Lucy Durmast has been charged with poisoning a civil engineer and though the case against her seems insurmountable she remains obstinately silent. But Detective Inspector Sloan takes over the investigation and is intrigued by her refusal to talk.

Henrietta's quiet, ordered life is shattered just before her 21st birthday when her widowed mother, Grace, is found dead alongside a back country road. A simple hit-and-run case turns into a murder hunt; and the autopsy shockingly reveals the revelation that Grace had never given birth...

Inspector Sloan investigates a death in the library at Ornum House, where poor Mr Meredith has received a murderous blow from a large, primitive club. The suspects include two great aunts, visiting cousins, an absent minded mother, a blackmailing hanger-on and the butler.

An 'Oxford Bookworm' title that uses a vocabulary of only 700 words designed for language development. It is Molly Clarkson's fiftieth birthday. She is rich, but she is only having a small party - for four people. Four people, however, who all need the same thing: her money. She will not give them the money, so they are waiting for her to die. And there are other people who are also waiting for her to die. But one person can't wait...

An American psychic is helping the CIA to pinpoint Russian nuclear bases, and when he suddenly dies, a young Siberian girl with extra-sensory perception is kidnapped to try to save the operation.

What if Great Britain, weakened by the excesses of the welfare state and abandoned by her allies, were forced to welcome Soviet intervention? On a morning like any other, the citizens of the UK wake up to find themselves on the wrong side of the iron curtain.

Jake Malik's horrific childhood memories of Auschwitz have not softened despite thirty years in England. He now has an assignment in Germany and faces difficult choices as his task becomes something more than routine and he finds himself trapped...

In 1957, a major nuclear explosion shakes the southern Urals, killing hundreds, possibly thousands of Russians and devastating an enormous industrial area. It could have been an accident, but was it? Only one man holds the final piece to a jigsaw of terrifying proportions.

Igor Yakunin, a major in the KGB, now wants to defect to the British, and Eddie Hoggart of MI6 is picked to debrief him. The Soviet spy insists that there is a mole in British intelligence and Hoggart has to sort out not only this knotty international problem but some of his own.

He knows the Italian Riviera and the violence that lies close to the smiling surface, so he is not surprised when an unrefusable offer comes. But he is surprised by the scale and ruthlessness of the violence, which leaves him fighting for survival. A novel by Ted Allbeury writing as Richard Butler.

Rennie obeys his orders without question. He lies and kills for his superiors in the intelligence service and for his country - and he sleeps soundly at night because he believes in the justness of their cause. But his past is just about to catch up with him...

The debriefing of Russian defector Colonel Petrov is nearly over, when he suddenly panics. SIS agent James Lawler has to find out why, but Petrov will only say he is scared of being killed. To find out the truth, Lwler has to delve into the murky past of a double-agent and traitor.

On Berlin's Glienicke Bridge, an American pilot is exchanged for a senior KGB agent, a strangely unequal exchange. So why had the Americans agreed to it? An intricate web of lies and deception hides secrets which must never be revealed.

Johnny Grant is an ex-MI6 operative now working as a photographer. Sent back to Ethiopia to investigate a network of Russian spies and revolutionaries, his life becomes even more complicated when he meets Aliki, the most beautiful girl he has ever seen.

When the KGB sends an agent to Germany and England to murder troublesome exiles, the SIS responds as deviously and ruthlessly as the Russians. Tad Anders is sent to track down the Russian agent, but Tad has a violent temper which had cost him his job once before.

After their `back down' in the Cuban missile affair, the Russians realise how little they know the US president's mind and seek a Russian with a similar background to the newly elected Kennedy. His job is to live the life of an American president, all the better to get into his mindset - the aim being to humiliate the US in the worst possible way.

Anna Woltman wants nothing but revenge for the senseless killing of her husband and the atrocities suffered by millions during the Second World War. One by one, she stalks the men who still pay homage to Hitler. But when a secret Nazi organisation starts to fight back, the hunter becomes the hunted.

After a dangerous mission in England, Richter returns to Germany in 1945 with a new identity, to start a new life. Now he must prevent his true identity from being revealed and only one man can help him - a man he never expected to see again.

President Elect Logan Powell prepares to take office on the twentieth of January. But meanwhile in London, SIS agent James Mackay recognises Powell's campaign manager in a photo and discovers a Soviet plot to get their own man into the White House. But will he be able to prevent it?

The boat is moored at Santa Margherita and all has gone according to plan. Max Farne thought he could relax in a part of Italy he knew well - but strange things begin to happen. A beautiful woman invites herself on board and moves in, the owner of the boat goes missing, and a midnight gunman appears.

Back at the Intelligence Department, Albert Campion takes an interest in Saltey, a remote and tight-lipped Thames estuary village. The place has a long history of smuggling - and holds a secret rich enough to make someone threaten, terrorize, murder and raise the very devil to keep strangers away.

Strange pranks are being played on dancer Jimmy Sutane, star of London's Argosy Theatre. Someone wants Jimmy's famous feet to tap their final dance. Albert Campion is called in to straighten things out, but with his mind on other things, even a series of deaths fail to rouse his curiosity.

The will of John Sebastian Lafadio, a painter, requires his wife to unveil one of his works each year after his death. When a select group of friends and family gather to view the eighth painting, they witness a grisly murder instead. Superintendent Albert Campion investigates.

When a director of the respected publishing house of Barnabas goes missing, nobody sees fit to question his disappearance. But when his corpse is discovered in the firm's strongroom the questions are never-ending and Albert Campion is called in to find the answers.

As a scion of a noble house himself, Albert Campion is aware of the importance of the Gyrth Chalice and of its place at the centre of British heritage. When its safety is threatened by wealthy and ruthless collectors, Campion springs to its defence.

After a series of coincidences, culminating in a letter from Lugg's brother-in-law, Campion can no longer resist involvement in the eccentric Palinode household, where there have been two suspicious deaths.

The mild-mannered detective Albert Campion sets out to investigate why someone would attempt to kill an American judge. Whether by bad luck or bad marksmanship, four others have already died in place of Judge Lobbett. Now the judge is on his way to England.

In this master detective novel, Albert Campion displays the charm and skill that made him Margery Allingham's best-loved character. This time Albert steps in to try and solve the murder of Andrew Faraday. Soon he suspects that a ruthless killer is out to remove all the Faradays, one by one.

Uncle William has died, apparently of natural causes, a man lies dead in a ditch for eight days and Mr Campion receives a message in the language of flowers. The truth behind these events is sinister indeed, involving the village of Pontisbright in a tangle of foul play and cross purposes.

Adopted heir Timothy Kinnit refuses to marry his beloved Julia until he learns the truth about his parentage. But when Albert Campion traces the roots of young Timothy's family tree, he finds them buried in a century-old scandal involving a jilted nanny and a rather nasty murder. When another tragic death occurs, a sinister Victorian blood legacy suddenly threatens the lives of the two young lovers... and Campion's to boot!

The first novel by Allingham to feature detective Albert Campion. Murder turns a weekend house party at Black Dudley Manor into a deadly affair when the host is discovered brutally murdered. Luckily Campion is there to sift through the motives and clues and apply brilliant detection and his signature charm.

Georgia Wells, magnificent on-stage, but off-stage a little larger than life. It was to meet her that Albert Campion went to the dress show in Park Lane. Only the day before he had finally located the dinner-jacketed skeleton of her barrister fiance who had disappeared three years before. And Georgia Wells wasn't allowing it to be suicide, not at any price.

Albert Campion investigates the 'Iggy tube', which means different things to different people - to the two schoolboys who discover it, it's a handy gadget for reading people's minds; to a group of tycoons the tube means possession of the world's wealth and to the world powers whose spies have orders to kill to get the tube, it means control of mankind.

Jack Havoc, convicted murderer, has escaped his prison cage and is prowling the pea-souper streets of London. In the furtive alleys and darkened pubs, the word is out that the Tiger is back in town, more vicious and cunning than ever. With an odd band of buskers as reluctant accomplices, he slashes his way into the lives of the innocent and the not-so-innocent. And once again the famed team of Albert Campion and Superindendent Charlie Luke must pit their wits against the Tiger.

Albert Campion awakes in hospital with no memory of how he got there or of who he is. He overhears the nurses talking about people who want to hang him, but he doesn't know why. He knows that he is expected to do something vital to an England on the brink of war, but he doesn't know what. He must unlock his memory before it is too late.

Josef Vadassy decides to break his journey from Nice to Paris at the coastal town of St Gatien. His nightmare begins when a film he takes to the chemist turns out to hold top secret military information.

Who is the mole called Albatross? British Intelligence has a number of suspects, but they need to find out who the mole is before time runs out for Britain - and for the rest of the world. Davina Graham accepts the most dangerous mission of her career.

The world's diamond industry is about to explode into anarchy, with a new Russian mine yielding the rare red diamond. Lust, greed, power and ruthless intrigue dominate the fate of two old enemies.

Clare Fraser's half-brother, her closest friend, has disappeared, possibly kidnapped, maybe even murdered. Clare is besieged by memories as she returns to Ireland to find him before his time runs out.

Elizabeth Cameron meets paid assassin Bruno Keller. Desperate to discover the target, she is drawn into a nightmarish race against time, fighting against the CIA, the KGB and death itself in an attempt to save her doomed love.

Davina Graham, a former spy, is still mourning the death her lover in a car bomb when she is asked to investigate a close friend of the President. Once again Davina is drawn into a treacherous web of danger, deceit and doomed love in this thriller of passion and political intrigue.

An American diplomat and his daughter are blown to pieces on the Grand Canal, setting off a chain of random murders, which appear to lead to Moscow. Davina Graham investigates and is drawn into a plot much deeper than she had ever imagined.

Rosa Bennet's marriage dissolves when she chooses to pursue her career in the Foreign Office by accepting a post in Intelligence, rather than start a family. Harry Oakham is at the end of a Civil Service career as a professional spy so he gathers up other cast-off spies, and goes private. The two meet at the Doll's House Hotel, where Oakham's gang are masquerading as the new management staff and Rosa is sent to investigate.

Ever since the Second World War, Max has been having a recurring dream about the horrifying final moments in the Fuhrer's bunker. The real nightmare begins when Max finds himself caught in a chilling search for Hitler's final evil bequest to mankind.

When Nancy's millionaire lover whisks her away for a surprise weekend, she comes face-to-face with her past. She discovers that her mother's marriage into the ancient Vandekar dynasty was fated from the beginning and that her sudden death may not have been an accident...

The village of St Blaize had suffered the full fury of the SS. But, in May 1944, the events of a few days changed the inhabitants from cowards to patriots and mounting tensions would soon explode into fury when one woman returns to the scene with her heart set on revenge.

The Pollenberg Salt, a priceless masterpiece, had disappeared during the Second World War. Only an SS General living secretly in Spain knew of its whereabouts - and he was determined that his daughter should inherit it. But there were others who wanted ownership of the piece - and who were equally determined to retrieve it, at any price...

Before Yuir Varienski dies, he leaves his daughter, Lucy, a bequest and a mission. Beneath a concealed trap door in his study lies a plain wooden box with a golden cross inside. Lucy was not to know that this mission would bring her both love and a threat to her life.

Everyone knew about the English nurse's affair with the American captain. But they had no idea that Angela was carrying his child, nor that the couple had got married. When a German plane destroys the hospital she is presumed dead, and, grief-stricken, the captain returns to America to join the family business - the Mafia.

The death of Charles Schriber, a wealthy Kentucky racehorse breeder, imposes on his young widow the duty to carry out his life's wish to win the Derby. But she is hampered along the way by her stepson and the mysterious murder of a housekeeper.

Widow Judith Farrow has resisted many advances from men. When she finally falls in love, whilst on holiday in Barbados, it was to the wrong man - a spy...

Set during Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812, 'Valentina' tells the story of the Countess Grunowska, a beautiful Polish patriot trapped into a marriage with a vindictive and violent husband. She meets a French officer, Colonel de Chavel, at a ball and they fall passionately in love. The events that draw them violently together just as soon prise them apart...

Recalling her spirited youth working for the French Resistance, Katharine Alfurd must make a decision about exposing the treachery that threatened her and her friends forty years before.

A disgraced British colonel bequeaths a mysterious letter to his only son, Adam Scott, setting into motion a deadly chain of events that threatens to shake the very foundations of the free world. Within days, Adam's lover is brutally murdered and he's running for his life through the great cities of Europe, pursued not only by the KGB, but by the CIA and his own countrymen as well. Their common intent is to kill him before the truth comes out. When at last he comes to understand what he is in possession of, he's even more determined to protect it.

It is 1993 and Saddam Hussein is plotting a diabolical revenge for his defeat in the Gulf War - his goal is the destruction of the president of the United States. But while he sets his plans in motion, a beautiful young Israeli girl, with a reason for revenge, is being put in place by Mossad.

An aid worker is given an assignment in Bosnia by agents who want information about a massacre in a Muslim village. His target is a ruthless killer code-named 'The Scorpion', and the only witness to the massacre was a young Muslim girl, now in deadly danger.

Holder of the Congressional Medal of Honor and servant of his country, Connor Fitzgerald is the CIA's most deadly weapon. Only days from his retirement, he comes across an enemy he cannot handle.The enemy is his own boss, the Director of the CIA. And she has only one purpose: to destroy him.

Cambridge is sweltering during an unusually hot summer. To Jackson Brodie, former police inspector turned private investigator, the world consists of one accounting sheet - Lost on the left, Found on the right - and the two never seem to balance. Jackson has never felt at home in Cambridge, and has a failed marriage to prove it. He is at that dangerous age when men suddenly notice that they're going to die eventually, inevitably, and there isn't a thing they can do about it. Surrounded by death, intrigue and misfortune, his own life is brought sharply into focus. CONTAINS ADULT THEMES AND STRONG LANGUAGE.

Geologist Bob Boyd is hired by the powerful Matterson Corporation. He begins to uncover the shaky foundations of the Matterson family and becomes a fly in their ointment. But when he falls in love with Claire Trinavant he finds a link to a family whose name strikes a mysteriously resonant chord.

Financial consultant, Malcolm Jaggard, begins a desperate investigation when flourishing industrialist and former Russian scientist, George Ashton, mysteriously disappears following a vicious acid attack on his daughter.

Jan Willem Hendryk's staggering fortune is to be divided equally between his only surviving descendants: Dirk and Henry. But a number of suspicious circumstances emerge, and what seems at first a simple matter of greed gradually assumes more sinister proportions.

When the murdered body of a local boy is found in the woods, suspicions transform young Marsha's once-secure neighbourhood. Marsha begins to watch her neighbours and when Mr Green, the shy bachelor from next-door, takes an interest in her mother, Marsha is drawn into a cruel chain of events. Winner of the Orange Prize.

In a military hospital during the Blitz, a patient dies under the anesthetic and later the presiding nurse is murdered. Inspector Cockrill finds himself with six suspects - three doctors and three nurses - and not a discernible motive among them.

Charles Paris, actor and amateur sleuth, is working in television as the brainless bobby sidekick to a suave detective. The accidental death of an unpromising actress causes little suspicion, except in Charles' mind. He decides to investigate.

Charles Paris, actor and sleuth, is playing a fork-lift driver in a promotional video. Chales is more comfortable on the stage, but the pay is good and he learns how to use a forklift. But then to his horror he learns something else: a forklift can be a tool for murder.

Playing the corpse in a wooden murder mystery at the Regent Theatre, Rugland Spa, was not exactly a triumph for actor and amateur sleuth Charles Paris. In fact, his career could hardly sink any lower. But suddenly the mystery spilled over into real life when a bizarre sequence of events culminated in the Artistic Director's apparent suicide. Or had the smell of greasepaint and the murmur of the crowd attracted a murderer?

In this Charles Paris mystery, the seasoned actor and part-time sleuth gets the part of understudy to the lead in a West End play. But when the lead gets shot on stage on the opening night, it falls to Charles once again to solve the murder.

Restauranteurs Tristam Gowers and Yves Lafeu have the flamboyance of stage matinee idols. Charles Paris, more successful as an amateur detective than professional actor, is the guest of another fascinating duo, William Bartlemas and Kevin O'Rourke, wealthy collectors of theatrical memorabilia. When Yves Lafeu is gruesomely murdered it appears to be an open and shut case. Tristam caught the night boat to France within hours of a spectacular public quarrel with Yves over a pretty youth, and now he has disappeared.

In 1973, successful television producer Laura Fisher sets out to have a baby. Laura needs someone to love and the child will be a sign that she has overcome an upbringing of terrifying violence. But when the terrible legacy of her past begins to close in, she is faced will an appalling possibility. Will history repeat itself? Could she be a callous murderer's next victim?

Charles Paris, actor and part-time investigator, has been resting for too long, so he takes several parts in a local production of Macbeth with a curious assortment of cast members. But murder most foul strikes for real. Is it the curse of the Scottish play, or can Paris find the murderer?

She is known as the woman on Bluebell Hill. To the drivers who have seen her, she is a mystery, a ghostly figure. One minute the road is clear and suddenly she appears from nowhere. There's a squeal of brakes and when the driver rushes out, horrified, she is nowhere to be seen. Dave Walters is a contented family man - until she singles him out. From that moment his life and that of his loved ones is turned upside down.

While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. Solving the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci - clues visible for all to see and yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.

Richard Hannay must track down and defeat a German spy who has won the confidence of politicians on both sides of the Atlantic, and is the leader of a sinister conspiracy. Only this defeat will save Britain from the clutches of Germany during the crucial days of the First World War. The third book to feature Richard Hannay in a series of five.

When Richard Hannay offered sanctuary to the man he found on the doorstep of his London flat in the middle of the night, he took the first step on a trail of peril, murder, conspiracy and espionage; a trail that led him to the desolate moorlands of Galloway. The first book to feature Richard Hannay in a series of five.

At the end of the First World War, Richard Hannay has retired to the Cotswolds. There, news comes to him of three kidnappings and a plot of political and financial magnitude. Hannay abandons his idyll to counter the threat and his adventures lead to an encounter with his most formidable enemy. The fourth book to feature Richard Hannay in a series of five.

Struggling to make ends meet by hiring out his yacht 'Arletta', Edward Furse was a little surprised when one of his passengers, a Dutchman called Isaak Sluiter, announced he wished to be taken back to Holland. However, when Sluiter unexpectedly dies before reaching Holland and Furse inspects his belongings, he soon discovers the reason for Sluiter's journey. And the reason was good enough to make Furse decide to continue it himself.

Private Investigator Rex Carver sets out to find missing Katerina Saxmann. He soon finds that there are several other people interested in the whereabouts of Ms Saxmann, including the British Secret Service.

Moose Malloy is a small time criminal who is looking for a girl he used to know. Private Dick Marlowe enters the case out of curiosity, but soon becomes embroiled in a trail of corpses.

Raymond Chandler's first novel introduces Los Angeles Private Investigator Philip Marlowe, who is working for the Sternwood family. Old man Sternwood is being given the squeeze by a blackmailer and wants Marlowe to sort things out. But with Sternwood's two wild and devil-may-care daughters prowling LA's seedy backstreets, Marlowe has his work cut out long before he stumbles across his first corpse...

Philip Marlowe is the centre of a succession of curious and increasingly violent happenings when he agrees to take on a case for Little Sister. He is swept into a series of collisions with movie stars, gangsters, small town girls and the police.

A group of anarchists are under surveillance by Scotland Yard in Chesterton's metaphysical thriller. The Supreme Anarchists Council is dedicated to overthrowing the world order. To keep their identities a secret, each of them has been named a day of the week. Gabriel Syme, an eccentric poet, is recruited by Scotland Yard to infiltrate the group. He tracks down the six men and manages to win a place on the council. But in a bizarre and surreal twist of events, Syme realises that five of the six members are not at all what they seem...

The first collection of stories featuring Father Brown, a small, round-faced and innocent Roman Catholic priest from East Anglia - who also happens to be a top-hole detective. The stories include 'The Blue Cross', 'The Secret Garden', 'The Queer Feet', 'The Flying Stars', 'The Invisible Man', 'The Honour of Israel', 'The Wrong Shape', 'The Sins of Prince Saradine', 'The Hammer of God', 'The Eye of Apollo', 'The Sign of the Broken Sword', and 'The Three Tools of Death'.

Father Brown, G. K. Chesterton's lovable Norfolk priest, has an uncanny knack of unravelling mysteries that leave lesser mortals floundering. In this collection, Father Brown uses his distinctive style of deduction to solve the seemingly unsolvable. As well as the title story, the other puzzles included are 'The Quick One', 'The Blast of the Book', 'The Green Man', 'The Pursuit of Mr Blue', 'The Crime of the Communist', The Insoluble Problem', 'The Point of the Pin' and 'The Vampire of the Village'. The fifth collection of Father Brown stories in a series of five.

Father Brown, an unassuming and shabbily dressed priest, possesses an incredible ability to solve crimes and murders. The secret of his success is his ability to discover the culprit by imagining himself to be inside the mind of the criminal. This collection contains 'The Mirror of the Magistrate', 'The Man with Two Beards', 'The Song of the Flying Fish', 'The Actor and the Alibi', 'The Vanishing of Vaudrey', 'The Worst Crime in the World', 'The Red Moon of Mern' and 'The Secret of Flambeau'. The fourth collection of Father Brown stories in a series of five.

In spite of good prospects in the Foreign Office, sardonic civil servant Carruthers is finding it hard to endure the emptiness and boredom of his life in London. He accepts an invitation to join a friend on a sailing holiday in the Baltic, where they discover a sinister German plot. A classic tale of espionage and intrigue set in the late 1890s.

In spite of good prospects in the Foreign Office, sardonic civil servant Carruthers is finding it hard to endure the emptiness and boredom of his life in London. He accepts an invitation to join a friend on a sailing holiday in the Baltic, where they discover a sinister German plot. A classic tale of espionage and intrigue set in the late 1890s.

Miss Marple appreciates the thoughtfulness of her affectionate nephew Raymond in arranging her trip to the West Indies, but she is beginning to miss the eventfulness of life back home in the village of St Mary Mead. One day in the Caribbean is much like another and the palm trees are rather monotonous, however things soon become more interesting when Major Palgrave is found dead, and the deceptively frail detective investigates a most exotic murder.

The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn are agog with curiosity over an advertisement in the local gazette which reads: A murder is announced and will take place on Friday October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30pm. Is it a hoax? As the time approaches a crowd gathers, and then the lights go out. Miss Marple investigates.

Ten strangers, apparently with little in common, are lured to an island mansion off the coast of Devon. One of the party is found murdered, and tension mounts as the survivors realise that not only is the killer among them, but that they are likely to kill again...

On the cliffs of Petra in Jordan sits the corpse of Mrs Boynton. A puncture mark on her wrist is the only sign of the injection that killed her. With only 24 hours in which to solve the mystery, Poirot recalls the sinister remark he had overheard back in Jerusalem: 'You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?'.

When Miss Marple comes up from the countryside for a holiday in London, she finds what she's looking for at Bertram's Hotel: traditional decor, impeccable service and an unmistakable atmosphere of danger behind the highly polished veneer.

When Miss Marple comes up from the countryside for a holiday in London, she finds what she's looking for at Bertram's Hotel: traditional decor, impeccable service and an unmistakeable atmosphere of danger behind the highly polished veneer.

In this novelisation of a playscript, the formula for a powerful explosive is stolen. Locking his guests in the library, Sir Claud switches off the lights to let the thief replace it, no questions asked. When the lights come on, Sir Claud is dead and Hercule Poirot must act quickly to prevent a global catastrophe. (Adapted by Charles Osborne).

Tommy and Tuppence Beresford decided it was time to do their duty and visit Tommy's elderly and unpleasant aunt in her nursing home. The results of that visit include a strange inheritance, a mysterious house, black magic, a missing tombstone and danger for the redoubtable Tuppence.

An unpopular games mistress is found, shot through the heart from point blank range. The school is thrown into chaos when the murderer strikes again and schoolgirl Julia Upjohn knows that without Hercule Poirot's help, she will be the next victim.

The Leonides were one big happy family living in a sprawling, ramshackle mansion. That was until the head of the household, Aristide, was murdered. Suspicion naturally falls on the old man's young widow. But the murderer has reckoned without the tenacity of Charles Hayward, fiance of the late millionare's granddaughter.

The house guests at Styles seemed perfectly pleasant to Captain Hastings. So he was shocked when Poirot declared that one of them was a five-times murderer. True, the ageing detective was coping with arthritis, but had his deductive instincts finally deserted him?

Sir George and Lady Stubbs hit upon the idea of staging a mock murder mystery. Ariadne Oliver, a well known crime writer, agrees to organise their murder hunt. Despite weeks of planning, Ariadne calls in Hercule Poirot, as instinctively she senses that something sinister is about to happen.

Four stories of mystery solved by Miss Marple. As well as 'Death by Drowning', this collection includes 'The Thumbmark of St Peter', 'The Herb of Death' and 'The Affair at the Bungalow'.

From his seat, Poirot was ideally placed to observe his fellow air passengers. To his right sat a pretty young woman; ahead, a Countess with a cocaine habit; and across the gangway, a detective writer. What Poirot didn't realise was that in the seat behind was the lifeless body of a woman.

The tranquility of a cruise along the Nile is shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway has been shot through the head. She was young, stylish and beautiful - a girl who had everything. Hercule Poirot recalls an earlier outburst by a fellow passenger who proclaimed 'I'd like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger'!

The tranquility of a cruise along the Nile is shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway has been shot through the head. She was young, stylish and beautiful - a girl who had everything. Hercule Poirot recalls an earlier outburst by a fellow passenger - 'I'd like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger'.

Hercule Poirot stood on the cliff-top. Here, a tragic accident had been followed by the grisly discovery of two more bodies - a husband and wife - shot dead. Was it a suicide pact? A crime of passion? Or cold-blooded murder? Poirot delves back into the past and discovers that 'old sins leave long shadows'.

As Michael Rogers leaves the village, a shadow of menace hangs over the land. For this is the place where accidents happen. Perhaps Michael should heed the locals' warnings - there's no luck at Gypsy Acres.

Beautiful Arlena Stuart is discovered lying face-down on the beach, strangled, and the group of holiday-makers at the Jolly Roger Hotel all have a motive for the killing. It takes all of Hercule Poirot's little grey cells to untangle the mystery.

No sooner had Lady Edgware announced to Poirot that she just had to get rid of her husband, than his lordship was found dead in the library, stabbed in the neck. The case seems cut and dried, but Lady Edgware has twelve witnesses to say that she was at a dinner party at the time of the murder.

Anyone who murdered Colonel Protheroe, declared the parson, would be doing the world at large a service! It was a careless remark for a man of the cloth, and one which was to come back and haunt the clergyman just a few hours later.

The brilliant Belgian detective Hercule Poirot becomes involved in an unusual case after a member of an archaeological expedition is murdered at an ancient site in the Iraqi desert.

The brilliant Belgian detective Hercule Poirot becomes involved in an unusual case after a member of an archaeological expedition is murdered at an ancient site in the Iraqi desert.

Hercule Poirot joins an international cast of characters on the glamorous Orient Express, and is approached by a wealthy American who offers the detective 'big money' to protect him. The next day the man is found dead in his cabin, stabbed twelve times. There are no lack of clues for Poirot - but which are real and which a clever plant? One thing is certain - the murderer is still aboard the train and waiting to strike again...

Hercule Poirot joins an international cast of characters on the glamorous Orient Express, and is approached by a wealthy American who offers the detective 'big money' to protect him. The next day the man is found dead in his cabin, stabbed twelve times. There are no lack of clues for Poirot - but which are real and which a clever plant? One thing is certain - the murderer is still aboard the train and waiting to strike again...

It is World War II, and while the RAF struggles to keep the Luftwaffe at bay, Britain faces an even more sinister threat from 'the enemy within' - Nazis posing as ordinary citizens. With pressure mounting, the Intelligence service appoints two unlikely spies, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. Their mission: to seek out a man and a woman from among the colourful guests at Sans Souci, a seaside hotel. But this assignment is no stroll along the promenade. After all, N and M have just murdered Britain's finest agent...

Nemesis - one who inflicts retribution or justice - seems an odd name for an elderly, rather frail woman. But not if that old lady is the formidable Miss Jane Marple. Soon after the death of financier Rafiel, the man who'd called her by that name, Miss Marple is summoned by his solicitors. A letter from the grave sends her on a baffling quest - to investigate an unidentified crime.

According to the courts, Jacko Argyle bludgeoned his mother to death with a poker. Sentenced to life imprisonment, he died behind bars. Two years later, new evidence emerges which suggests that the real murderer will strike again.

Young, beautiful Elinor Carlisle stood serenely in the dock, accused of the murder of Mary Gerrard, her rival in love. The evidence was damning: only Elinor had the motive, the opportunity and the means to administer the fatal poison.

Gwenda Reed has come from New Zealand to search for a home in England for her and her husband, Giles. She falls in love with a house on the South Coast where she feels strangely at home, in fact she feels she actually remembers the house. A visit to the theatre then brings a vision to her of a body in the hallway. It also brings Miss Marple into the picture.

Six people sit down to dinner at a table laid for seven. In front of the empty place is a sprig of rosemary - in solemn memory of Rosemary Barton, who died at the same table exactly one year previously. No one present on that fateful night would ever forget her...

For an instant the two trains ran together, side by side. In that frozen moment, Elspeth witnessed a murder. Helplessly, she stared out of her carriage window as a man remorselessly tightened his grip around the woman's throat. The body crumpled. The the other train sped off. Miss Marple investigates.

There's a serial killer on the loose. His macabre calling card is to leave the ABC Railway guide beside each victim's body. But if A is for Alice Asher, bludgeoned to death in Andover; and B is for Betty Bernard, strangled with her belt on the beach at Bexhill; then who will Victim C be?

When her friends from the Tuesday Night Club visit Miss Marple's house the conversation often turns to unsolved crimes. The following four cases; 'The Blue Geranium', 'The Four Suspects', 'The Companion' and 'A Christmas Tragedy' all confirm that in the sleepy village of St Mary Mead Miss Marple has observed enough about human nature to be more than a match for the most perspicacious investigator...

The Bantrys wake one morning to discover the body of a young woman in their library. She is wearing an evening dress and heavy make-up, which is smeared across her distorted cheeks. The respectable Bantrys invite Jane Marple to solve the mystery before tongues start to wag.

As instructed, stenographer Stella Webb let herself into the house at 19 Wilbraham Crescent, and discovered the body of a man sprawled across the floor. Three unreliable witnesses and four clocks set at 4:13 are the only things detective Hercule Poirot has to help him solve the case.

In the period leading up to his retirement, Poirot makes up his mind to accept just twelve more cases: his self-imposed 'Labours'. Though Poirot may not look much like a Greek hero, each labour requires a heroic feat of deduction from the Belgian detective.

One minute, silly Heather Badcock had been gabbling on about her movie idol, the glamorous Marina Gregg. The next, Heather suffered a massive seizure. But who was the deadly poison really intended for?

Lymstock is a town with more than its share of shameful secrets - a town where even a sudden outbreak of anonymous hate-mail causes only a minor stir. But all that changes when Mrs Symmington commits suicide. Only Miss Marple questions the coroner's verdict.

Roger Ackroyd knew too much. He knew that the woman he loved had poisoned her brutal first husband and he also suspected that someone had been blackmailing her. Then he is discovered stabbed to death...

There had been some strange goings on at Styles St Mary. Evelyn had stormed out of the house and the atmosphere had changed to one of impending doom. With impeccable timing Poirot makes his dramatic entrance...

Six short stories taken from the book 'Poirot Investigates'. Hercule Poirot sets his little grey cells working on six more mysterious, apparently baffling, cases. The stories include 'The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim'; 'The Mystery of Hunter's Lodge'; 'The Adventure of the Cheap Flat'; 'The Adventure of The Italian Nobleman'; 'The Tragedy at Marsden Manor' and 'The Case of the Missing Will'.

'The Triangle at Rhodes' concerns a lonely wife, poison, and a husband attracted to a lady on holiday in the Greek Islands with her fifth husband. 'The Incredible Theft' presents a dinner party, armaments and Air Force Ministers, a son with gambling debts and a ghost on the stairs. Hercule Poirot, who fully understands human nature, is on hand to solve both crimes.

In this novelisation of a play, a stranger runs his car into a ditch and makes his way to an isolated house. He discovers a woman standing over the body of her wheelchair-bound husband, gun in her hand. She admits to murder, and the unexpected guest offers to help her create an alibi.

Jane Marple senses danger when she visits a friend living in a Victorian mansion, which doubles as a rehabilitation centre for delinquents. Her fears are confirmed when a mysterious visitor is found shot dead in another part of the building.

John Clark is the man who conducts the secret missions President Ryan can have no part of. This time, the mission involves a group of terrorists the world has never encountered before, a band of men and women so extreme that their success could literally mean the end of life as we know it.

Jack Ryan finds that being President is not getting any easier. Who has tried to assassinate the chairman of what used to be the KGB? Is it the Russian Mafia, or former KGB agents? Ryan suspects that something far more sinister is going on.

A deadly game of hide-and-seek played out in 18 days over 4000 miles of ocean. Red October is the Soviet Navy's newest ballistic missile submarine. When the whole crew decides to defect, the Soviet fleet sets out to destroy it, while the US and British fleets attempt to prevent them.

A deadly game of hide-and-seek played out in 18 days over 4000 miles of ocean. Red October is the Soviet Navy's newest ballistic missile submarine. When the whole crew decides to defect, the Soviet fleet sets out to destroy it, while the US and British fleets attempt to prevent them.

Laurie Kenyon, a senior at University, has an obsession - English professor Alan Grant, a married man. After watching him and writing him passionate love letters, Alan is found stabbed to death. Laurie's fingerprints are on the door, Alan's desk and the murder weapon, but did she kill him?