The classic British detective novel by Wilkie Collins. Read more
A grand master of the form, Rex Stout is one of America’s greatest mystery writers, and his literary creation Nero Wolfe is one of fiction’s greatest detectives. Here, in Stout’s third and fourth complete Wolfe mysteries, the arrogant, gourmandizing, sedentary sleuth and his trusty man-about-town, Archie Goodwin, solve two of their most baffling cases.
The Rubber Band
What do a Wild West lynching and a respected English nobleman have in common? On the surface, absolutely nothing. But when a young woman hires his services, it becomes Nero Wolfe’s job to look deeper and find the connection. A forty-year-old pact, a five-thousand-mile search, and a million-dollar murder are all linked to an international scandal that could rebound on the great detective and his partner, Archie, with fatal abruptness.
The Red Box
Murder by chocolate? That’s the premise Nero Wolfe must operate from when a beautiful woman is poisoned after indulging in a box of candy. It’s a case that the great detective—no stranger himself to overindulgence—is loath to take for a variety of reasons, including that it may require that he leave his comfortable brownstone. But he and Archie are compelled by a mystery that mixes high fashion and low motives…and a killer who may have made the deadliest mistake. Read more
In March 1941, Virginia Woolf filled her pockets with stones and drowned herself in England’s River Ouse. Her body was found three weeks later. What seemed like a tragic ending at the time was, in fact, just the beginning of a mystery. . . .
Six decades after Virginia Woolf’s death, landscape designer Jo Bellamy has come to Sissinghurst Castle for two reasons: to study the celebrated White Garden created by Woolf’s lover Vita Sackville-West and to recover from the terrible wound of her grandfather’s unexplained suicide. In the shadow of one of England’s most famous castles, Jo makes a shocking find: Woolf’s last diary, its first entry dated the day after she allegedly killed herself.
If authenticated, Jo’s discovery could shatter everything historians believe about Woolf’s final hours. But when the Woolf diary is suddenly stolen, Jo’s quest to uncover the truth will lead her on a perilous journey into the tumultuous inner life of a literary icon whose connection to the White Garden ultimately proved devastating.
Rich with historical detail, The White Garden is an enthralling novel of literary suspense that explores the many ways the past haunts the present–and the dark secrets that lurk beneath the surface of the most carefully tended garden. Read more
In her novels featuring California probation officer Carolyn Sullivan, New York Times bestselling author Nancy Taylor Rosenberg brilliantly fuses gripping plotlines with a razor-sharp portrayal of a single woman in a world of shattered lives, hard-core criminals and flickering hopes. In her new novel, Carolyn confronts the brutal death of her best friend-and the dark mystery that surrounds it. Carolyn knew everything about Veronica Campbell. She knew about the case of murder and retribution that haunted her life and career. About her stormy relationship with her husband Drew. About the emotional darkness that was overwhelming Veronica-s fragile seventeen-year-old daughter Jude. But seeing her friend laid out on a cold hard slab of steel in a morgue, and hearing the initial judgments of the investigators, Carolyn also knows this: there-s no way Veronica would have ever taken her own life. And when Carolyn receives a note threatening her away from the case, she knows a killer is at large. Carolyn must separate lies from truths in a world of complex relationships and battered psyches. As a hidden side of Veronica-s life emerges, including the stunning possibility that Veronica had taken a lover, Carolyn becomes increasingly involved with Veronica-s daughter, who claims her father has been abusing her for years. Trusting a person she doesn-t truly know, putting her own upcoming marriage with wealthy, charming Marcus Wright in jeopardy, Carolyn investigates the brutal murder of another young woman. With danger and deceit swirling all around her, Carolyn is determined to lure her prime suspect out of the shadows. But all the while a killer is coming straight after her... Relentlessly paced with revealing insights into the criminal justice system, Revenge Of Innocents showcases Nancy Taylor Rosenberg at the height of her riveting storytelling talent.
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David Pepin has been in love with his wife, Alice, since the moment they met in a university seminar on Alfred Hitchcock. After thirteen years of marriage, he still can’t imagine a remotely happy life without her—yet he obsessively contemplates her demise. Soon she is dead, and David is both deeply distraught and the prime suspect.
The detectives investigating Alice’s suspicious death have plenty of personal experience with conjugal enigmas: Ward Hastroll is happily married until his wife inexplicably becomes voluntarily and militantly bedridden; and Sam Sheppard is especially sensitive to the intricacies of marital guilt and innocence, having decades before been convicted and then exonerated of the brutal murder of his wife.
Still, these men are in the business of figuring things out, even as Pepin’s role in Alice’s death grows ever more confounding when they link him to a highly unusual hit man called Mobius. Like the Escher drawings that inspire the computer games David designs for a living, these complex, interlocking dramas are structurally and emotionally intense, subtle, and intriguing; they brilliantly explore the warring impulses of affection and hatred, and pose a host of arresting questions. Is it possible to know anyone fully, completely? Are murder and marriage two sides of the same coin, each endlessly recycling into the other? And what, in the end, is the truth about love?
Mesmerizing, exhilarating, and profoundly moving, Mr. Peanut is a police procedural of the soul, a poignant investigation of the relentlessly mysterious human heart—and a first novel of the highest order. Read more
