Detective fiction

The novel begins with a telephone call to Wimsey from his mother, the Dowager Duchess of Denver, saying that her vicar’s architect has just found a dead body in his bath, wearing nothing but a pair of pince-nez. Whose body is it? Whodunnit? It’s up to Lord Peter to find out. (Summary by Kara and Wikipedia)

Antony Gillingham arrives at the Red House moments after a gunshot is heard. The room is locked, the murderer has disappeared and, in Antony's opinion, the police are going about it the wrong way. Antony, who was looking for a new profession anyway, decides to solve the murder himself, with a little help from his friend Bill. (Summary by Kristin Hughes)

Lady Molly of Scotland Yard is a collection of short stories about Molly Robertson-Kirk, an early fictional female detective. It was written by Baroness Orczy, who is best known as the creator of The Scarlet Pimpernel, but who also invented two immortal turn-of-the-century detectives in The Old Man in the Corner and Lady Molly of Scotland Yard.

Before Sam Spade chased the black bird in The Maltese Falcon and Nick and Nora Charles stirred their first martinis in The Thin Man, the Continental Op walked early twentieth century San Francisco’s mean streets for the Continental Detective Agency.

An apparently impossible attack in a locked room draws reporter Joseph Rouletabille into a French mystery of physical clues and concealed identities.

Dr. Watson chronicles here some of the more interesting detective cases that he and his good friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, have encountered during their association. We see the cases unfold as he does, scratch our heads as does he while the evidence is collected, and then marvel at the impeccable observations, remarkable insight, and doggedness which Holmes displays as he teases apart the tangled clues.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1841. Poe referred to it as a "tale of ratiocination" featuring the brilliant deductions of C. Auguste Dupin; it is today regarded as one of the first detective stories and is almost certainly the first locked room mystery. (Summary from Wikipedia)

Four selected cases introduce Max Carrados, Ernest Bramah’s blind detective. This recording contains four stories, rather than the complete eight-story Max Carrados collection.

Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1958) was a prolific American writer of popular mysteries. The Circular Staircase was originally published in 1908 and includes all the elements of the classic whodunit – mysterious events, ghostly apparitions, things that go bump in the night and murder. (Summary by J. M. Smallheer)

The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) is the first of five collections of mystery stories by G. K. Chesterton starring an unimposing but surprisingly capable Roman Catholic priest.

Rachel Verinder inherits a large Indian diamond on her eighteenth birthday. Its disappearance brings competing accounts, suspects and investigators into a substantial Victorian mystery. The text includes colonial and racial attitudes.

Miss Florence Cusack was featured as an amateur detective who assists in solving crimes in five short stories authored by L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace that appeared in Harmsworth/London Magazine.

“The following report appeared in the Argus newspaper of Saturday, the 28th July, 18--

“Truth is said to be stranger than fiction, and certainly the extraordinary murder which took place in Melbourne on Thursday night, or rather Friday morning, goes a long way towards verifying this saying.

Dr. Thorndyke investigates a series of cases that emphasize how a crime can be proved. Several stories reveal the criminal’s actions before following the investigation. The collection has also appeared under the title The Adventures of Dr. Thorndyke.

The first book in the Nancy Drew mystery series. Did old Josiah Crowley leave behind a second will? Nancy Drew is determined to find out before it is too late, and the results are sure to throw River Heights into an uproar! (Summary by Amanda Leung)

The death of a wealthy New Yorker brings testimony, family relationships and circumstantial evidence under scrutiny in Anna Katharine Green’s American detective novel.

The Mystery of Orcival is a wonderful example of the brilliant methods of deduction which Emile Gaboriau's "Le Coq" inspired in future detective novels. When the body of the Countess de Tremorel is discovered by poachers on the castle grounds and the count is nowhere to be found, M. Lecoq of La Surete is dispatched by the Prefecture of Police to investigate.

Artist and amateur detective Philip Trent investigates the death of a businessman. The case brings testimony, relationships and the uncertainty of deduction into a mystery that also questions the conventions of detective fiction.

Inspector French of Scotland Yard follows the clues of a Hatton Garden murder-heist case leading him far and wide both in Britain and in the continent and finally to the culprit in a thrilling narrative - Summary by Yoganandh T

Created by Baroness Orczy, author of the famous Scarlet Pimpernel series, The Old Man in the Corner was one of the earliest armchair detectives, popping up with so many others in the wake of the huge popularity of the Sherlock Holmes stories.