Showing results by publisher "HarperCollins" in Traditional Detectives

There's a chill in the air and the days are growing shorter.... It's the perfect time to curl up in front of a crackling fireplace with this winter-themed collection from legendary mystery writer Agatha Christie. But beware of deadly snowdrifts and dangerous gifts, poisoned meals and mysterious guests. This compendium of short stories, some featuring beloved Detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, is an essential omnibus for Christie fans and the perfect gift for mystery lovers.

The rather disgruntled pair is sequestered in the Grand Adlington Hotel having made a pig’s ear out of their latest case. But, whilst sipping mournful cocktails, with Tommy oddly dressed as a Parson, they are gleefully accosted by their old acquaintance Mr. Bulger who has London’s most beautiful stage actress, Gilda Glen, in tow. Whilst Tommy and Tuppence mull over the note, in storms a man, an old flame of Gilda’s claiming he wants to ring someone’s neck.

It’s 1890, and the newly famous Sherlock Holmes faces his worst adversary to date - a diabolical villain bent on destroying some of London’s most admired public figures in particularly gruesome ways. A further puzzle is that suicide closely attends each of the murders. As he tracks the killer through vast and seething London, Holmes finds himself battling both an envious Scotland Yard and a critical press as he follows a complex trail from performers to princes, anarchists to aesthetes.

Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings are on holiday at the opulent Grand Metropolitan Hotel in Brighton, where they meet the wife of a wealthy stockbroker. As they discuss the jewels worn by Mrs Opalsen, the great detective relates his experiences in cases which have concerned some of the best-known jewels in the world. Excited by his anecdotes, the wealthy matron eagerly offers to show him a very expensive pearl necklace, but when she goes to retrieve it, she discovers that it has been stolen.

Mr Parker Pyne is asked to catch a diamond thief during regatta festivities at Dartmouth harbour when more conventional search methods prove fruitless.

Officer Luke Fitzwilliam is on a train to London when he meets a strange woman. She claims there is a serial killer in the quiet village of Wychwood. He has already taken the lives of three people and is about claim his fourth victim. Fitzwilliam dismisses this as the ramblings of an old woman. But within hours she is found dead. Crushed by a passing car. And then the fourth victim is found.

Joyce Lempiere tells the Tuesday Night Club of an incident that occurred five years ago when she was vacationing at a small inn on the Cornish coast. She was painting a picture of the front of the inn, including details of wet bathing suits drying on the balcony of Denis and Margery Dacre, when she realised she had included blood stains on the pavement. A few days later, Margery is found having drowned and the Club are called to solve the mystery.

A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time as an audiobook. After being fired from his uncle’s firm for his playboy antics, George Rowland decides to leave London on a whim. Waiting for his train to depart from Waterloo, a beautiful young girl dashes in and begs him to hide her. Wrapped up in the excitement, he agrees to follow a suspicious looking man and guard a packet for her. But he soon finds that she isn’t quite as innocent as she looks....

A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time on audio. Recently swept off her feet, after a week of courting, the newly married Alix Martin is a woman obsessed by a reoccurring dream of her new husband’s murder. Each time she can see the murderer clearly and it is the mild mannered man she had almost married wreaking his revenge. But what is worse is that at the end of the dream she thanks the murderer.

It’s been many years since Mr Satterthwaite has seen Mr Harley Quin, so when Satterthwaite, awaiting his broken down car, goes to a tea shop called the Harlequin café, he begins to think of his friend. A self-described snob, Satterthwaite orders coffee and examines the coloured china when a bolt of sunlight comes in and the very same Mr Quin walks through the door.

Major Hastings and Hercule Poirot are not interested in the case of the Spanish Chest, so obviously has it been reported in the papers that it seems an entirely closed book. But, when Hastings persuades Poirot to attend a rather fabulous party given by Lady Chatterton, there is someone sequestered upstairs waiting for the pair’s help. She’s so sure that there has been some great mistake and is desperate for their help. Will the contents of the dead man’s pockets reveal to the inscrutable eye of Hercule Poirot who the culprit is?

An unknown wounded man in a church. A fatal riding accident. A corpse and a tape measure. Whether in St Mary Mead or further afield, there is always much wickedness lurking below the surface, should, like Jane Marple, you have the eyes to see it. Published posthumously, this collection of tales, seven of them featuring Agatha Christie’s much loved Miss Marple, plus two stand-alone stories, is a treasure trove.

A classic Agatha Christie short story available individually for the first time in audio. Plans for a secret bomber plane have been stolen from a minister’s house. Poirot is called to discreetly investigate the guests and to locate the plans before they fall into the enemy’s hands.

A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time on audio. Sitting in front of a fire, Hastings listens as Poirot recounts his greatest failure. When a wealthy French deputy dies, everyone believes it is from natural causes. Poirot is on vacation from the Belgian police when a young lady comes to him convinced the man was poisoned. She creates a guise for him to enter the house as a journalist to investigate....

A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time on audio. A retired Police Inspector recognizes a woman in his village whom he once suspected of murdering her husband. He is determined that her new husband won’t suffer the same fate....

An ageing barrister begins to regret past events when an old flame asks him to investigate the murder of her eccentric wealthy aunt in a mystery that recalls an old nursery rhyme....

When Mr Satterthswaite visits a new exhibit at the Harchester Galleries, there is one painting with a male figure that bares a more than unusual likeness to a mysterious acquaintance of his, a Mr Quin. And with one bold move he purchases the canvas on the spot and in another invites the artist of The Dead Harlequin to dine with him that night. The dinner gets off on the wrong foot with the artist emphatically disagreeing with most points and an empty place at the table ready for the mysterious Mr Quin to arrive.

Mystery writer Anthony Eastwood is lured to the crime scene of a faked murder. Two individuals masquerading as police officers arrest him and charge him for murder. As the phoney police officers escort Mr Eastwood home, the true goal of the masquerade becomes apparent.

When civilian life proves too dull for Major Wilbrahams, he contacts Parker Pyne in order to escape his boredom. Pyne’s assistant arranges a chance meeting with the beautiful Freda Clegg, and the two join forces, but on leaving for Africa they encounter more than they had bargained for.

A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time on audio. What is the mystery of the velvet-suited doll that appears to move from place to place? Is someone responsible, or can it be possible that it possesses its own sinister qualities?