When everything has been taken from you . . . There's nothing left to lose. Martin Harris has been in a coma for three days. When he wakes up, otherwise unharmed, he is shocked to discover that no one knows who he is - he no longer exists. Worse still, another man is living Martin's life. His identity, his home,...

Some crooks have tried to snatch the plump son of a business tycoon, and have accidentally made off with his playmate instead. But they're not changing their plan: a payment is to be delivered to them or a small corpse is to be delivered to Inspector Ghote. But what kind of ransom can a mere tailor's boy demand? And, as...

Included here are some of the well-loved Father Brown detective stories, surely among the best in the genre, and a range of poetry, serious and light-hearted - Chesterton wrote some of the best nonsense and satirical verse in the language. The main bias of the selection, however, will be towards his non-fictional prose, where, Dr Ker argues, his real greatness...

John Kelly, once a reporter, always a maverick, has become embroiled in the mystery surrounding a series of disturbing deaths at a tough army training base in the heart of Dartmoor. Several young men and women have died suddenly and tragically, mostly from gunshot wounds that the army claims to have been self-inflicted. There is a plausible explanation for each...

Harry Barnett thought he had left his military career behind, so he is startled when two figures from his past turn up on his doorstep after fifty years. An old friend has organised the reunion to end all reunions: a weekend in the Scottish castle where the ex-comrades took part in a psychological experiment many years before. They haven't seen...

PI John Craine is struggling to cope with the weight of his past. Sixteen years ago his wife, Stacy, was brutally murdered. Craine found her body in their bed. And since then, to escape the pain and the unanswered questions, he has buried himself in work by day, and whisky by night. But one phone call changes everything. The mother...

One summer day Clara Marshall vanished without trace. A few days later, her children, six-year-old Lorraine and five-year-old Janine, also disappeared and were never seen again. Richard Marshall, Clara's heartbroken husband, claimed he had discovered his wife was having an affair with an Australian backpacker and that she had run away with him, taking the children with her, destroying the...

'Leon's books are a joy, and the 19th Venice-based Commissario Brunetti novel is well up to her consistently high standard.' Guardian A Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Bestseller One of Deadly Pleasures Best Novels of the Year __________________________________ As Venice experiences a debilitating heatwave, Commissario Brunetti escapes the city to spend time with his family. For Ispettore Vianello, however, the weather...

When Mitchell is released from prison after serving three years for a vicious attack he doesn't remember, he reluctantly finds himself caught up with Robert Gant, a ruthless lowlife with violent plans. Attempting to stay out of Gant's way, Mitchell finds work as a handyman at the mansion of a faded movie actress. When she eagerly plies him with cash,...

The last novel from the unsurpassed master of American detective fiction, Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man is a genre-defining mystery novel, published in Penguin Modern Classics. Ex-detective Nick Charles plans to spend a quiet Christmas holed up in a hotel suite with his glamorous wife Nora, their pet Schnauzer and a case of good Scotch. But then a bullet-riddled corpse...

Benjamin Malaussène is a downtrodden publisher at Vendetta Press. Treated as a scapegoat by Queen Zabo, doyenne of publishing, he finally resigns, only for Zabo to offer him a starring role. All he has to do is to impersonate the world's best-loved, but hitherto anonymous author, J.L.B. ...

At the heart of truth lies madness... Two months before Hitler's rise to power, a beautiful young woman is found naked and near death in the woods outside Berlin. When she finally wakes from her coma, she can remember nothing, not even her name. The only clue to her identity is a handbill found nearby, advertising a public lecture by...

Meet Fahner, the retired small-town doctor who resorts to the garden axe when his patience with his cruel wife runs out. Or Patrick, so entranced by the sight of his sleeping girlfriend that he cuts a small piece out of her back, just to see what she tastes like. Or the silent assassin who calmly despatches two Neo-Nazi thugs on...

June 1945. The war is over. Early one morning in the hills of Provence, Pierrot, a fifteen-year-old boy out hunting for snails, stumbles across the dead body of Capitaine Patrocle, a celebrated hero of the Resistance. He has been murdered. In the dead man's wallet Pierrot discovers a letter which he conceals under his beret. Its contents provide the key...

An enthralling and visceral thriller from Sunday Times bestselling author Simon Kernick, the UK's answer to Harlan Coben. 'Kernick has produced a first-rate series of contemporary hard-boiled London thrillers, with ... a sympathetic character in Milne.' - SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'A knuckle-clenching ride.' - THE GUARDIAN 'Kernick is excellent at capturing the mean streets where crack deals go down and tourists...