Classic Detective: 32 books

A lurid, well-written, fast-paced tale of crime, suspense, and sex.

From the first moment when Mile Henriette is discovered in her little room in the garret trying to commit suicide, in the first chapter, until the climax of Sarah Brandon's schemes in the last, there is a series of daring plots and startling incidents. This gem of a mystery is full of greed,...

Elizabeth Wheeler lives in a small town, sings in the church choir, and dreams of a man who will sweep her off her feet. Instead, she is thrust into a series of events beyond her control leading to passion, madness, betrayal, and ultimately, murder! Can she ever set thing right?

Super involved bad doings and blackmail in mid-19th century Paris. Fortunes are made and the terrible, terrible things people did are threatening to rise from their graves. All the while, some kids is falling in love or being made to fall in love and at the end, it looks like nobody is going...

Vast gold robberies--a murder of which a nobleman stands accused, with jealousy for the motive--these apparently unrelated mysteries give scope for Cleek's most ingenious solutions.

The sequel to The Count's Millions ... and it is launched with a bang since the book was essentially just chopped in half when they published it in the U.S. A highly complicated plot, with cliff-hangers, intense back stories, very bad mothers and very good mothers ... all of which made a very...

When the nearby town turns out to put out a fire engulfing the estate of Valpinson, they find the owner, Count Claudieuse, gravely injured by the hands of a murderer. All evidence, including the testimony of a village simpleton, points to M de Boiscoran, a genial young landowner. Despite the pleas...

A novel of high life and misdeeds, by the author who inspired Sherlock Holmes. The conclusion of Caught in the Net. The story centers around two young men, both penniless, both ignorant of their past, and a mysterious organization of blackmailers, hiding behind the guise of a respectable employment agency.

This is a well-written, concise mystery. There are twists aplenty and a clever plot. It's a hidden gem that I would recommend for anyone interested in Sherlock or Doyle or any other such authors.

The Circular Staircase (1908) is a mystery novel in the "Had I but known" genre by American author Mary Roberts Rinehart. She wrote the book, which became her first best-seller, at her home at 954 Beech Avenue in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, now part of Pittsburgh. The "HIBK"...

Monsieur Lecoq is the creation of Emile Gaboriau, just like Sherlock Holmes is for Conan Doyle and Hercule Poirot for Agatha Christie. Lecoq was created well before anyone had heard of Sherlock, in fact it is a known fact that Doyle drew inspiration for Sherlock's character from Lecoq. The methodically,...

Marcia tells her friend Janet that the nearby house that always looks shuttered, dark and vacant is not so. There are people living in there. They learn that a young girl their age, Cicely Marlowe, lives there with an older woman who wears a veil over her face, Miss Benedict. They find out that Cicely...

For the twentieth time Miss Meredith asked herself why her nephew had fallen in love with this unknown girl, Violet, from London, who loathed the country. From Miss Heredith's point of view, a girl who smoked and talked slang lacked any sense of the dignity of the high position to which she had been...

The sequel to The Count's Millions ... and it is launched with a bang since the book was essentially just chopped in half when they published it in the U.S. the count's millions A highly complicated plot, with cliff-hangers, intense back stories, very bad mothers and very good mothers ... all...