Penguin Modern Classics – Crime & Espionage
48 books in this series
Night at the Crossroads
Maigret has been interrogating Carl Andersen for seventeen hours without a confession. He's either innocent or a very good liar. So why was the body of a diamond merchant found at his isolated mansion? Why is his sister always shut away in her room? And why does everyone at Three Widows Crossroads have something to hide?
The Night Manager
At the start of it all, Jonathan Pine is merely the night manager at a luxury hotel. But when a single attempt to pass on information to the British authorities - about an international businessman at the hotel with suspicious dealings - backfires terribly, and people close to Pine begin to die, he commits himself to a battle against powerful forces he cannot begin to imagine.
In a chilling tale of corrupt intelligence agencies, billion-dollar price tags and the truth of the brutal arms trade, John le Carré creates a claustrophobic world in which no one can be trusted.
In a chilling tale of corrupt intelligence agencies, billion-dollar price tags and the truth of the brutal arms trade, John le Carré creates a claustrophobic world in which no one can be trusted.
The Underground Man
Private Detective Lew Archer doesn’t believe in coincidences…
A forest fire has mysteriously broken out in the hills above southern California. Meanwhile, Lew Archer has been asked by a desperate mother to find her six-year-old son. Instead, he discovers the boy’s wealthy father, murdered, and buried in a hole in the ground. The mystery will lead Archer to unearth a tragic, years-old history of abandonment, obsession and illusion, where the past won’t let go of the present – and everything is connected.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Eighteen-year-old Merricat may, or may not be, a mass murderer
Six years ago everyone in the Blackwood family was poisoned by sugar laced with arsenic – everyone, that is, apart from Merricat and her elder sister Constance. They live in peaceful, ordered isolation, away from prying eyes in the nearby village, until one day boorish cousin Charles arrives with designs on their father’s fortune. Whether by practical or magical means, Merricat will do whatever is necessary to protect their home.
The Big Sleep & Farewell, My Lovely
Raymond Chandler created the fast talking, trouble seeking Californian private eye Philip Marlowe for his first great novel The Big Sleep in 1939. Marlowe's entanglement with the Sternwood family - and an attendant cast of colourful underworld figures - is the background to a story reflecting all the tarnished glitter of the great American Dream. The hard-boiled detective's iconic image burns just as brightly in Farewell My Lovely, on the trail of a missing nightclub crooner.
The Black Lizard
A super-criminal - as deadly as she is beautiful - wagers all in an epic battle with a master detective, Akechi Kogoro. No trick is too elaborate, no disguise too fantastic as the two perfectly matched antagonists take turns to outwit each other.
Brat Farrar
A stranger enters the Ashby family home posing as Patrick Ashby, the heir to the family's sizeable fortune. The stranger, Brat Farrar, has been carefully coached on Patrick's mannerisms, appearance and every significant detail of Patrick's early life, up to his thirteenth year when he disappeared and was thought to have drowned himself.
It seems as if Brat is going to pull off this most incredible deception - until old secrets emerge that threaten to jeopardise the imposter's plan and his very life...
It seems as if Brat is going to pull off this most incredible deception - until old secrets emerge that threaten to jeopardise the imposter's plan and his very life...
Game Without Rules
Behrens and Calder are two secret agents living in the English countryside, desperately seeking a quiet life. But despite their best efforts, they find themselves repeatedly obliged to wipe out a host of brutal and ingenious traitors, Soviet spies and old Nazis.
Maigret's Revolver
When Maigret's prized gun goes missing, he must travel to London on the trail of a troubled young man on the run. Maigret's Revolver is a wonderful picture of both London and Paris and one of Simenon's most ingenious and satisfying stories.
The Mask of Dimitrios
English crime novelist Charles Latimer is travelling in Istanbul when he makes the acquaintance of Turkish police inspector Colonel Haki. It is from him that he first hears of the mysterious Dimitrios - an infamous master criminal, long wanted by the law, whose body has just been fished out of the Bosphorus. Fascinated by the story, Latimer decides to retrace Dimitrios' steps across Europe to gather material for a new book. But, as he gradually discovers more about his subject's shadowy history, fascination tips over into obsession. And, in entering Dimitrios' criminal underworld, Latimer realizes that his own life may be on the line.
Other Paths to Glory
Paul Mitchell spends his days researching the carnage of the First World War in the silence of the library. But his peace is shattered by an unexpected visit from a man with a fragment of a German trench map - and a lot of questions. Why does Dr David Audley of the MOD want to know what really happened during the Battle of the Somme in 1916?
When Paul is attacked on his way home and a forged suicide note appears, it's clear that someone wants him dead. As he becomes deeper embroiled in Audley's case, It seems that Paul could hold the key to a dangerous mystery that has its roots in the horrors of the trenches...
When Paul is attacked on his way home and a forged suicide note appears, it's clear that someone wants him dead. As he becomes deeper embroiled in Audley's case, It seems that Paul could hold the key to a dangerous mystery that has its roots in the horrors of the trenches...
Payment Deferred
Mr Marble is in serious debt, desperate for money to pay his family's bills, until the combination of a wealthy relative, a bottle of Cyanide and a shovel offer him the perfect solution. Slowly the Marble family becomes poisoned by guilt, and caught in a trap of secrets, fear and blackmail. Then Mrs Marble ensures that retribution comes in the most unexpected of ways...
Sleeping Dog
Serendipity Dahlquist is a headstrong roller-blading teenager living in LA who has lost her dog. She asks private investigator Leo Bloodworth to help her find the missing pet. In what proves to have been a moment of madness, Bloodworth agrees to take on the case, unleashing an appalling--but also extremely entertaining--series of extremely homicidal events.
Sleeping Dog remains, almost 40 years after its publication, one of the most wonderful crime debuts: by turns charming, hilarious and pathological, Lochte's novel is a great celebration of everything that is most deplorable and hair-raising about California in the 1980s.
Sleeping Dog remains, almost 40 years after its publication, one of the most wonderful crime debuts: by turns charming, hilarious and pathological, Lochte's novel is a great celebration of everything that is most deplorable and hair-raising about California in the 1980s.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
George Smiley, who is a troubled man of infinite compassion, is also a single-mindedly ruthless adversary as a spy.
The scene which he enters is a Cold War landscape of moles and lamplighters, scalp-hunters and pavement artists, where men are turned, burned or bought for stock. Smiley's mission is to catch a Moscow Centre mole burrowed thirty years deep into the Circus itself.
The scene which he enters is a Cold War landscape of moles and lamplighters, scalp-hunters and pavement artists, where men are turned, burned or bought for stock. Smiley's mission is to catch a Moscow Centre mole burrowed thirty years deep into the Circus itself.
Beast in the Shadows
A reclusive writer of detective stories, Oe Shundei, has gone missing, leaving behind a suspicious trail of blackmailing letters to a former lover. Another detective novelist, his rival, is the only one who can find him. A sequence of macabre and appalling events follows.
Call for the Dead
After a routine security check by George Smiley, civil servant Samuel Fennan apparently kills himself. When Smiley finds Circus head Maston is trying to blame him for the man's death, he begins his own investigation, meeting with Fennan's widow to find out what could have led him to such desperation. But on the very day that Smiley is ordered off the enquiry he receives an urgent letter from the dead man. Do the East Germans - and their agents - know more about this man's death than the Circus previously imagined?
Le Carré's debut novel, Call for the Dead, introduced the tenacious and retiring George Smiley in a gripping tale of espionage and deceit.
Le Carré's debut novel, Call for the Dead, introduced the tenacious and retiring George Smiley in a gripping tale of espionage and deceit.