Showing titles in Traditional Detectives

Mrs McGinty died from a brutal blow to the back of her head. Suspicion fell immediately on her shifty lodger, James Bentley, whose clothes revealed traces of the victim's blood and hair. Yet something was amiss: Bentley just didn't look like a murderer.

The tranquillity of a cruise along the Nile is shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway has been shot through the head. She was young, stylish and beautiful, a girl who had everything – until she lost her life. Hercule Poirot recalls an earlier outburst by a fellow passenger: ‘I’d like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger.’ Yet in this exotic setting’ nothing is ever quite what it seems....

Paul Temple swings into the '60s with five complete radio dramas featuring the writer-cum-amateur detective and his wife, Steve, plus bonus archive material. Between 1938 and 1968, Paul and Steve's exploits enthralled generations of radio listeners around the world. Here, presented in chronological order, are 'The Gilbert Case' (1960 remake), 'The Margo Mystery' (1961), 'The Jonathan Mystery' (1963 remake), 'The Geneva Mystery' (1965) and 'The Alex Affair' (1968). This set also includes the bonus radio feature 'Peter Coke and the Paul Temple Affair'.

London’s Slough House is where disgraced MI5 spies go to while away what’s left of their washed-up careers. Now they have a chance at redemption. An old Cold War-era spy is found dead on a bus outside Oxford, far from his usual haunts. Slough House’s head honcho, the despicable, irascible Jackson Lamb is convinced Dickie Bow was murdered.

Aslan Kennedy has an idyllic life as leader of a spiritual retreat for wealthy holidaymakers on one of the Caribbean's most unspoilt islands, Saint Marie. Until he's murdered, that is. The case seems open and shut: when Aslan was killed, he was inside a locked room with only five other people, one of who has already confessed to the murder. Detective Inspector Richard Poole is hot, bothered, and fed up with talking to witnesses who'd rather discuss his aura than their whereabouts at the time of the murder.

A year after a calamitous blunder by the Russian secret service left a British citizen dead from novichok poisoning, Diana Taverner is on the warpath. What seems a gutless response from the government has pushed the Service's First Desk into mounting her own counter-offensive—but she's had to make a deal with the devil first. And given that the devil in question is arch-manipulator Peter Judd, she could be about to lose control of everything she's fought for.

June Whitfield returns as the deceptively mild spinster sleuth in three full-cast BBC Radio 4 dramatisations. Specially broadcast to mark the 125th anniversary of Agatha Christie's birth, these brand new dramas are based on three of her best short stories.

Spring, 1909, and Lady Hardcastle, amateur sleuth and all-round eccentric, is enjoying a well-deserved rest. But a week after a trip to the cattle market, Spencer Caradine, a local farmer, turns up dead in the pub, face-down in his beef and mushroom pie. Once again, it is up to Lady Hardcastle and her maid, Florence, to solve the case. Armed with wit and whimsy, not to mention Florence’s mean right hook, the pair set out to discover what really happened and why. Was it poison or just ill luck?

In utter disbelief Miss Marple read the letter addressed to her from the recently deceased Mr Rafiel—an acquaintance she had met briefly on her travels. Recognising in Miss Marple a natural flair for justice, Mr Rafiel had left instructions for her to investigate a crime after his death. The only problem was, he had failed to tell her who was involved or where and when the crime had been committed. It was most intriguing.

Detective Constable Angus MacVicar has just landed his dream job – transferred out of uniform and assigned to Oldcastle’s biggest ongoing murder investigation: Operation Telegram, hunting the “Fortnight Killer”. Every two weeks another couple is targeted. One victim is left at the scene, their corpse used as a twisted message board. The second body is never seen again. This should be the perfect chance for Angus to prove himself, but instead of working on the investigation’s front line, he’s lumbered with the forensic psychologist from hell.

Just after midnight, a snowdrift stopped the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train was surprisingly full for the time of the year. But by the morning there was one passenger fewer. An American lay dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside.

Sir Stafford Nye's journey home from Malaysia to London takes an unexpected twist in the passenger lounge at Frankfurt: a young woman confides in him that someone is trying to kill her.

In the green depths of spring, morning breaks on a woman splayed in a bed of flowers - her eyes wide, her neck broken. Her death is a mystery; so is the woman herself. But as Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his team peer into the dark corners of the victim's past, they expose a secret that rots at the very heart of their community - a secret that will implicate someone they've trusted for years. And as Gamache knows too well, in the flickering shadows of death, the truth may be just a trick of the light.

Autumn is the season of misty mornings and cosy nights in, but as the leaves begin to fall the nights get longer and the shadows grow darker… Secluded cottages, eerie manors and ghostly hauntings and cursed tombs abound in this collection of 12 supernatural mysteries and murderous plots featuring Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple and Agatha Christie’s other favourite detectives.

Wealthy Sir Hubert Handesley's original and lively weekend house parties are deservedly famous. To amuse his guests, he has devised a new form of the fashionable Murder Game, in which a guest is secretly selected to commit a 'murder' in the dark, and everyone assembles to solve the crime. But when the lights go up this time, there is a real corpse....

An original story from the creator and writer of the hit BBC One TV series Death in Paradise, featuring on-screen favourite detective DI Richard Poole. Supermodel Polly Carter was famed for her looks and party-girl lifestyle. Now she's dead, apparently having thrown herself from the clifftop near her home on the island of Saint-Marie. Those who knew her say Polly would never have killed herself...and when he is called in to investigate, DI Richard Poole is inclined to agree there is more to Polly's death than meets the eye.

Meet DI Hilary Greene, a policewoman fighting to save her career. Not only has she lost her husband, but his actions have put her under investigation for corruption. Then a bashed and broken body is found floating in the Oxford Canal. It looks like the victim fell off a boat, but Hillary is not so sure. Her investigation exposes a dark background to the death. Can Hillary clear her name and get to the bottom of a fiendish conspiracy on the water?

A classic Marple mystery, read by the inimitable Richard E. Grant. Rex Fortescue, king of a financial empire, was sipping tea in his ‘counting house' when he suffered an agonising and sudden death. On later inspection, the pockets of the deceased were found to contain traces of cereals. Yet, it was the incident in the parlour which confirmed Jane Marple's suspicion that here she was looking at a case of crime by rhyme.

Mrs Packington felt alone, helpless, and utterly forlorn. But her life changed when she stumbled upon an advertisement in The Times which read: "ARE YOU HAPPY? IF NOT, CONSULT MR PARKER PYNE". Equally adept at putting together the pieces of a marriage or the fragments of a murder mystery, Mr Parker Pyne was possibly the world's most unconventional private eye, and certainly its most charming.

Here are 12 ingenious, witty mysteries showing the author at her best, including: the curious disappearance of Lord Listerdale, the strange meeting on a train of a feckless man and a beautiful girl, and Philomel Cottage and the extraordinary country house visit of Edward Robinson. Each is expertly narrated by Hugh Fraser.