Published in 1924, "The Man in the Brown Suit" marks a significant departure from Christie's typical detective fiction, blending elements of adventure, romance, and espionage. This novel, Christie's fourth, demonstrates her versatility as an author and her willingness to experiment with genre conventions early in her career. Set against the backdrop of post-World War I society, the story follows the adventurous Anne Beddingfeld as she becomes embroiled...

"Two friends take opposite sides of a murder investigation and trial, each convinced that he is right"--

In this, her first published mystery, Agatha Christie introduced readers to the heroic detective, Hercule Poirot. This is a classic murder mystery set in the outskirts of Essex. The victim is the wealthy mistress of Styles Court. The list of suspects is long and includes her gold-digging new spouse and stepsons, her doctor, and her hired companion.

For Dr. David Beck, the loss was shattering. And every day for the past eight years, he has relived the horror of what happened. The gleaming lake. The pale moonlight. The piercing screams. The night his wife was taken. The last night he saw her alive.
Everyone tells him it's time to move on, to forget the past once and for all. But for David Beck, there can be no closure. A message has appeared on his computer, a phrase only he and his dead wife...

Considered the first true detective story Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone (1868) is a 19th-century British epistolary novel. Originally serialized in Charles Dickens' magazine All the Year Round, it introduced many hallmarks of detective fiction, including an English country house setting, bungling local policemen, and a large number of false suspects. In it, Rachel Verinder, a young English woman, inherits a large Indian diamond on her eighteenth birthday...

"College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe's life is ever the same. Iverson is a dying Vietnam veteran--and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been...

When Earl Alden is found dead, dangling from a wind turbine, it's his wife, Missy, who is arrested. Unfortunately for Joe Pickett, Missy is his mother-in- law, a woman he dislikes heartily, and now he doesn't know what to do --especially when the early signs point to her being guilty as sin. But then things happen to make Joe wonder: Is Earl's death what it appears to be? Is Missy being set up?

Published in 1925, "The Secret of Chimneys" represents a significant evolution in Agatha Christie's literary repertoire, blending elements of the traditional country house mystery with international intrigue and political conspiracy. This novel, Christie's fifth, showcases her growing confidence as a writer and her willingness to experiment with more complex plot structures. Set primarily in the fictional English country estate of Chimneys, the novel...

When Special Agent Kathryn Dance--a brilliant interrogator and kinesics expert with the California Bureau of Investigation--is sent to question the convicted killer Daniel "Son of Manson" Pell as a suspect in a newly unearthed crime, she feels both trepidation and electrifying intrigue.

First serialized in 1907 and then published as a book in 1908, Mary Roberts Rinehart's "The Circular Staircase" is the popular mystery story about the dowager Rachel Innes as she reveals and prevents a series of strange crimes at the home she has rented for the summer. "The Circular Staircase" was Rinehart's first bestseller and was the originator of the popular "had I but known" genre of mystery writing, where the main character narrates the tale...