Classic Crime

Elspeth sees a man strangling a woman in a passing train. But who will take her story seriously? The indomitable Miss Marple of course.

There's a serial killer on the loose, bent on working his way through the alphabet. And as a macabre calling card he leaves beside each victim the ABC Railway Guide open at the name of the town where the murder has taken place. There seems little chance of the murderer being caught - until he makes the vain mistake of challenging Hercule Poirot to frustrate his plans...

When Cora is savagely murdered, the extraordinary remark she made the previous day at her brother Richard's funeral suddenly takes on a chilling significance. At the reading of Richard's will, Cora was clearly heard to say: 'It's been hushed up very nicely, hasn't it! But he was murdered, wasn't he?’. Hercule Poirot studies the case.

A collection of 35 classic Agatha Christie stories of murder and suspense.

Anthony Berkeley was a journalist, novelist, and founding member of the Detection Club - whose members included Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers - and was one of crime fiction's greatest innovators, developing the idea of the psychological crime novel in the 1920s and 30s.

One of his recurring and most-beloved characters was Roger Sheringham, a novelist and amateur detective. In these two classic tales, Roger Sheringham must investigate two terrible murders.

The Poisoned Chocolates Case sees him taking up the challenge when Scotland Yard admits defeat after months of investigations. How was a woman poisoned by a box of chocolates that weren't even intended for her?

In Jumping Jenny, Roger attends a party with the questionable theme 'famous murderers and their victims', only to discover that one difficult guest has been deliberately killed on one of the party's props.

The snow is thick, the phone line is down, and no one is getting in or out of Warbeck Hall. With friends and family gathered round the fire, all should be set for a perfect Christmas, but as the bells chime midnight, a mysterious murder takes place. Who can be responsible? The scorned young lover? The lord's passed-over cousin? The social climbing politician's wife? The Czech history professor? The obsequious butler? And perhaps the real question is: can any of them survive long enough to tell the tale?

Ten strangers, apparently with little in common, are lured to an island mansion off the coast of Devon by the mysterious U.N. Owen. That evening, one of the guests is found murdered by a deadly dose of cyanide. The tension escalates as the survivors realise the killer is not only among them but is preparing to strike again… and again…

George Surridge, director of the Birmingham Zoo, is a man with many worries: his marrige is collapsing; his finances are insecure; and an outbreak of disease threatens the animals in his care.

Among the red cliffs of Petra sat the corpse of Mrs Boynton. A tiny puncture mark on her wrist was the only sign of the fatal injection that had killed her. Hercule Poirot recalled a chance remark he’d overheard back in Jerusalem: ‘You see, don’t you, that she’s got to be killed?’ Mrs Boynton was, indeed, the most detestable woman he’d ever met…

Arthur Conan Doyle is well known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, but he also wrote numerous works in which the great detective played no part. Included here are a selection of the best, ranging from science fiction to tales of supernatural terror and rip-roaring adventures set in Jacobean and Regency England. Our collection opens with the first of three dramas featuring the hot-tempered, larger-than-life scientist and explorer Professor Challenger. 'The Lost World' stars David Robb as Challenger, he heads on an expedition to a plateau in the Amazon Basin. Following this drama we have two further dramatisations starring Bill Paterson as Challenger this time. In 'When the World Screamed', he sets out on a bold mission to be recognised by Mother Earth, while 'The Disintegration Machine' sees him investigating dastardly Latvian inventor Theodore Nemor.

'The Captain of the Polestar' drama tells the chilling story of a ship trapped in the Arctic, and stars Alec Heggie as Craigie, a man haunted by a strange apparition. Also included are the short stories 'Playing With Fire', 'How It Happened', 'One Crowded Hour', 'The Fall of Lord Barrymore', 'The Sealed Room' and 'The Lost Special' (read by Edward de Souza, Sam Dale, Christopher Harper and David Schofield), and the fascinating series Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters, in which Forbes Masson and John Dougal read extracts from his correspondence to his mother about marriage, fatherhood, killing off Holmes and going into politics. Finally, how the author ran for Parliament in 1900 and lost is explored in Bert Coules' biographical drama Vote For Conan Doyle!, starring John Sessions.

When Miss Marple spends a brief holiday in an expensive and highly respectable London hotel, she encounters violence and mystery.

Lord Peter Wimsey first encountered the Attenbury emeralds in 1921, launching his career as a detective. Now it is 1951 and the new young Lord Attenbury - grandson of Lord Peter's first client - seeks his help again, this time to prove who owns the gigantic emerald that Wimsey last saw thirty years ago.

Framed in the doorway of Poirot's bedroom stood an uninvited guest, coated from head to foot in dust. Who was he? Above all, what was the significance of the figure 4, scribbled over and over again on a sheet of paper? Poirot finds himself plunged into a world of international intrigue, risking his life to uncover the truth about 'Number Four'.

Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is working for the Sternwood family. Old man Sternwood, crippled and wheelchair-bound, is being given the squeeze by a blackmailer and he wants Marlowe to make the problem go away. But with Sternwood's two wild, devil-may-care daughters prowling LA's seedy backstreets, Marlowe's got his work cut out - and that's before he stumbles over the first corpse...

When he discovers his secret formula is missing, Sir Claud asks the thief to return it to the library whilst the lights are off. When they go on again Sir Claud is dead and Poirot must find the murderer.

Robert is mismanaging the gallery owned by the Ivory family, and trying to get Frances Ivory to marry his associate. When Robert is found dead in a cupboard a file of family secrets and hatreds comes to light.

Disenchanted with his job in the force, Commander Adam Dalgliesh accepts an invitation to visit a friend, a chaplain at a private nursing home, only to discover that his host has died suddenly.  Book 5 of series.

Fearless journalist Clive Grail is bent on uncovering a scandal of blue films and blackmail in respectable Flaxborough. But when he publishes his revelations of the town's murky past he finds himself at the hub of a much more chilling and sinister crime...

It was eight years since 13-year-old Patrick Ashby vanished and was thought to have drowned himself. Now it seemed, he had returned - just in time to claim the family inheritance. But if Patrick really had committed suicide, who was this mysterious young man claiming to be him and calling himself Brat Farrar?

Inspector Purbright tackles another mystery in the respectable market town of Flaxborough: a ritual killing is being linked to Satanism and black magic, but could it be a smokescreen for the real motive?

One of Flaxborough’s neighbouring towns, Chalmsbury, has been experiencing a series of explosions, which have destroyed several monuments. Inspector Purbright is seconded to the Chalmsbury police force to help try and discover who is responsible.

Agatha Christie has brought back her amateur detectives, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford who become entangled in murders long forgotten.

Mr Shaitana was famous as a flamboyant party host. Nevertheless, Poirot had some reservations about accepting a party invitation to view Shaitana’s private art collection. Indeed, what began as an absorbing evening of bridge was to turn into a more dangerous game altogether…

Jane Marple takes a holiday in the Caribbean where she encounters a retired major who tells her the story of a strange coincidence. Unfortunately he never gets to the end of the story and once more Miss Marple is involved in a murder hunt.

Inspector Maigret is standing in the pouring rain by a canal. A well-dressed woman, Mary Lampson, has been found strangled in a stable nearby. Why did her glamorous, hedonistic life come to such a brutal end here? Surely her taciturn husband Sir Walter knows - or maybe the answers lie with the crew of the barge La Providence...

In the corner of the ABC teashop on Norfolk Street, Polly Burton of the Evening Observer sets down her morning paper, filled with news of the latest outrages, and eagerly waits for her mysterious acquaintance to begin. For no matter how ghastly or confounding the crime, or how fiendishly tangled the plot, the Teahouse Detective can invariably find the solution without leaving the comfort of his café seat. What did happen that tragic night to Miss Elliott? Who knows the truth about the stolen Black Diamonds? And what sinister workings are behind the curious disappearance of Count Collini? The police may be baffled, but rare is the mystery that eludes the brilliant Teahouse Detective.

First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in 1957, these 13 detective dramas are collected together here for the first time. Psychiatrist-detective Dr Morelle is arrogant, sarcastic and rude - but when it comes to catching criminals, he is unparalleled. Using deduction, psychological profiling and his keen, analytical mind, he solves cases ranging from blackmail to murder, aided by his devoted and long-suffering secretary Miss Frayle. Over the course of this series, he investigates the unexplained death of a wealthy French baroness, receives a visit from a man tormented by nightmares, probes the authenticity of a fabled gem and helps a young man in distress - and an old man in danger. Whether it's a terror campaign against a bride-to-be, death threats made to a temperamental film star, or a case of deadly experiments and thwarted love, no mystery is too baffling and no villain too cunning for the Harley Street sleuth.

The Case-book contains the last stories Conan Doyle wrote featuring Sherlock Holmes and the ever faithful Watson.

Two teachers investigate a mysterious flashing light in the sports pavilion. They stumble upon the body of the unpopular games mistress – shot through the heart from point blank range. The school is thrown into chaos when the ‘cat’ strikes again. Unfortunately, schoolgirl Julia Upjohn knows too much. In particular, she knows that without Hercule Poirot’s help, she will be the next victim…

Tinka Jones needs to escape her London life and decides to visit Amista, a friend who lives in an isolated house in the Welsh hills. Stuck in a desolate house on the rain-swept hills she encounters unsettling and bizarre visitations as she sets out to unearth the mystery that surrounds Amista and the house - with chilling consequences.

When Venetia Aldridge Q C defends a young man accused of the brutal murder of his aunt, the case sets in motion a chain of events as terrifying as they are unpredictable.  Book 10 of series.

"I am in great danger … I know that murder is going to be the reward for my uncomplaining loyalty."

This letter containing heartfelt and urgent pleas for help is received by three very eminent citizens of Flaxborough, including the Chief Constable himself. So when one of the town's most tireless charity workers, Mrs Henrietta Palgrove, is found the wrong way up in her garden pond, a connection seems likely.

Yet Detective Inspector Purbright finds the case does not quite add up and it takes the acute wits of his old friend, the ever-charming Miss Lucilla Teatime, as well as the more unwitting help of Mortimer Hive, indifferent private investigator and accomplished ladies' man, to tease out the real murderer.

In the seeming tranquility of Regency Square in Cheltenham live the diverse inhabitants of its ten houses. One summer's evening, the square's rivalries and allegiances are disrupted by a sudden and unusual death - an arrow to the head, shot through an open window at no. 6.

Unfortunately for the murderer, an invitation to visit had just been sent by the crime writer Aldous Barnet, staying with his sister at no. 8, to his friend Superintendent Meredith. Three days after his arrival, Meredith finds himself investigating the shocking murder.

Six of the square's inhabitants are keen members of the Wellington Archery Club, but if Meredith and Long thought that the case was going to be easy to solve, they were wrong...

Six entertaining thrillers featuring slovenly sleuth Chief Inspector Dover, Scotland Yard's most unwanted man

Cantankerous and dishevelled, Chief Inspector Dover is no-one's idea of a model detective - but he does have an uncanny knack for solving crimes. In these radio dramas, set in the 1960s and '70s, he and his long-suffering Sergeant, Charlie McGregor, investigate sinister cases of kidnap and murder. The first four are adapted from Joyce Porter's novels, while the latter two are original stories based on her characters.

Dover Goes to Pott - The irascible Chief Inspector travels to the Yorkshire town of Pott Winckle to look into the murder of leading businessman Daniel Wibbley's daughter.

Dover and the Claret Tappers - When Dover is kidnapped, only to be released 36 hours later, he finds himself leading the hunt for a criminal gang. Can he catch them before they strike again?

Dover Beats the Band - A body is found at Didcaster dump, naked, burned and strangled. Dover follows the trail to Rankin's Holiday Ranch and an eccentric group of stamp collectors - but was the dead man really an innocent philatelist?

Dover and the Unkindest Cut of All - Dover's annual seaside break becomes a busman's holiday after his wife witnesses a policeman throwing himself off a cliff. Was it suicide, and is it linked to the recent murder of a local gangster?

Dover and the Sleeping Beauty - Isabel Slatcher has been in an irreversible coma for eight months after being shot outside her local church. Now she has been smothered to death. Are the shooter and the killer the same person, and if so, why did they wait till now to complete their evil deed?

Dover and the Smoking Gun - McGregor takes compassionate leave to return to Glasgow for an old flame's funeral. But was Fiona Gordon's death accidental, or foul play? Dover heads north to find out...

Kenneth Cranham stars as Chief Inspector Dover and Stuart McQuarrie as Sergeant McGregor, with casts including Carolyn Pickles, Crawford Logan, Shaun Prendergast and Frances Grey.


Produced and directed by David Ian Neville

A collection of ten classic detective stories featuring some of the greatest fictional detectives ever, including: Sherlock Holmes, Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond, Father Brown, Morris Klaw, and Inspector Morse amongst others.

Classic Locked-Room Mysteries is a fascinating collection of ingenious mysteries which all pose the question 'howdunnit?'

Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover.

Locked-room mysteries reached their height of popularity in the Victorian and Edwardian eras; this collection, edited and introduced by David Stuart Davies, brings together stories from such masters of the genre as Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and G. K. Chesterton. In each story the reader is invited to play detective and is presented with a challenge: can you solve the mystery before the solution is revealed?