Forty mystery stories include works by Edgar Allan Poe, Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ellery Queen, Ross Macdonald, John MacDonald, Ruth Rendell, Dick Francis, P.D. James, Bill Pronzini, Donald Westlake, and Lawrence Block

A collection of ten detective, mystery, and thriller plays first produced in the mid-twentieth century, several of which were later adapted into motion pictures.

Agatha Christie is the world's most popular fiction writer; her works have been outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Best remembered for her classic crime novels such as Murder on the Orient Express and And Then There Were None, her works have been cherished by generations of readers. Christie, however, was also a master of the short story and this volume collects some of her finest short pieces. With such masterpieces as 'Witness for the Prosecution' (the basis for the classic film) and 'Three Blind Mice' (the basis for her Mousetrap, the longest-running play in history), as well as some of her lesser known works, including all of her supernatural suspense tales, this collection of twenty-eight ingenious tales displays Agatha Christie's full range as an author.

Stories of murder and mayhem from the first lady of American mystery Masterpieces of Mystery is a scintillating collection of suspenseful tales from pioneering author Anna Katharine Green, one of the first female writers of detective fiction. Tantalizingly tangled plots and unpredictable revelations abound: A young housewife left home alone on Christmas Eve worries about the threat of robbery when a stranger knocks at her door; a daughter checks in to Three Forks Tavern with her mother, only to awaken to find her mother missing and declared dead in the nearby woods; a valuable jewel is stolen at a society ball filled with duplicitous debutantes and dashing gentlemen; and a specter that haunts the apartment of a husband and wife, which may be a good spirit or a harbinger of doom. This collection includes the classic stories “Room No. 3,” “The Staircase at Heart’s Delight,” “The Grey Lady,” “The House in the Mist,” and more. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

Marvin lives with his family under the kitchen sink in the Pompadays' apartment. He is very much a beetle. James Pompaday lives with his family in New York City. He is very much an eleven-year-old boy.After James gets a pen-and-ink set for his birthday, Marvin surprises him by creating an elaborate miniature drawing. James gets all the credit for the picture and before these unlikely friends know it they are caught up in a staged art heist at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that could help recover a famous drawing by Albrecht Dürer. But James can't go through with the plan without Marvin's help. And that's where things get really complicated (and interesting!). This fast-paced mystery will have young readers on the edge of their seats as they root for boy and beetle. In Shakespeare's Secret Elise Broach showed her keen ability to weave storytelling with history and suspense, and Masterpiece is yet another example of her talent. This time around it's an irresistible miniature world, fascinating art history, all wrapped up in a special friendship— something for everyone to enjoy. Masterpiece is a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

In this captivating novel, New York Times bestselling author Fiona Davis takes readers into the glamorous lost art school within Grand Central Terminal, where two very different women, fifty years apart, strive to make their mark on a world set against them. For most New Yorkers, Grand Central Terminal is a crown jewel, a masterpiece of design. But for Clara Darden and Virginia Clay, it represents something quite different. For Clara, the terminal is the stepping stone to her future. It is 1928, and Clara is teaching at the lauded Grand Central School of Art. Though not even the prestige of the school can override the public's disdain for a "woman artist," fiery Clara is single-minded in her quest to achieve every creative success—even while juggling the affections of two very different men. But she and her bohemian friends have no idea that they'll soon be blindsided by the looming Great Depression...and that even poverty and hunger will do little to prepare Clara for the greater tragedy yet to come. By 1974, the terminal has declined almost as sharply as Virginia Clay's life. Dilapidated and dangerous, Grand Central is at the center of a fierce lawsuit: Is the once-grand building a landmark to be preserved, or a cancer to be demolished? For Virginia, it is simply her last resort. Recently divorced, she has just accepted a job in the information booth in order to support herself and her college-age daughter, Ruby. But when Virginia stumbles upon an abandoned art school within the terminal and discovers a striking watercolor, her eyes are opened to the elegance beneath the decay. She embarks on a quest to find the artist of the unsigned masterpiece—an impassioned chase that draws Virginia not only into the battle to save Grand Central but deep into the mystery of Clara Darden, the famed 1920s illustrator who disappeared from history in 1931.