Fast-talking, trouble-seeking private eye Philip Marlowe is a different kind of detective: a moral man in an amoral world. California in the ’40s and ’50s is as beautiful as a ripe fruit and rotten to the core, and Marlowe must struggle to retain his integrity amidst the corruption he encounters daily. The Big Sleep finds the world-weary, wisecracking investigator consulted by a wealthy family man with two big problems: his children. Carmen Sternwood has got herself mixed up with ...

A BBC Radio 4 drama in which professional illusionist, Will Morgan, fronts a TV show in which he exposes spiritualist mediums as frauds. 'Haunted' was originally broadcast as the 'Afternoon Play' on 19 January 2011. Hayley Taylor is the spiritualist medium who refuses to back down under illusionist Will's scrutiny - a challenge Will can't walk away from. Both are to have their belief systems sorely tested when a voice from one of their pasts refuses to keep silent... Starring Steffan Rhodr...

Fast-talking, trouble-seeking private eye Philip Marlowe is a different kind of detective: a moral man in an amoral world. California in the ’40s and ’50s is as beautiful as a ripe fruit and rotten to the core, and Marlowe must struggle to retain his integrity amidst the corruption he encounters daily. In Playback, Marlowe is awakened early in the morning by a phone call from a lawyer. Clyde Umney instructs him to meet the eight o’clock train from Chicago, and shadow one of the pa...

The Maltese Falcon is the definitive masterpiece of the hard-boiled detective genre. It introduces legendary PI Sam Spade, a loner who follows his own code and the rules of the street as he zeros in on his partner’s killer and the famous jewel-encrusted bird. Humphrey Bogart immortalized the tough-guy detective in the classic 1941 film.

A witty and sophisticated mystery featuring bestselling author Josephine Tey's popular Inspector Alan Grant, a beloved character created by a woman considered to be one of the greatest mystery writers of all time.Literary sherry parties were not Alan Grant's cup of tea. But when the Scotland Yard Inspector arrived to pick up actress Marta Hallard for dinner, he was struck by the handsome young American photographer, Leslie Searle. Author Lavinia Fitch was sure her guest "must have ...

A cult classic in the United Kingdom since its first publication there in the 1970s, Don’t Point That Thing at Me is the first of a series of hilarious and dark-humored crime thrillers featuring the Honorable Charlie Mortdecai, degenerate aristocrat, amoral art dealer, seasoned epicurean, unwilling assassin, and acknowledged coward.With his thuggish manservant, the incomparably named Jock Strapp, Mortdecai endures all manner of nastiness involving stolen paintings, a vinta...

In This Sweet Sickness, David Kelsey has an unyielding conviction that life will turn out all right for him; he just has to fix “the situation” of being in love with a married woman. Obsessed with Annabelle and the life he has imagined for them, David prepares to win her over, whatever it takes.In this riveting tale of a deluded loner, Highsmith reveals her uncanny ability to draw out the secret obsessions that overwhelm the human heart.

The Thin Man introduces Nick and Nora Charles, New York’s coolest crime-solving couple.Nick retired from detecting after his wife inherited a tidy sum, but six years later, a pretty blonde spies him at a speakeasy and asks for his help finding her father, an eccentric inventor who was once Nick’s client.Nick can no more resist the case than a morning cocktail or a good fight, and soon he and Nora are caught in a complicated web of confused identiti...

England, 1255. What could drive a girl on the cusp of womanhood to lock herself away from the world forever?Sarah is just seventeen when she chooses to become an anchoress, a holy woman shut away in a cell that measures only seven by nine paces, at the side of the village church. Fleeing the grief of losing a much-loved sister in childbirth as well as pressure to marry the local lord’s son, she decides to renounce the world—with all its dangers, desires, and temptations—and commit ...

Once upon a time, though not so long ago, there was a girl named April Kyle–a beautiful teenage runaway who turned to prostitution to escape her terrible family life. Now, April Kyle’s return in Hundred-Dollar Baby is nothing short of shocking.When a mature, beautiful, and composed woman strides into Spenser’s office, the Boston PI barely hesitates before recognizing his once and future client. Now a well-established madam herself, April is still looking for Spenser’s appro...

Admired by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, and Dashiell Hammett, and hailed as one of the best one hundred English-language novels by Time magazine, The Day of the Locust continues to influence American writers, artists, and culture. Bob Dylan wrote the classic song “Day of the Locusts” in homage, and Matt Groening’s Homer Simpson is named after one of its characters. No novel more perfectly captures the nuttier side of Hollywood. Here the lens is turned on its fring...

“Robert B. Parker is that rarity–a prolific author whose books are consistently original, suspenseful and fascinating. His crackling dialogue is always fresh and smart-alecky. You’re happily hooked before you know it.”-ForbesHeidi Bradshaw is wealthy, beautiful, and well connected–and she needs Spenser’s help. In a most unlikely request, Heidi, a notorious gold digger recently separated from her latest husband, recruits the Boston P.I. to accompany her to her private islan...