The Queen of Mystery has come to Harper Collins! Agatha Christie, the acknowledged mistress of suspense—creator of indomitable sleuth Miss Marple, meticulous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, and so many other unforgettable characters—brings her entire oeuvre of ingenious whodunits, locked room mysteries, and perplexing puzzles to William Morrow Paperbacks. A sterling collection of short stories featuring Poirot and others, The Golden Ball and Other Stories is a riveting compendium of shocking secrets, dastardly crimes, and brilliant detection—a showcase of Dame Agatha at her very best.Review“Agatha Christie’s puzzles have delighted fans for decades.” (Diane Mott Davidson, New York Times bestselling author ) From the Back CoverIs it a gesture of goodwill or a sinister trap that lures Rupert St. Vincent and his family to a magnificent estate? How desperate is Joyce Lambert, a destitute young widow whose only recourse is to marry a man she despises? What unexpected circumstance stirs old loyalties in Theodora Darrell, an unfaithful wife about to run away with her lover?In this collection of short stories, the answers are as unexpected as they are satisfying. The Queen of Mystery takes bizarre romantic entanglements, supernatural visitations, and classic murder to inventive new heights. Views: 561
Sabotage!!! Agrav. It was the century's most important advance in space travel. . . and an experiment so revolutionary that only the men who huddled beneath the surface of Jupiter Nine were permitted to know its full meaning. Yet someone else did know--knew everything, saw everything, head everything--and was diabolically sabotaging the top-secret mission. Who or what the enemy was, Lucky Starr didn't know. but one thing was certain. The deadly force was not human. . . not even remotely human! Views: 561
With Walter Damascus, a psychopath who likes his women well-off, well-built, and dead, loose on the city, the boys of the 87th Precinct must work overtime. Reissue.**Amazon.com ReviewStephen King and Nelson DeMille on Ed McBain I think Evan Hunter, known by that name or as Ed McBain, was one of the most influential writers of the postwar generation. He was the first writer to successfully merge realism with genre fiction, and by so doing I think he may actually have created the kind of popular fiction that drove the best-seller lists and lit up the American imagination in the years 1960 to 2000. Books as disparate as The New Centurions, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, The Godfather, Black Sunday, and The Shining all owe a debt to Evan Hunter, who taught a whole generation of baby boomers how to write stories that were not only entertaining but that truthfully reflected the times and the culture. He will be remembered for bringing the so-called "police procedural" into the modern age, but he did so much more than that. And he was one hell of a nice man. --*Stephen King Way back in the mid-1970s, when I was a new writer and police series were very big, my editor asked me to do a series called Joe Ryker, NYPD. I had no idea how to write a police detective novel, but the editor handed me a stack of books and said, “These are the 87th Precinct novels by Ed McBain. Read them and you’ll know everything you need to know about police novels.” After I read the first book--which I think was Let’s Hear It for the Deaf Man--I was hooked, and I read every Ed McBain I could get my hands on. Then I sat down and wrote my own detective novel, The Sniper, featuring Joe Ryker. My series never reached the heights of the 87th Precinct series, but by reading those classic masterpieces, I learned all I needed to know about urban crime and how detectives think and act. And I had a hell of a time learning from the master. Years later, when I actually got to meet Ed McBain/Evan Hunter, I told him this story, and he said, “I would have liked it better if my books inspired you to become a detective instead of becoming my competition.” Evan and I became friends, and I was privileged to know him and honored to be in his company. I remain indebted to him for his good advice over the years. But most of all, I thank him for hundreds of hours of great reading. --Nelson DeMille*To read about how Ed McBain influenced other mystery and thriller writers, visit our Perspectives on McBain page.For a complete selection of 87th Precinct novels available from Thomas & Mercer, visit our Ed McBain's 87th Precinct Booklist.About the AuthorEd McBain is one of the most illustrious names in crime fiction. In 1998 he was the first non-British author to be awarded the Crime Writers' Association/Cartier Diamond Dagger Award and he is also a holder of the Mystery Writers of America's coveted Grand Master Award. He has written more than eighty works of fiction, including the heralded 87th Precinct series and the acclaimed Matthew Hope series. His real name is Evan Hunter and he lives in Connecticut. Views: 560
Burn, Witch, Burn! is a classic fantasy/horror and mystery novel by A. Merritt. Originally published as a magazine serial in 1924, and subtitled The Mystery of the Death Dolls - Was it Black Magic? It soon appeared as a book and by 1936 was used as a basis for the 1936 film The Devil Doll, directed by Tod Browning. Known for his science fiction here A. Merritt explores the world of supernatural horror. Dr. Lowell is a neurologist specializing in abnormal psychology. He is investigating a series of horrible deaths in New York. Then he meets Madame Mandilip, a doll shop owner, and her dolls from hell. “The man in the hospital room died a terrible death, slowly and in agony. His eyes were open, and on his face was an extraordinary expression of torror, a fear mixed with horror. There was nothing all the resources of medical science could do for him, not even diagnose his disease. There was no wound, nomarkn, nothing – except little globes of phosphorescence in his blood. And suddenly, at the last moment, a low chuckling sound came from his throat, inhuman, the laughter of a devil. And he was dead, dead with the face of a grinning, triumphant fiend - all humanity wiped from it.” Views: 560
The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn are agog with curiosity when the Gazette advertises A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30 p.m.
A childish practical joke? Or a spiteful hoax? Unable to resist the mysterious invitation, the locals arrive at Little Paddocks at the appointed time when, without warning, the lights go out and a gun is fired. When they come back on, a gruesome scene is revealed. An impossible crime? Only Miss Marple can unravel it. Views: 560
With *Gertrude*, Herman Hesse continues his lifelong exploration of the irreconcilable elements of human existence. In this fictional memoir, the renowned composer Kuhn recounts his tangled relationships with two artists--his friend Heinrich Muoth, a brooding, self-destructive opera singer, and the gentle, self-assured Gertrude Imthor. Kuhn is drawn to Gertrude upon their first meeting, but Gertrude falls in love with Heinrich, to whom she is introduced when Kuhn auditions them for the leads in his new opera. Hopelessly ill-matched, Gertrude and Heinrich have a disastrous marriage that leaves them both ruined. Yet this tragic affair also becomes the inspiration for Kuhn's opera, the most important success of his artistic life. Views: 560
ANNE FERENS liked practically everything about Milham in the Moor where she and her husband, Dr. Raymond Ferens, were to live. But she loathed Monica Torrington, warden of the children’s home, at first sight. Sister Monica, as she was called, was a macabre figure, her height accentuated by the ancient, black nurse’s uniform she wore. She had the dark, unsmiling eves of a fanatic, and Anne was convinced that she was a wicked, wicked woman—one who shouldn’t have small children in her charge.Dr. Raymond Ferens warned Anne not to meddle. Sister Monica was considered a “saint” and she was an unholy power in the village. Still there were furtive rumours—rumours that connected her with the strange death of Nancy Hilton, one of her maids. But as the voting bailiff told Anne, “The village cherishes its own feuds and loyalties and way of life ... but when you make enemies in a village like this, you don’t murder one another...”The bailiff’s philosophy was proved inadequate. The drowned body of Sister Monica was found floating in the millpool. Chief Inspector Macdonald was called in to solve one of the most difficult cases of his career as he unravelled the hidden events and causes that led to the death of a “saint.” Views: 559
Isao is a young, engaging patriot, and a fanatical believer in the ancient samurai ethos. He turns terrorist, organising a violent plot against the new industrialists, who he believes are threatening the integrity of Japan and usurping the Emperor’s rightful power. As the conspiracy unfolds and unravels, Mishima brilliantly chronicles the conflicts of a decade that saw the fabric of Japanese life torn apart. Views: 559
Urien's Voyage is an allegorical account of a sea voyage. From the stagnant, teeming waters of the Sargasso to the frozen Arctic, Gide charts in prose the fantastic journey of the Orion and the sexual and moral transformations of those aboard. The temptations, suffering, and surroundings of Urien and his companions are described with an extraordinary profusion of detail, yet the pilgrims can never be sure of the reality of their experiences. The eponymous Urien is, we now know, the young Andre Gide himself. Written under the spell of the great French Symbolist poet Mallarme, the novel is an illustration of both the techniques and the aesthetic credo of the Symbolist movement. Although written early in the career of this key French thinker and Nobel Prize-Winner, Urien's Voyage is now regarded as a significant work, articulating the powerful tension between sexuality and morality that would preoccupy Gide in his better-known later novels. Views: 559
Delmore Schwartz, the most influential critic in postwar America, wrote of Patrick O'Brian's first novel Testimonies: "A triumph...drawn forward by lyric eloquence and the story's fascination, [the reader] discovers in the end that he has encountered in a new way the sphinx and the riddle of existence itself."
Schwartz' imagination was fired by this sinister tale of love and death set in Wales, a timeless story with echoes of Thomas Hardy and Mary Webb.
Joseph Pugh, sick of Oxford and of teaching, decides to take some time off to live in a wild and beautiful Welsh farm valley. There he falls physically ill and is nursed back to health by Bronwen Vaughn, the wife of a neighboring farmer. Slowly, unwillingly, Bronwen and Pugh fall in love; and while that word is never spoken between them, their story is as passionate and as tragic as that of Vronsky and Anna Karenina. Views: 559
It could be said that only in these short works, with their dramatic clarity and immediacy, did Lawrence fully realize his entirely original vision of the erotic and of the power of the irrational in human affairs. Views: 559
Spain is an immemorial land like no other, one that James A. Michener, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author and celebrated citizen of the world, came to love as his own. Iberia is Michener’s enduring nonfiction tribute to his cherished second home. In the fresh and vivid prose that is his trademark, he not only reveals the celebrated history of bullfighters and warrior kings, painters and processions, cathedrals and olive orchards, he also shares the intimate, often hidden country he came to know, where the congeniality of living souls is thrust against the dark weight of history. Wild, contradictory, passionately beautiful, this is Spain as experienced by a master writer.
BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from James A. Michener's Hawaii.
Praise for *Iberia
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“From the glories of the Prado to the loneliest stone villages, here is Spain, castle of old dreams and new realities.”—The New York Times
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“Massive, beautiful . . . unquestionably some of the best writing on Spain [and] the best that Mr. Michener has ever done on any subject.”—*The Wall Street Journal
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“A dazzling panorama . . . one of the richest and most satisfying books about Spain in living memory.”—Saturday Review
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“Kaleidoscopic . . . This book will make you fall in love with Spain.”—*The Houston Post* Views: 558
Hired to discover why a wild-animal farm's tame lion has become unpredictably nervous, three young detectives begin an investigation that uncovers a smuggling operation. Views: 558
