than she should . . .In her follow-up to The Case of the Missing Marquess, which received four starred reviews, two-time Edgar Award winner Nancy Springer brings us back to the danger and intrigue of Victorian London as she continues the adventures of one of the wittiest and most exciting new heroines in today’s literature.

In this paperback reprint, a brutal murder draws nobleman Sebastian St. Cyr into the tangled web of the British royal court in this gripping historical mystery from the national bestselling author of Where the Dead Lie.London, 1814. As a cruel winter holds the city in its icy grip, the bloody body of a beautiful young musician is found half-buried in a snowdrift. Jane Ambrose's ties to Princess Charlotte, the only child of the Prince Regent and heir presumptive to the throne, panic the palace, which moves quickly to shut down any investigation into the death of the talented pianist. But Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, and his wife, Hero, refuse to allow Jane's murderer to escape justice.Untangling the secrets of Jane's world leads Sebastian into a maze of dangerous treachery where each player has his or her own unsavory agenda and no one can be trusted. As the Thames freezes over and the people of London pour onto the ice for a Frost Fair, Sebastian and Hero find their investigation circling back to the palace and building to a chilling crescendo of deceit and death . . .

New York Times Bestseller • Now a MASTERPIECE mystery series on PBS! Bestselling author Anthony Horowitz brings back his famous literary detective Atticus Pund and Susan Ryeland, hero of Magpie Murders, in an inventive, labyrinthine story that is “catnip for classic mystery lovers” (Time magazine). Retired publisher Susan Ryeland is living the good life. She is running a small hotel on a Greek island with her long-term boyfriend Andreas. It should be everything she's always wanted. But is it? She's exhausted with the responsibilities of making everything work on an island where nothing ever does, and truth be told she's beginning to miss London. And then the Trehearnes come to stay. The strange and mysterious story they tell, about an unfortunate murder that took place on the same day and in the same hotel in which their daughter was married—a picturesque inn on the Suffolk coast named Farlingaye Hall—fascinates Susan and piques her editor’s instincts.  One of her former writers, the late Alan Conway, author of the fictional Magpie Murders, knew the murder victim—an advertising executive named Frank Parris—and once visited Farlingaye Hall. Conway based the third book in his detective series, Atticus Pund Takes the Cake, on that very crime.  The Trehearne’s, daughter, Cecily, read Conway’s mystery and believed the book proves that the man convicted of Parris’s murder—a Romanian immigrant who was the hotel’s handyman—is innocent. When the Trehearnes reveal that Cecily is now missing, Susan knows that she must return to England and find out what really happened. Brilliantly clever, relentlessly suspenseful, full of twists that will keep readers guessing with each revelation and clue, Moonflower Murders is a deviously dark take on vintage English crime fiction from one of its greatest masterminds.  

A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time as an ebook. When wealthy spinster Emily French is found murdered, suspicion falls to Leonard Vole, the man to whom she hastily bequeathed her riches before she died. Leonard assures the investigators that his wife, Romaine Heilger can provide them with an alibi. However, when questioned, Romaine informs the police that Vole returned home late that night covered in blood. During the trial, Ms French’s housekeeper, Janet gives damning evidence against Vole, but as Romaine’s cross-examination begins her motives come under scrutiny from the courtroom. One question remains, will justice out?

"Diabolically clever."--New York Times "Horowitz dazzles with the brilliant third entry in his Susan Ryeland series . . . . [He is] is at the top of his game here, linking past and present in a virtuoso finale worthy of Agatha Christie."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) Murder links past and present once again in this mind-boggling metafictional mystery from Anthony Horowitz featuring detective Atticus Pünd and editor Susan Ryeland, stars of the New York Times bestsellers Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders. Editor Susan Ryeland has left her Greek island, her hotel and her Greek boyfriend, Andreas, in search of a new life back in England. Freelancing for a London publisher, she's given the last job she wants: working on an Atticus Pünd continuation novel called Pünd's Last Case. Worse still, she knows the new writer. Eliot Crace is the troubled grandson of legendary children's author Miriam Crace who died twenty years ago. Eliot is convinced she was murdered--by poison. To her surprise, Susan enjoys reading the manuscript which is set in the South of France and revolves around the mysterious death of Lady Margaret Chalfont, days before she was about to change her will. But when it is revealed that Lady Margaret was also poisoned, alarm bells begin to ring. The more Susan reads, the clearer it becomes that Eliot has deliberately concealed clues about his grandmother's death inside the book. Desperately, Susan tries to prevent Eliot from putting himself in harm's way--but his behaviour is becoming increasingly erratic. Another murder follows . . . and suddenly Susan finds herself to be the number one suspect. Once again, the real and the fictional worlds have become dangerously entangled. And if Susan doesn't solve the mystery of Pünd's Last Case, she could well be its next victim.

'Animal lovers will delight' Ann Granger on The Cat and the Corpse in the Old Barn 'A real treat . . . I loved it. Cats, dogs, murder and a credible and relatable heroine' Barbara Nadel on The Cat and the Corpse in the Old Barn Driving home from a ceramics evening class, Clarice Beech reflects on the absence of one of her students, Colin Compton-Smythe. Later, Emily, Colin's daughter, telephones to say her father has died during routine surgery. Distraught, Emily opens up to Clarice about his wretched childhood and the day five-year-old Colin returned home to discover Avril, his mother, gone. Colin never believed she would have left without him and had been trying to find out more about Avril's disappearance all those years ago. Clarice readily agrees to accompany Emily to Colin's funeral. On arriving at the stunning Victorian Gothic manor house, with Bellatrix, the majestic stone Siamese cat reposing at its entrance, Clarice soon becomes drawn into the fractious world of the Compton-Smythe family: Colin's argumentative father Ralph and his equally combative partner Tessa, their daughter, Dawn, being stalked by an ex-lover and, most unsettling of all, Ernestine, Ralph's emotionally unpredictable sister. And then there's Johnson, Ralph's menacing manservant. Clarice discovers the nearer she gets to the truth, the greater she is in danger as somebody is intent that the mystery of the missing wife should never be resolved.

A brutal murder with a golf club and an ingenious plot bursting with snobbery, suspicion , adultery and secrets -- to say nothing of the dreadful crime of catricide...The lives of the inhabitants of Swevenings are disrupted only by a fierce competition to catch the Old Un, a monster trout known to dwell in a beautiful stream which winds past their homes. Then one of their small community is found brutally murdered; beside him is the freshly killed trout. Both died by violence -- but Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn's murder investigation seems to be much more interested in the fish...

In the late summer of 1472, medieval physician and apothecary Kathryn Swinbrooke is summoned to investigate yet another puzzling situation in Canterbury. She is appointed by the Archbishop as Advocatus Diaboli-the Devil's Advocate-to argue against the beatification of Roger Atworth, a friar in the Order of the Sack and the confessor of Dame Cecily of York, King Edward's mother. Atworth has died under mysterious circumstances, and there are rumors afloat of miraculous happenings surrounding his body. At the same time, an infestation of rats has begun to afflict Canterbury. Never in the history of the city has such an invasion occurred, and the topic is one everyone's lips.Meanwhile, when Kathryn begins asking questions at the friary about Atworth's death, she discovers that the logical explanation is murder, not a miracle. His involvement with Cecily may have brought about his demise, and Kathryn suspects a link between his death and that of an English spy outside the friary. With the murderer still on the loose, what began as a search for the town's ills becomes instead Kathryn's pursuit of a killer.