Many readers wrongly consider Raymond Chandler’s novels to be mere detective stories. The subtle nuances that mimic harsh reality in the plotlines and characterizations, however, help elevate Chandler’s work beyond the genre. This gritty realism could, in part, be a… Read More ›
This novel of mystery and detective fiction features a first-person narrator, Faith Severn, who is the niece of the hanged murderess, Vera Hillyard, twin to Faith’s father, John Longley. The story is set after World War II but looks back… Read More ›
In this example of mystery and detective fiction, the author introduces her recurring investigator, Inspector Adam Dalgleish of Scotland Yard, who returns for many more subsequent adventures. In his first appearance, he is faced with a crime that at first… Read More ›
A dark novella of love and cruelty, The Comfort of Strangers is set in the romantic city of Venice, Italy. There, an attractive young English couple, Colin and Mary, spend an idyllic vacation. They have had a relationship for some… Read More ›
When Ferdinand Clegg, a butterfly collector, turns his attention to human beings, the results are disastrous for Miranda Grey, the young woman he stalks and “collects” to assuage his obsession for her. Clegg has led a less than satisfactory life;… Read More ›
One of Christie’s most admired mysteries and a fine example of mystery and detective fiction, The A. B. C. Murders pits Hercule Poirot against someone who kills by the alphabet and who also sends Poirot an ominous letter before each… Read More ›
Wilkie Collins is best known for his works The Woman in White (1860) and The Moonstone, both of which reflected aspects of Collins’s own experience. By the time The Moonstone appeared serially between January and August 1868 in the periodical… Read More ›
This story first appeared in the Strand Magazine in the set of stories called The Return of Sherlock Holmes. It is one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories and focuses on the power of the master blackmailer Charles… Read More ›
Arthur Conan Doyle’s (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) epitaph “STEEL TRUE/BLADE STRAIGHT” can also serve as an introduction to the themes of his novels, both those that feature actual medieval settings and those that center on Sherlock Holmes…. Read More ›
Collins’s reputation nearly a century after his death rests almost entirely on two works—The Woman in White, published serially in All the Year Round between November 26, 1859, and August 25, 1860; and The Moonstone, published in 1868. About this… Read More ›
Ross Macdonald’s (1915–1983) twenty-four novels fall fairly neatly into three groups: Those in which Lew Archer does not appear form a distinct group, and the Archer series itself, which may be separated into two periods. His first four books, The… Read More ›
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