Strange Crime

Safe houses and secret message drops, double crosses and defections - it sounds like the stuff of sophisticated espionage, but these agents are only schoolboys engaged in harmless play. Not that John Creevey knows this. To him, the messages he decodes with painstaking care are the communications of dangerous and evil men, and as he comes face to face with the fact of his beloved wife Jennifer's defection, he begins to see a way to get back at the man she left him for.

Rising star and incorrigible playboy Vikram Verma has disappeared, leaving his latest film in jeopardy. Hired by Verma's formidable mother to find him, Inspector Chopra and his sidekick, baby elephant Ganesha, embark on a journey deep into the world's most flamboyant movie industry. As they uncover feuding stars, failed investments and death threats, it seems that many people have a motive for wanting Verma out of the picture. And yet, as Chopra has long suspected, in Bollywood the truth is often stranger than fiction....

When Alan Banks receives a disturbing message from his brother, Roy, he abandons the peaceful Yorkshire Dales for the bright lights of London to seek him out. But Roy seems to have vanished into thin air. Meanwhile, DI Annie Cabbot is called to a quiet stretch of road just outside Eastvale, where a young woman has been found dead in her car. In the victim's pocket, scribbled on a slip of paper, police discover Banks' name and address.

Crime-fighting duo Tilly and Poe solve a mystery from inside a pantomime horse in a short story that first appeared in the Halloween anthology Afraid of the Shadows.

In Wiltshire, England, the Crime Review Team headed by Gus Freeman was formed to investigate cold cases. Freeman and his team have successfully solved several cases, using old witness statements plus fresh clues. After delving into Marion Reeves’s past, Gus Freeman confronts a group of wealthy people who are desperate to hide the truth. Each witness interview provides another missing piece of the jigsaw. Can Freeman complete the picture and unmask the killer?

When detective John Blizzard is called to Hafton city cemetery to inspect a recently desecrated grave, he quickly suspects it is something to do with a girl who went missing years before. The grave belongs to the victims of an unsolved murder case, involving members of the family to which the girl belonged. DCI Blizzard is sure that the father was the culprit, but previous attempts to bring him to justice had failed. Now a wealthy businessman, Blizzard is still determined to put him under lock and key. Spurred by the recent events, he convinces his divisional commander that the case be reopened. 

When he receives a mysterious and disturbing telephone call from his brother, Roy, Inspector Alan Banks heads off to London to search him out. Meanwhile, DI Annie Cabbot is called to a murder scene on a quiet stretch of road just outside Eastvale. A young woman has been found dead in her car, with Banks' name and address written on a slip of paper in the back pocket of her jeans.

Halloween in Essex, and things are going well for the writers on the Mystery and Suspense course at Ratchette Hall. Things, however, take a turn when early on All Saints' Day the course administrator is discovered murdered. The Essex Witch Museum investigators are quickly drafted in. As Rosie Strange and Sam Stone's investigation progresses they find more questions than answers: who is making the howling noises late into the night? What is the strange glimmering glimpsed in the woods?

Sally Diamond cannot understand why what she did was so strange. She was only doing what her father told her to do, to put him out with the rubbish when he died. Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and worried police, but also a sinister voice from a past she has no memory of. As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, recluse Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends, finding independence, and learning that people don't always mean what they say.

Recently, there had been some strange goings on at Styles St Mary. Evelyn, constant companion to old Mrs Inglethorp, had stormed out of the house muttering something about "a lot of sharks". And with her, something indefinable had gone from the atmosphere. Her presence had spelt security; now the air seemed rife with suspicion and impending evil.

First, the mystery man in the church with a bullet-wound. Then, the riddle of a dead man's buried treasure...the curious conduct of a caretaker after a fatal riding accident...the corpse and a tape-measure...the girl framed for theft...and the suspect accused of stabbing his wife with a dagger. Here are six gripping cases with one thing in common: the astonishing deductive powers of Miss Marple.

FBI agent Tiberius Granger has seen his share of darkness. But a new case sets him on edge. It’s not just the macabre way both victims—found posed in front of lighthouses—are tattooed with flowers that match their names. There’s also the unsettling connection to the woman Ty once loved and to the shadowy cult they both risked everything to escape.

Led to an isolated Appalachian Mountain town by a trail of disturbing murders, FBI special agent Violet Rainwater’s determined to catch a serial killer with a twisted agenda. With locals refusing to reveal their secrets, Violet’s only ally is Detective John Orlando. But even John has an ulterior motive—he’s convinced this case is connected to his wife’s murder.

The sight of a goose feather at a murder scene modeled after a children’s poem is enough to make FBI special agent Fiona Kelly's blood turn to ice. Almost two decades ago, a feather was left with her sister's body—and with every subsequent victim of the Nursery Rhyme Killer. Now he's back. Only this time, his latest gruesome murder is a message to the only one who ever got away: Fiona.

Detective Ulf Varg from the Department of Sensitive Crimes is often called upon to investigate unusual matters. But rarely is he asked to conduct an inquiry on behalf of his own family. Is such a thing ethical? Adding to Ulf's moral discomfort is the fact that he does not exactly see eye to eye with his younger brother Bjorn - a leading player in one of Sweden's right-wing parties, the Moderate Extremists. Still, family is family, so Ulf finds himself working to uncover the mole leaking secrets to a rival party, the Extreme Moderates. 

A collection of seven short stories, featuring crime-fighting duo Tilly and Poe: The Killing Field, Why Don't Sheep Shrink?, Dead Man's Fingers, Strange Ink, A Permanent Solution, Mondo Bizzarro and Once in a Red Moon.

Rosie Strange doesn't believe in ghosts or witches or magic. It's no surprise therefore that when she inherits the ramshackle Essex Witch Museum, her first thought is to take the money and run. Still, the museum exerts a curious pull over Rosie. There's the eccentric academic who bustles in to demand she help in a hunt for the bones of the notorious Ursula Cadence, a witch long since put to death. And there's curator Sam Stone, a man about whom Rosie can't decide if he's tiresomely annoying or extremely captivating.

When a remote country house near Trige in East Jutland becomes the scene of a deadly crime, Detective Roland Benito is faced with a case that turns out to be much more than an ordinary home robbery. Meanwhile, journalist Anne Larsen has been laid off and soon after finds herself embarking on a haunting investigation of her own. As homeless people mysteriously disappear from the streets, she uncovers a dark connection that leads her back to the Viking Age. Can the cases be cracked before it's too late?

Published as a 'shilling shocker', Robert Louis Stevenson's dark psychological fantasy gave birth to the idea of the split personality. The story of respectable Dr Jekyll's strange association with 'damnable young man' Edward Hyde, the hunt through fog-bound London for a killer, and the final revelation of Hyde's true identity is a chilling exploration of humanity's basest capacity for evil. The other stories in this volume also testify to Stevenson's inventiveness within the Gothic genre.

A wonderful collection of classic thrillers, mystery stories, crime tales and weird accounts of uncanny events.1. Query by “Seamark” 2. The Furnished Room by O. Henry 3.The Dancing Partner by Jerome K. Jerome 4. The Squaw by Bram Stoker 5. The 19 Club by A. J. Alan 6. The Interruption by W. W. Jacobs7. Laura by Saki 8. A Descent into the Maelström by Edgar Allan Poe 9. The Diver by A. J. Alan10. The Man of the Night by Edgar Wallace11. The Burglary by Arnold Bennett