Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in Traditional Detectives

Down-and-out drunk Terry Lennox has a problem: his millionaire wife is dead and he needs to get out of LA fast. So he turns to his only friend in the world: private investigator Philip Marlowe. He is willing to help a man down on his luck, but later Lennox commits suicide in Mexico and things start to turn nasty. Marlowe is drawn into a sordid crowd of adulterers and alcoholics in LA's Idle Valley, where the rich are suffering one big suntanned hangover. Marlowe is sure Lennox didn't kill his wife, but how many more stiffs will turn up before he gets to the truth?

For decades, bestselling author J. R. Alastor, king of the murder mystery, has hidden in the shadows. His novels adorn countless bookshelves across the world, but no one knows his real name. One day, event coordinator Mila del Angél gets a message: Alastor wants her help to host a murder mystery retreat on his private island. It’s the perfect cover for Mila to finally carry out her long-held plans for revenge on one of the authors, a ghost from her past. But when a different guest turns up dead, she finds herself in a lethal game she didn’t plan for.

Detective Alex Cross is one of the first on the scene of the biggest case he’s ever been part of. The President’s son and daughter have been abducted from their school – an impossible crime, but somehow the kidnapper has done it. Alex does everything he can but is shunted to the fringes of the investigation. Someone powerful doesn’t want Cross too close.

The death of Adam Penhallow on the eve of his birthday seems, at first, to be by natural causes. He was elderly after all. But Penhallow wasn't well liked. He had ruled over his estate with an iron will and a sharp tongue. He had played one relative off against another. He was so bad tempered and mean that both his servants and his family hated him. It soon transpires that far from being a peaceful death, Penhallow was, in fact, murdered.

It is the year of our Lord 1363. And in the cathedral city of York people are dying in mysterious circumstances. But there seems to be a common thread - the herbal remedies dispensed by Nicholas Wilton, Master Apothecary. The first victim is an anonymous pilgrim. But when a highborn nobleman dies after taking the same potion the authorities decide to act. Dispatched to York, in disguise, to unravel the mystery, Owen Archer, former Captain of Archers, apprentices himself to the Apothecary.

In the first of the four cases in Trouble is My Business, Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is offered a job that leaves a bad taste in the mouth: smearing a girl who's 'got her hooks into a rich man's pup'. Before too long Marlowe's up to his neck in corpses and cops and he's taken pity on the girl. There's nothing like making trouble out of your business.

Tragedy befalls the Carter family following an eventful visit from a Russian prince and a scandalous blackmail letter. The murder of Wally Carter generates a bewildering mystery - how does one shoot a man crossing a narrow bridge without being near the murder weapon when it is fired? The superlatively analytical Inspector Hemingway reveals his unnerving talent for solving a fiendish problem.

At a dinner party given by his parents-in-law, Commissario Brunetti meets Franca Marinello, the wife of a prosperous Venetian businessman. He’s charmed – perhaps too charmed, suggests his wife Paola – by her love of Virgil and Cicero, but shocked by her appearance. A few days later, Brunetti is visited by Carabinieri Maggior Filippo Guarino from the nearby city of Marghera.

Kamil Rahman is a cook in a Brick Lane restaurant. But he used to be a detective back in Kolkata. And somehow trouble still knows how to find him. When a young woman Kamil knows is murdered the police are convinced her boyfriend is the culprit. Kamil isn't so sure and feels he has no choice but to start his own investigation. Meanwhile, his friend and restaurant manager, Anjoli, is troubled by a rise in the number of homeless deaths in their local area.

It is no ordinary Christmas at Lexham Manor. Six holiday guests find themselves the suspects of a murder enquiry when the old Scrooge, Nathaniel Herriad, who owns the substantial estate, is found stabbed in the back. Whilst the delicate matter of inheritance could be the key to this crime, the real conundrum is how any of the suspects could have entered the locked room to commit this foul deed. For Inspector Hemingway of Scotland Yard, 'tis the season to find whodunit.

A group of friends gather in a country house for a birthday party. At their host’s request, they each write a short mystery. They draw names from a hat: in each story, one of the group is the killer, and another the victim. Of course, when given such a task, it’s only natural to use what you know. Secrets. Grudges. Illicit love. It’s just that once you put it in a story, the secret is out.

Umiko Wada never set out to be a private detective, let alone become the one-woman operation behind the Kodaka Detective Agency. But so it has turned out, thanks to the death of her former boss, Kazuto Kodaka, in mysterious circumstances. Keen to avoid a similar fate, Wada chooses the cases she takes very carefully. A businessman who wants her to track down his estranged son offers what appears to be a straightforward assignment. But she should have known that the simplest cases are never really simple at all. Soon she finds herself pulled into a labyrinthine conspiracy.

Hayley Burke has landed a dream job. She is the new curator of Lady Georgiana Fowling's First Edition library. The library is kept at Middlebank House, a lovely Georgian home in Bath, England. Hayley lives on the premises and works with the finicky Glynis Woolgar, Lady Fowling's former secretary. Mrs. Woolgar does not like Hayley's ideas to modernize The First Edition Society and bring in fresh blood. And she is not even aware of the fact that Hayley does not know the first thing about the Golden Age of Mysteries.

Business has been booming since Morgan Carter solved the case of the monster living in Lake Michigan. The Odds and Ends bookstore is thriving, of course, but Morgan is most excited by the doors that were opened for her as a cryptid hunter. Recently, there have been numerous sightings of a Bigfoot-type creature in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest area of Bayfield County, Wisconsin. After a man is found dead from a vicious throat injury in the forest, the conservation warden asks Morgan to investigate.

When investigative journalist Miren Triggs is sent a photo of a missing girl, it’s the first promising lead in a decade long cold case that continues to haunt her family. Miren is instantly intrigued by this new clue. Could it be the first step in finding the missing girl – and could Miren be the one to do it? Before she has a chance to follow the trail, though, she’s called to report on a shocking murder. A crucified body has been found in the suburbs of Queens. Miren is torn between the crimes of past and present. But could it be possible these cases are linked?

After losing her copywriting job, young Gwynne Dacres seeks a place to live when she stumbles upon Mrs. Garr's old boarding house. Despite the gruff landlady and an assortment of shifty tenants, Gwynne rents a room for herself. She spends her first few nights at 593 Trent Street tensely awake, the house creaking and groaning as if listening to everything that happens behind its closed doors. A chain of chilling events leads to the gruesome discovery of a mutilated body in the basement kitchen, dead of unknown circumstances. Was it an accident or murder?

A new breed of villain has risen, possessed of extraordinary intellect and violence. Only the brilliant mind and courage of Sexton Blake, scourge of the criminal world, can stop them, in these three classic stories, collected together in one volume for the first time. From the streets of London to the catacombs of Paris, join Blake as he pits his wits against bank robbers, impostors and kidnappers, duels with swords and pursues his foes by any means necessary.

Paul Delamare has been roped into accompanying his old friend on a luxury cruise aboard the magnificent superyacht Mal de Mer. It’s all plain sailing until his friend’s priceless necklace is stolen, and everyone falls under suspicion. As Paul races to catch the thief, the ship begins to drift off-course, veering into the storm-lashed mid-Atlantic. Then one of the passengers is found dead in mysterious circumstances, in a pool of coffee and surrounded by cake crumbs. It’s all hands on deck to catch the killer, but Paul soon discovers guests and crew are harbouring deadly secrets.

The past is coming for Chief Inspector Taleb. He may not know it but he will soon enough. And the past in Algeria is venomous, vengeful and relentless, designed to consume the unwary traveller. He will soon find himself looking down the barrel of a thirty-year-old mystery, which, if he’s not careful, will be aimed squarely at him.

A classic mystery for the festive season: mulled wine, mince pies...and murder. Mordecai Tremaine, former tobacconist and perennial lover of romance novels, has been invited to spend Christmas in the sleepy village of Sherbroome, at the country retreat of one Benedict Grame. Arriving on Christmas Eve, he finds that the revelries are in full flow - but so, too, are tensions amongst the assortment of guests.