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Great Detectives: A Century of the Best Mysteries from England and America

For enthralling suspense and brilliant detection, there has never been a collection to match this one, with complete novels by Ross Macdonald and Ruth Rendell, a novella by Israel Zangwill, and sixteen short stories by the best mystery writers from England and America — Dorothy Sayers, G.K. Chesterton, Agatha Christie, Robert van Gulik, William Faulkner, Dashiell Hammett, Edmund Cripn, Raymond Chandler, Ellery Queen, Rex Stout, Ray Bradbury, P.D. James, Donald Westlake, and Ed McBain. From Zangwill's 1892 classic The Big Bow Mystery to James's never-before-published “The Murder of Santa Clause,” these detective stories offer every kind of tension, shock and intrigue — a century's worth of excitement.

The New York Times has called Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer novels “the best series of detective novels by an American,” and The Chill is vintage Archer. His investigation of the disappearance of a bride on her honeymoon leads him to a small southern California college and to three related murders spinning two decades and half a continent.

In Ruth Rendell's Death Nothes, Inspector Wexford is called upon to investigate the accidental death of a world-famous flutist. As he probes the case, he discovers false identities, odd coincidences, and the certainty that the death was no accident, but a meticulously planned murder.

Dashiell Hammett's private eye Sam Spade appears only in The Maltese Falcon — and in three short stories, “A Man Called Spade,” “They Can Only Hang You Once,” and “Too Many Have Lived.” All three are included here — together for the first time in decades.

Featuring Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlow, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe, Dorothy Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey, and the formidable Ellery Queen, Great Detectives assembles the star sleuths of the last century and a dazzling array of tales — the best by the best.

Contents:

Foreword / David Willis McCullough

— The Big Bow Mystery — Israel Zangwill

— The Queen’s Square — Dorothy L. Sayers

— The Invisible Man — G. K. Chesterton

— The Girl in the Train — Agatha Christie

— The Murder on the Lotus Pond — Robert van Gulik

— Hand Upon the Waters — William Faulkner

— The Sam Spade Stories — Dashiell Hammett

— A Man Called Spade — Dashiell Hammett

— They Can Only Hang You Once — Dashiell Hammett

— Too Many Have Lived — Dashiell Hammett

— The Hunchback Cat — Edmund Crispin

— Trouble is My Business — Raymond Chandler

— The Adventure of Abraham Lincoln’s Clue — Ellery Queen

— See No Evil — Rex Stout

— Yesterday I Lived! — Ray Bradbury

— The Chill — Ross Macdonald

— The Murder of Santa Claus — P. D. James

— Never Shake a Family Tree — Donald E. Westlake

— Death Notes — Ruth Rendell

— Sadie When She Died — Ed McBain

  • Format
  • hardcover
  • Pages
  • 728
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9780394540658
  • Genres
  • mystery, fiction, anthologies, noir
  • Release date
  • 1984