|
|
1
|
Fifty Candles
by Earl Derr Biggers
|
|
Earl Derr Biggers (1884-1933) is best remembered as the creator of Chinese detective Charlie Chan, whose long-running series of exploits (portrayed in the movies first by Warner Oland and later Sidney Toler) made him a world-famous character from the 1930s to the 1950s. At the height of the series, Charlie Chan was nearly on par with Sherlock Holmes ... and he spawned such Oriental detective imitators as Mr. Moto and Mr. Wong. Biggers had always been interested in mystery fiction, but his intere... more info>> (Published: 2001)
Words: 22950 - Reading Time: 65-91 min.
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
29 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
2
|
In the Heat of the Night
by John Ball
|
|
Few detective novels can make as strong a claim to social and political relevance as John Ball's 1965 mystery, In the Heat of the Night. Its protagonist, a black police officer from Pasadena California named Virgil Tibbs, passes through a southern town at an inauspicious moment. An orchestra conductor has been gruesomely murdered, and the police, without much in the way of evidence or possible motives for the crime, arrest Tibbs. When the police discover that he is not the killer, but in fact a ... more info>>
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
12 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
3
|
American Sextet
by Warren Adler
|
|
A political sex scandal of massive proportions! A beautiful young woman dressed in white is found at the bottom of the Duke Ellington Memorial Bridge. Was it a suicide or murder? Fiona FitzGerald, possessed by a painful personal dilemma, is determined to find out, even if her demons might drive her from the police force. As Fiona goes deeper into the fire, a sexual conspiracy is uncovered involving six men from the highest offices in the country--a great American Sextet! (Published: 1983)
Words: 73000 - Reading Time: 208-292 min.
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
25 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
4
|
Grow Your Own
by Brenda Clough
|
|
The naked city holds a hundred secrets, including talking house plants and a witch with an innovative business plan. (Published: 2000)
Words: 3186 - Reading Time: 9-12 min.
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
26 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
5
|
Bimbos of the Death Sun
by Sharyn McCrumb
|
|
Sharyn McCrumb's Bimbos of the Death Sun is a strange work. Ostensibly a mystery novel complete with a murder and an array of suspects with plausible motives, it won an Edgar Award in 1988 for Best Original Paperback Mystery. Although we follow the plot, curious to know who killed famed novelist Appin Dungannon and why, the fact is that what happens in this novel is in some ways much less important than where it happens. Bimbos of the Death Sun is not a mystery that merely happens to be set at a... more info>>
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
19 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
6
|
The Anderson Tapes
by Lawrence Sanders
|
|
With clockwork precision, Lawrence Sanders outlines the inspiration, planning and execution of an ambitious robbery of an apartment building on New York's Upper East Side in The Anderson Tapes, the best-selling thriller that established him as one of the most popular suspense writers of his generation. The premise is clever--the entire story is told in surveillance tape transcripts and reports from law enforcement agencies, each of which seems to be observing some aspect of the situation in whic... more info>> (Published: 2002) Edgar Award Winner
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
1 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
7
|
The Eye of the Beholder
by Lillian Stewart Carl
|
|
All signs point to murder in "The Eye of the Beholder." A wounded American pilot in WWII England discovers that a horoscope can be a deadly weapon, and that the battle he sees before him is not the only one he has to fight. (Published: 2001)
Words: 8400 - Reading Time: 24-33 min.
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
18 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
8
|
Senator Love
by Warren Adler
|
|
Dare to resist him. The stunning wife of the Austrian Ambassador is kidnapped and murdered. The bones belonging to a vanished young girl are discovered. Both share the same starling clues that point to a powerful, seductive and womanizing Senator. Besides solving the mystery, will Fiona FitzGerald submit to the powerful sexual forces of "Senator Love?" (Published: 1991)
Words: 78687 - Reading Time: 224-314 min.
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
24 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
9
|
Raffles Holmes & Company
by John Kendrick Bangs
|
|
A Wildside Mystery Classic. In Raffles Holmes & Company, the son of Sherlock Holmes (who also happens to be the grandson of debonaire thief A. J. Raffles (the literary creation of E. W. Hornung) decides to have his own adventures published. Upon selecting the man who will chronicle his life (much as Watson did for Holmes's adventures), we get the tale of Raffles' astonishing origin, followed by an exciting series of adventures involving burglary, extortion, armed robbery, and more--with Raffles ... more info>> (Published: 2002)
Words: 33702 - Reading Time: 96-134 min.
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
22 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
10
|
Copycats
by Michael Arnzen
|
|
Corky always knew the kid was a wannabe, and it came as no surprise to him that he was being paid to copy another man's tattoo onto his body. But by the time he discovered whose tattoo it really was, it was far too late to change the boy's destiny. (Published: 1992)
Words: 2526 - Reading Time: 7-10 min.
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
20 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
11
|
The Repulsive Story of the Red Leech
by David Langford
|
|
A borderline-SF case for Holmes; one of the stories that Watson mentions in the sacred texts but never wrote up. The revolting Red Leech, Sanguisuga rufa, is even more sinister than it looks.... [Authorized by the Doyle estate.] (Published: 1997)
Words: 5382 - Reading Time: 15-21 min.
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
59 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
12
|
Receiver
by Michael Arnzen
|
|
A game of phone tag turns out horribly wrong in this short-short crime story about a love triangle and one woman's frustrated plans to escape to the Bahamas, told completely through answering machine messages. (Published: 1989)
Words: 1385 - Reading Time: 3-5 min.
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
14 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
13
|
Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
by Agatha Christie
|
|
While playing golf one day, Bobby hears a yell and then finds that a man has fallen off a mist-shrouded cliff at the seventeenth hole and broken his back. Bobby hears the dying man's words, "Why didn't they ask Evans?" and stays with him until help arrives. The mysterious phrase means nothing to Bobby and what's more, he is an incurious sort of chap. So after the inquest, he returns to his daily preoccupations, and thinks little about the death of the mysterious stranger. Whoever pushed the unfo... more info>> (Published: 2002)
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
13 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
14
|
As Strange a Maze as E'er Men Trod
by David Langford
|
|
What was the real crime committed in Shakespeare's The Tempest, and by whom? Unsatisfied with the happy ending, Gonzalo investigates.... There's a subtle clue in the epigraph quotation, which genuinely comes from Shakespeare's play. (Published: 1998)
Words: 3810 - Reading Time: 10-15 min.
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
23 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
15
|
Lizzie off the Bench
by Rob Holden
|
|
Just prior to her seventieth birthday, the Honorable Judge Elizabeth R. Stanfuss received the unwelcome news that since she didn't have the "good grace and common decency to drop considerately dead" in her sixties, she had reached the age of mandatory retirement. Faced with the prospect of another twenty or so years with nothing much to do, Lizzie hangs up her robes and hangs out her shingle, deciding to practice criminal law. Lizzie off the Bench follows the first year in Lizzie's new career an... more info>> (Published: 2002)
Words: 96725 - Reading Time: 276-386 min.
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
81 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
16
|
Cold as Fire
by Lillian Stewart Carl
|
|
Twelfth century England: Geoffrey, a young clerk working for Archbishop Thomas Becket, is ordered to find a murderer. If the murder was committed by a priest, it will cause further trouble between the archbishop and King Henry II. But it's the accused priest's motive--not to mention the demeanor of Becket himself--that Geoffrey finds to be the most discomforting aspect of the case. (Published: 2000)
Words: 6532 - Reading Time: 18-26 min.
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
33 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
17
|
Victor Lynch the Forger
by Terry McGarry
|
|
Fictions within fictions: an enigma inside a mystery wrapped in a conundrum. Only Sherlock Holmes--as related by Watson, rendered by Theodore Dreiser trying very hard, and failing, to write like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle--could possibly get to the bottom of this. Melancholia, old Irish animosities, and beautiful illuminated manuscripts abound. (Published: 1996)
Words: 7472 - Reading Time: 21-29 min.
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
17 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
18
|
The Case of the Ancient British Barrow
by Terry McGarry
|
|
A shocking Sherlock Holmes story, too scandalous for Watson to publish during his lifetime--and perhaps too controversial even now. (Published: 1998)
Words: 7020 - Reading Time: 20-28 min.
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
51 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
19
|
The Father Thing
by Philip K. Dick
|
|
Science fiction fans will find familiar the premise of Philip K. Dick's 1954 short story "The Father-Thing." In it, a young boy, Charlie, discovers that his father is not actually his father. The man in his house who comes home from work, kisses his mother, sits down to dinner, makes comments about his day at the office may look and talk like the real Mr. Walton, but Charlie knows better. He alone knows the hideous secret: that his real father has been killed, and that an alien now inhabits his ... more info>>
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
37 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
20
|
Details
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
|
|
In post World War II Nevada a returning soldier is accused of murder. Ellery Queen Magazine Reader's Choice Winner
Words: 8752 - Reading Time: 25-35 min.
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
134 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
21
|
Updates
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
|
|
A busy news station scrambles to cover election night in 1984, but they begin receiving threatening phone calls. A fast paced, high tension mystery.
Words: 11627 - Reading Time: 33-46 min.
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
70 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
22
|
Models
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
|
|
A photographer caught up in the world of high-pressure high-fashion must find out why her friend has been brutally murdered. Ellery Queen Magazine Reader's Choice Nominee
Words: 11310 - Reading Time: 32-45 min.
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
88 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
23
|
Scars
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
|
|
A woman who was burned and disfigured in an auto accident musters the courage to join a local gym and swim for exercise, revealing her scars to other people. She never suspected that a simple day of swimming would lead her to be caught up in a murder investigation.
Words: 10726 - Reading Time: 30-42 min.
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
123 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
24
|
Her Mother's Secrets
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
|
|
Violet only had one year of pretty; the year before her boyfriend shot her in the face. She went on to put her life back together and find a man to care for her despite her scars. But now, as an adult, her mother has died and she must arrange the funeral. She had no idea that he would show up at the funeral, and what secrets would be revealed about her mother. (Published: 1999)
Words: 9033 - Reading Time: 25-36 min.
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
116 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
|
|
25
|
Kindred Souls
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
|
|
A woman (who is a nursing home orderly) sees death often enough. But when an elderly cancer patient of some notoriety arrives, she senses that something is strangely wrong about how she has chosen to live out her final days.
Words: 7476 - Reading Time: 21-29 min.
Category: Mystery/Crime
|
92 Reader Ratings:
|
|
BORROW NOW
|
Login 
