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Crime, Thrillers and Mystery — page 2
333 public-domain crime, thrillers and mystery books, summarised. Page 2 of 7.
Masterpieces of Mystery in Four Volumes: Detective Stories
Unknown
This collection assembles the foundational voices of detective fiction, charting the evolution of the genre from the cold, analytical brilliance of early masters to the complex investigative methods of modern sleuths.
The Forsaken Inn: A Novel
Anna Katharine Green
An eerie, dilapidated inn hides a lethal secret behind its oak-paneled walls. A haunting investigation unfolds, revealing a legacy of betrayal, lost love, and the relentless reach of past crimes.
Messengers of Evil: Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantômas
Pierre Souvestre
A mysterious arch-villain terrorizes Paris, leaving a trail of bodies, forged notes, and ruined lives that outsmart the city's best detectives.
A Stable for Nightmares
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
A array of uncanny encounters and dark secrets unfolds across a landscape of haunted manor houses, treacherous roads, and unseen forces.
The man in the dark
J. A. (John Alexander) Ferguson
A desperate man wandering through a suffocating London fog accepts a strange midnight assignment, only to find himself entangled in a high-stakes murder inquiry and a dangerous getaway across the English countryside.
The Upper Berth
F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
A heavy dampness in the air, the rank smell of stagnant salt water, and an unseen presence that unfastens a brass porthole from the inside to drag a passenger down into the depths.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844
Various
A Victorian-era periodical offering a diverse range of articles on crime, travel, literature, politics, and social issues, reflecting the concerns and interests of its time.
Emil and the detectives
Erich Kästner
A young boy’s trip to Berlin becomes a high-stakes adventure when his money is stolen by a mysterious man in a stiff hat, forcing him to assemble a ragtag army of city children to reclaim his honor.
The death of a millionaire
G. D. H. (George Douglas Howard) Cole
The mystery of a missing millionaire and a seemingly impossible crime unravels through a labyrinth of international finance, Russian revolution, and the shifting loyalties of those desperate for a fortune.
The enterprising burglar
Hearnden Balfour
The "enterprising burglar" of this mystery is a man living a double life, balancing the thrill of clandestine crime with a hidden, high-stakes crusade for the soul of post-war England. As he maneuvers through the fog of London, he must outwit a shadowy, charismatic leader while navigating his own deepening feelings…
Unwise Child
Randall Garrett
This taut, clever piece of mid-century science fiction follows an unconventional engineer drafted into a high-stakes mission to secure an unstable, world-altering artificial intelligence. It is a brisk, dialogue-driven mystery that explores the collision of human fallibility and machine logic.
Murder at the vicarage
Agatha Christie
The quiet, claustrophobic atmosphere of an English village proves a deadly setting when a local magistrate is found shot dead in the vicar’s study. A seemingly mismatched pair of sleuths must cut through a tangle of false confessions and local gossip to uncover the truth.
The La Chance Mine Mystery
Susan Morrow Jones
A missing horse, a shadowed wilderness, and a girl who is not who she claims to be.
Great short stories, Volume 1 (of 3)
Unknown
A dark room, a locked door, and a bloody mystery that defies all human reason.
The Maltese falcon
Dashiell Hammett
A weary private investigator navigates a web of deceit when a beautiful, duplicitous client entangles him in a hunt for a priceless, long-lost statuette. In a world where truth is a tactical advantage, loyalty is the first thing sacrificed.
"No Clue!": A Mystery Story
James Hay
A wet summer night on a Virginia estate, a dead woman on the lawn, and four men standing over her who each secretly believe another is the killer.
The secret of the old clock
Carolyn Keene
A determination to see justice done leads a quick-thinking young woman into a web of vanished fortunes and hidden clues.
Dark power
Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
A young woman finds herself trapped in a web of family malice and inherited greed, forced to rely on her own quiet courage to survive a nightmare of manipulation.
Uncanny Tales
Various
This collection of dark, atmospheric short stories explores the thin boundary between the rational world and the encroaching unknown. It serves as a classic example of Edwardian-era fiction that finds menace in the mundane and terror in the inexplicable.
Arsène Lupin
Maurice Leblanc
A legendary cat burglar assumes the identity of a deceased Duke, leading a high-stakes cat-and-mouse game against a persistent detective. The master thief’s wit and audacity prove nearly impossible to cage.
The Woman of Mystery
Maurice Leblanc
A French officer hunts for his kidnapped wife through the war-torn ruins of the First World War, encountering a shadowy, murderous conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of the German Empire.
The Jewel of Seven Stars
Bram Stoker
An antique talisman, a dormant Egyptian queen, and a father’s obsessive experiment draw a young barrister into a realm where ancient magic threatens modern sanity.
Judith Lee
Richard Marsh
Deafness in her family gave Judith Lee an extraordinary knack for lip-reading across any room, an skill that plunges her into London’s darkest, most unexpected criminal webs.
Partners in crime
Agatha Christie
A lighthearted plunge into the world of interwar espionage and amateur sleuthing, where domestic boredom transforms into high-stakes adventure.
Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences
Unknown
An anonymous collector’s stark chronicle of Eighteenth-century London crime reveals how poverty, liquor, and bad company led hundreds to the executioner’s rope.
A Book of Remarkable Criminals
H. B. (Henry Brodribb) Irving
Driven by dark passions and cold calculation, these portraits explore the intersection of motive and action in the lives of history’s most notorious offenders.
The Beckoning Hand, and Other Stories
Grant Allen
The macabre and the mundane collide in these Victorian tales, where quiet English drawing rooms and remote tropical shores alike harbor dark, irreparable secrets. This collection of short stories masterfully explores the fragility of human composure when confronted by sudden, irrevocable catastrophe.
The wolves and the lamb
J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
A naive young heir steps into a London underworld of calculated greed, unaware that his vast fortune has already been marked by the predatory figures circling his life.
813
Maurice Leblanc
A gentleman thief finds his legendary reputation weaponized against him as he navigates a labyrinthine conspiracy involving European monarchs and a series of brutal, high-stakes murders.
The Best Ghost Stories
Unknown
We are all, perhaps, as full of superstition as we are of secrets; we only require the right story to set those hidden shadows loose.
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary Part 2: More Ghost Stories
M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
The boundaries between the mundane and the malevolent are dangerously thin, particularly for the curious scholar or the careless collector of antiquities. These tales explore the quiet terror that erupts when the past refuses to stay buried.
The Hollow Needle
Maurice Leblanc
A brilliant young student pits his wits against a legendary gentleman burglar to uncover the secret of the French kings, leading to a confrontation that blurs the line between hunter and hunted.
The Crystal Stopper
Maurice Leblanc
This is a high-stakes game of shadows and secrets, where a master of disguise races against a ticking clock to save two condemned lives from a corrupt political predator. It is a classic thriller of wit, obsession, and the thin line between justice and vengeance.
The hidden staircase
Carolyn Keene
When a sinister visitor threatens her father’s legal practice and a pair of elderly sisters find their decaying estate haunted by strange noises and hidden threats, teenager Nancy Drew steps forward to untangle the web of intimidation.
Marquise Brinvillier: Celebrated Crimes
Alexandre Dumas
A cold, chilling portrait of 17th-century aristocratic corruption, this chronicle unmasks how passion, greed, and terrifying chemical craftiness destroyed an entire family from within.
Murder in Paris
Alice Campbell
A young American woman in Paris finds herself trapped in a lethal conspiracy, caught between a deceptive maid and a man she barely knows but desperately needs.
File No. 113
Emile Gaboriau
A prominent Paris banker faces ruin when his vault is emptied, sparking a desperate investigation that uncovers long-buried secrets and tests the limits of loyalty.
The Silent Bullet
Arthur B. (Arthur Benjamin) Reeve
HOOK A university chemistry professor applies rigorous laboratory science to New York City’s most baffling crimes, treating the pursuit of justice as an exact, experimental discipline.
Confessions of a Thug
Meadows Taylor
A ruthless assassin recounts his bloody career across nineteenth-century India, offering a chillingly calm, detailed window into a secret brotherhood that treated mass murder as a sacred and profitable trade.
True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office
Arthur Cheney Train
Behind the courtroom door lies a theater of real human desperation, where truth outpaces fiction and every criminal scheme eventually leaves its undeniable mark.
The House of the White Shadows
B. L. (Benjamin Leopold) Farjeon
Driven by an uncompromising thirst for legal justice, a master advocate secures the acquittal of a brutal murderer in Geneva, only to find his own household unraveling under the ominous weight of domestic secrets, guilt, and moral reckoning.
The money-spider
William Le Queux
When money troubles and dark secrets push a Nordic harbour-master to the edge, an unexpected Russian romance sets off a deadly chain of jealousy, murder, and high-stakes intrigue across the Arctic and London.
A Book of Scoundrels
Charles Whibley
Criminals are often measured by their impact on the law, but they deserve a more nuanced appraisal as masters of their own peculiar, dark arts. This collection elevates the rogue to the status of an artist.
Derues: Celebrated Crimes
Alexandre Dumas
A master of the art of deception, an unassuming shopkeeper commits a series of calculated murders under the veneer of profound piety. This historical account meticulously reconstructs a life defined by cold-blooded, persistent criminality.
Other People's Money
Emile Gaboriau
The quiet of a respectable Parisian household is shattered when the head of the family vanishes, leaving behind a trail of financial ruin and a web of criminal intrigue. This classic mystery unravels the devastating consequences of greed and the desperate search for justice in the heart of 1870s France.
The Outlaws of Cave-in-Rock: Historical Accounts of the Famous Highwaymen and River Pirates
Otto A. Rothert
A limestone cavern along the Ohio River serves as the physical anchor for decades of frontier bloodletting, river piracy, and organized crime.
The Wind in the Rose-Bush, and Other Stories of the Supernatural
Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
In six quiet New England tales, the domestic routine of ordinary homes is shattered when uninvited entities manifest through ordinary household objects.
The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales: Including Stories by Feodor Mikhailovitch Dostoyevsky, Jörgen Wilhelm
Various
Darkness, obsession, and fatal errors bind these European tales, where a single miscalculation or buried secret drives men and women toward inevitable ruin.