Classic crime and mystery fiction

Secret Agent Mark Kirkland has been given the task of locating and retrieving three pornographic films.

The Esmaldi necklace was worth about $350,000: one hundred matched diamonds the size of garden peas, set in platinum.

Serge Maisky has a record as long as your arm.

The Russians will pay $4,000,000 for the top secret formula to a revolutionary new metal .

Mark Girland, good-for-nothing secret agent with a distinct weakness for money and women, finds himself in Prague for his latest adventure.

Mark Girland's problems begin when a beautiful blonde is found lying on a dark deserted quai in Paris - the initials of the top Chinese atomic scientist tattooed on her upper thigh.

This swift-moving story of murder and suspense culminates in an unexpected and dramatic climax that is the hallmark of a James Hadley Chase novel.

Successful dramatist Victor Dermott rents an isolated ranch-house in the Nevada Desert.

When a small-time clerk insures his life for $50,000 and then suddenly dies ten days later, it doesn't take a genius to work out something suspicious is going on.

It was the easiest 3,000 Nelson Ryan had ever made - but suddenly he realised he was being played for a sucker.

Like most bank managers, Dave Calvin had acquired an irresistible charm that he could switch on whenever he felt the necessity.

A man will do almost anything when a rich and beautiful woman offers him fifty thousand dollars just to make a telephone call.

She came out of his past to threaten his futureOut of Jefferson Halliday's past comes Rima Marshall.

When Chet Carson broke jail he thought he'd found a safe hideout in a lonely filling station.

Terry Regan, who'd dropped into the Delaneys' cabin up at Blue Jay Lake to sell them a TV set, took in the situation at a glance.

Cannes.

For years the worldwide operations of a mysterious and ruthless extortioner who calls himself the Tortoise have baffled Scotland Yard and the police forces of Europe.

Sudden death lurks along the canals of Venice .

George Fraser, a lonely, timid fellow, lives in a dream world of gangsters, gunfights and beautiful women.

Eve: mysterious, tantalizing, alluring, wanton.

When Dave Fenner is hired to solve the Blandish kidnapping, he knows the odds on finding the girl are against him - the cops are still looking for her three months after the ransom was paid.

The enormously wealthy Durie family occupies a gigantic baroque turn-of-the-century mansion on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

At ten, David Shaw, a silent and observant little boy already fluent in half a dozen languages, was being dragged through the capitals of Europe by a diplomat father and a beautiful scatterbrained mother.

James Flood, just released from a Florida prison, has a desperate scheme.

For Murray Kirk, running a private investigation agency is a business; he isn't interested in justice or crusades, just profit and loss.

'A macabre little tale about an unusual restaurant in Manhattan and its lonely patrons, it displayed both a debt to Edgar Allan Poe and an acute understanding of human nature that is the key to the success of his work' GUARDIANStanley Ellin's first short story, 'The Speciality of the House', about a New York restaurant with a special gourmet menu, was published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 1948 and caused an immediate sensation, winning him a special Ellery Queen Award.

A superb mixture of locked room mystery and science fiction classic'A fine craftsman' Ellery QueenA deadly net of danger tightens around Hilary Foulkes as an unseen enemy makes constant, bizarre attempts on his life.

'A fine craftsman' Ellery QueenThe man in the yellow robe had put the ancient curse of the Nine Times Nine on Wolfe Harrigan.

'A fine craftsman' Ellery QueenA cryptic telegram; a dead man; two ingenious and quite different sets of clues; and each one of the half-dozen suspects is something of an imposter .

'A fine craftsman' Ellery QueenWhen a Swiss professor is found dead on a California university campus only a few feet away from the home of a student he was visiting, Dr Ashwin, a professor of Sanskrit, and Martin Lamb, a graduate student, join forces to find the killer.

The twenty-seventh title in the popular Harpur and Iles series.

Drug barons Ralph Ember and Mansel Shale have co-existed peaceably for years, tolerated by Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles as a way of keeping violence off the streets.

Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles misses a crucial conference and is not able to give vital advice to a colleague, Assistant Chief Constable Esther Davidson.

A houseful of paintings is stolen and the body of a finely dressed stranger is discovered at the home of art-loving drug dealer Mansel Shale.

For years Panicking Ralph Ember and Mansel Shale have run profitable drugs empires in peaceful cooperation with each other - and Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles turns a blind-eye to their trade as long as it keeps violence off the streets.

A cash-in-transit raid goes pear-shaped when armed police show up.

For years Colin Harpur's dubious boss, Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles, ran an 'arrangement' with Mansel Shale and Panicking Ralph Ember, owner of the Monty Club: Iles would protect their drug businesses if they ensured peace on the streets.

With the rumoured transfer of Chief of Police Mark Lane, London's competitive drug lords are on edge.

Drug dealer Ralph Ember stumbles on a ghastly surprise when he and sidekick Beau Derek arrive at the house of yachtsman Barney Coss, his bulk supplier.

Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur and his amoral superior Assistant Chief Constable Desmond lles face a political and personal dilemma when they suspect fellow Officer Nivette of taking bribes from underworld villains, panicking Ralphy Ember and Mansel Shale.

Naomi Anstruther's undercover operation among the drug gangs - planned carefully by Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur - has ended in a bloody shoot-out.

Pursued from the shadows, Simon Pilgrim fled in terror from the floating restaurant Eton Boating Song.

Eleri ap Vaughan, Keith Vine's best dealer, has turned to other drugs wholesalers for her supplies.

Ralph Ember, owner of a shady drinking club, is playing a dangerous game.

Thirteen-year-old Mandy Walsh has been gunned down in the street, caught in the crossfire between rival drug gangs.

When Oliphant Kenward Knapp's drug-dealing empire comes up for grabs, there's a rush to control his domain.

Fear grips the drugs underworld after two principals in the trade are murdered, and even Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles is under a cloud of suspicion.

'One of British crime writing's hidden jewels' Time OutMegan Harpur had taken the train back from London to tell her husband she was leaving him for another man.

'One of British crime writing's hidden jewels' Time OutAt 19 years old Denise Prior knew little about criminals and even less about the law.

When a large chunk of a bank heist vanishes, the thugs who pulled off the job - and survived - are a little upset.