Crime & mystery fiction

A man is forbidden to uncover the secret of the tower in a fairy-tale castle by the Rhine. A headless corpse is found in a secret garden in Paris - belonging to the city's chief of police. And a drowned man is fished from the sea off the Italian Riviera, leaving the carabinieri to wonder why his ...

Your neighbour told you that she didn't want your six-month-old daughter at the dinner party. Nothing personal, she just couldn't stand her crying. Your husband said it would be fine, after all, you only live next door. You'll have the baby monitor and you'll take it in turns to go back every hal...

'Crimson Snow' brings together a dozen vintage crime stories set in winter. Welcome to a world of Father Christmases behaving oddly, a famous fictional detective in a Yuletide drama, mysterious tracks in the snow, and some very unpleasant carol singers. The mysterious events chronicled by a disti...

The house guests at Styles seemed pleasant to Captain Hastings: there was his own daughter, Judith, Norton,Mr Allerton, Miss Cole, Mr and Mrs Franklin, Nurse Craven, Colonel Lutterll and his wife Daisy. But one of them is a five times murderer.

This first retrospective of the CWA's Dagger Award winners brings together some of the greatest names in crime fiction to deliver a cutthroat collection of serial killers, grizzled detectives, drug dealers and master forgers.

Driving home during a swirling blizzard, Vera Stanhope's only thought is to get there quickly. But the snow is so heavy, she becomes disoriented and loses her way. Ploughing on, she sees a car slewed off the road ahead of her. With the driver's door open, Vera assumes the driver has sought shelte...

When solicitor Finn Fitzpatrick is approached by a man to investigate the death of his daughter, her first instinct is to refuse. The father is grieving, and unable to accept that his daughter committed suicide. And yet something about the man's story chimes with Finn. Why did a bright, confident...

Sixty seconds after she wakes from a coma, Maggie's world is torn apart. The police tell her that her daughter Elspeth is dead. That she drowned when the car Maggie had been driving plunged into the river. Maggie remembers nothing. When Maggie begs to see her husband Sean, the police tell her tha...

A murder at a crime writers' conference. The method is entirely literary, the motive seems obvious - but can the detective who was first on scene puzzle out what's between the lines? An intelligence analyst has the chance to get out from behind the desk and do some real spy work. But as he enters...

Vicki's husband Daniel once promised to love her in sickness and in health. But after a brutal attack left her suffering with epilepsy, he ran away with his mistress. So when Vicki gets a call one day to say that he's missing, her first thought is 'good riddance'. But then the police find evidenc...