Showing titles in Traditional Detectives

When the exuberant president of Ng'ombwana proposes to dispense with the usual security arrangements on an official visit to London, his old schoolmate, Chief Superintendent Alleyn, is called in to persuade him otherwise. Consequently, on the night of the embassy's reception, the house and grounds are stiff with police.

Newly promoted DCI Nick Dixon is stuck behind a desk when the peace of the Somerset countryside is shattered by a spate of sheep killings. Dixon recognises a sinister pattern: the animals have all been slaughtered with a crossbow, the power increasing with each kill. It seems whoever is responsible is practising, but for what?

Maurice Denham is the famous French detective Maigret and Michael Gough is his creator Georges Simenon in these five classic radio dramatisations. Parisian detective Jules Maigret first appeared in print in 1931, and went on to feature in 76 novels and 28 short stories. An enduringly popular...

When DCI Freya Bloom is called to a crime scene early one Sunday morning, little does she know that the friendships she has counted on so many times will be called into question and her time in the Lincolnshire fens could be coming to an untimely end…along with her career. The victim, a retired woman named Linda Wilson, lies at the edge of a small forest atop the Lincoln edge, a steep escarpment that runs throughout Lincolnshire.

When a body is found in the village pond, Convent Mother Helen and DI Cromwell are brought together to solve the crime and figure out what actually happened to Father Jack. The duo embark on an unlikely friendship as they bring their heads together to solve the murder. It’s not long before the two super sleuths are at it again when a precious icon goes missing from the church.

1950s Staffordshire. Within the clay tanks at the pottery company Shentall's, a body has been found. Amid cries of industrial espionage and sabotage of this leader of the pottery industry, there is a case of bitter murder to solve for Inspector Hedley Nicholson. Kelly's mystery won the CWA Gold Dagger Award in 1961 for its impeccable sense of place and detail, and for the emotional weight of its central crime. The novel is part of a shift from the cosiness of crime novels before to mysteries characterised by their psychological interest and affecting realism. An influential classic.

When the Duke of Purbeck throws a house party to celebrate his daughter's 21st birthday and present her with a family heirloom, nobody expects that the weekend will end in murder. The fabled Belsingham pearls have a history steeped in blood and slaughter dating back more than a century - and now it seems they've claimed another life, when the interfering and opinionated Professor Coddington is found dead in the library with the pearls clutched in his hand.

The inimitable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher and her husband Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher seem to get a reprieve from their sleuthing duties when they are invited to the wedding of their friend, Lucy Fotheringay. Lucy's grandfather is hosting the ceremony at his beautiful estate and so it promises to be a typical affair with hordes of gossipy aunts and other colorful, but not necessarily pleasant, relatives. Daisy meets all these characters and observes the ensuing familial fraternization with a certain kind of amusing nonchalance.

Miss Jane Marple è nata dalla fantasia di Agatha Christie nel 1930: un'epoca nella quale le signorine non sposate di una certa età si chiamavano ancora "zitelle". E proprio un'attempata ma decisamente arzilla zitella è Miss Marple: tra un lavoro a crochet e una tazza di tè, infatti, finisce sempre per essere casualmente implicata in una serie di delitti che riesce a risolvere facendo appello alle proprie doti di "osservatrice della natura umana" (qualche maligno direbbe più banalmente di "pettegola").

Sam Earnshaw’s recovery from a year-long coma should be an occasion for celebration. Instead, he reveals that the hit and run incident that left him close to death was no accident. Someone deliberately pushed him into the path of a speeding vehicle. As DCI Tom Raven leads the investigation into the attempted murder, he soon uncovers a web of dark secrets and lies. The attempt on Sam’s life is not the first time a killer has struck.

For all we know, or think we know, about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, what we don’t know is far, far greater. In the duo’s first case, A Study in Scarlet, we learn that Holmes and Watson met on January 1st, 1881, and subsequently moved into an apartment together at 221b Baker Street. Their first case officially began on March 4th of that year, and it is argued that “The Adventure of the Resident Patient” possibly took place in October of 1881, depending on which version of the story you read. But what happened during the rest of 1881? Or all of 1882?

Aboard the SS Campari, all is not well. For Johnny Carter, the Chief Officer, the voyage has already begun badly; but it’s only when the Campari sails that evening, after a succession of delays that he realises something is seriously wrong. A member of the crew is suddenly missing and the stern-to-stern search only serves to increase tension. Then violence erupts and suddenly the whole ship is in danger. Is the Campari a victim of modern day piracy? And what of the strange cargo hidden below the decks?

Ambrose Chitterwick is in the lounge of the Piccadilly Palace Hotel, away from his overbearing aunt, to enjoy some afternoon refreshments when he witnesses a murder. It looks like suicide but he saw something being put into the lady’s coffee cup. He is Scotland Yard’s chief witness but he also conducts an investigation of his own. Despite his diffidence and self-deprecation, his sleuthing is not to be sniffed at. There are plenty of twists and turns in this journey to enjoy, especially with master narrator David Timson in the driving seat.

The year is 1855, and on the LNWR train to London, a criminal is being escorted to his appointment with the hangman. But the wily Jeremy Oxley, conman, thief and murderer, has one last ace up his sleeve: a beautiful and ruthless accomplice willing to do anything to save her lover, including committing cold-blooded murder... When Inspector Robert Colbeck learns that Oxley, his nemesis, has once again escaped, black memories of their shared past leave him no choice but to do his duty.

The gripping first novel in the exciting new Stone and Oliver series by award-winning author Mari Hannah. Alex should never have agreed to the spur-of-the-moment holiday with her sister. Seven days felt like a year without Daniel, her 10-year-old son. This was the first time they had been apart since he was born, and her husband had convinced her it was a good idea. It was a bad idea. Daniel has gone missing.

A sunken DC-3 lying on the Caribbean floor. Its cargo: $10.25 million in gold ingots, emeralds and uncut diamonds guarded by the remains of two men, one woman and a very small boy. The fortune was there for the taking, and ready to grab it were a blue-blooded oilman with his own offshore rig, a gangster so cold and independent that even the Mafia couldn't do business with him and a psychopathic hired assassin.

The close-knit community of a Yorkshire village is rocked when local secrets are revealed in Date with Mystery, the third cosy crime novel in Julia Chapman's Dales Detective series. Perfect for fans of Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club and M.C. Beaton. The Dales Detective Agency’s...

In England in the late 1920s, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher, on a convalescent trip to the countryside, goes to visit three old school friends in the area. Daisy and her husband Alec - Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher, of Scotland Yard - go for a Sunday lunch with Daisy’s friends, where one of the women mentions a wine cellar below their house, which remains curiously locked, no key to be found. Alec offers to pick the lock, but when he opens the door, what greets them is not a cache of wine but the stench of a long-dead body.

England, Summer 1926. When Lord Edgington receives a letter from Hugo Templeton-Swift, a famously rich old man who believes he’s being poisoned, the renowned detective fetches his assistant, his golden retriever, and a full staff of servants and heads off to the countryside to investigate. But when the bodies start falling in the enigmatic manor of Riverside Keep, anyone could be guilty.

This is the story that made Agatha Christie famous, and which was also one of her own favourites. It begins when the wealthy Mrs Farrars is found dead of an apparent overdose, one year after the death of her husband. The villagers of King's Abbot are suspicious, for local rumour has it that...