Collins Crime Club imprint: 74 books

From the Collins Crime Club archive, the second Inspector French novel by Freeman Wills Crofts, once dubbed ‘The King of Detective Story Writers’. THE RETURN OF INSPECTOR FRENCH When young Maxwell Cheyne discovers that a series of mishaps are the result of unwelcome attention from a dangerous...

From the Collins Crime Club archive, the sixth Inspector French novel by Freeman Wills Crofts, once dubbed ‘The King of Detective Story Writers’. A MURDER MYSTERY WITHOUT A CLUE When Sir John Magill, the wealthy Irish industrialist, fails to show up at his home town on a well-publicised visit,...

The latest in a new series of classic detective stories from the vaults of HarperCollins is a thrilling mystery concerning twentieth-century pirates smuggling secret cargo across the English Channel. James Carthew-West, the penniless skipper of the Exmouth coasting vessel Luck and Charity, is chartered...

From the Collins Crime Club archive, the fifth Inspector French novel by Freeman Wills Crofts, once dubbed ‘The King of Detective Story Writers’. THE PUZZLE OF THE PURPLE SICKLE The suicide of a sales clerk at the box office of a London cinema leaves another girl in fear for her life. Persuaded...

The delight of Christmas shoppers at the unveiling of a London department store’s famous window display turns to horror when one of the mannequins is discovered to be a dead body… Mander’s Department Store in London’s West End is so famous for its elaborate window displays that on Monday mornings...

This brand new edition of the first novel to feature the officer and gentleman detective Colonel Wickham Gore includes the first ever reprint of the only Colonel Gore novella, Too Much Imagination. Colonel Gore is reunited with old friends at a dinner party to mark his return from service in Africa,...

This anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together 16 tales by masters of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form, including a newly discovered Agatha Christie crime story that has not been seen since 1922. At a time when crime and thriller writing has...

Ben the tramp is back at sea, a stowaway bound for Spain in the company of a wanted man – the Hammersmith murderer. Ben, wandering hungry through the foggy back alleys of Limehouse, is spooked by news of an old man murdered in Hammersmith – and runs! He crosses a plank, slips through an iron door,...

The very best of Le Fanu’s supernatural fiction, including such classics as: ‘Schalken the Painter’, ‘Squire Toby's Will’, ‘Mr Justice Harbottle’, ‘The Familiar’, ‘Green Tea’, ‘Madam Crowl’s Ghost’ and ‘The Murdered Cousin’, introduced by genre expert Michael Cox. ‘Sheridan...

The first book featuring Ben, the lovable, humorous ex-sailor and down-at-heels rascal who can’t help running into trouble. Ben is back home from the Merchant Navy, penniless as usual and looking for digs in fog-bound London. Taking shelter in an abandoned old house, he stumbles across a dead body...

Ben the tramp’s uncanny knack of running into trouble is unsurpassed in the final crime thriller written for him by J. Jefferson Farjeon. On a grey afternoon he was destined never to forget, Ben sat down on a park seat and proceeded to think, not of cabbages and kings, but of numbers, lucky and...

A classic crime novel by one of the most highly regarded exponents of the genre. The murder of old Mr Fransham while washing his hands in his niece’s cloakroom was one of the most astounding problems that ever confronted Scotland Yard. Not only was there a policeman in the house at the time, but...

A classic winter’s crime novel by one of the most highly regarded exponents of the genre. Victor Harleston awoke with uncharacteristic optimism. Today he would be rich at last. Half an hour later, he gulped down his breakfast coffee and pitched to the floor, gasping and twitching. When the doctor...

This novel, based on the groundbreaking BBC TV drama series, shows how it takes both guts and a sense of humour to become a part-time policeman. It was adapted by the series’ creators from all twelve episodes, four of which are published here for the first time. ‘You’ll learn what it’s like...