Hugh Greene Boeken

FRAUD, MURDER, POLITICAL INTRIGUE AND HORROR IN FOUR STORIES OF VICTORIAN VILLAINY. The Great Tontine, considered to be Hawley Smart's best book, concerns the unforeseen dangers of trying to make money in a lottery. Arthur Griffiths made a special study of the French police, and his sardonic amusement over their methods is evident in the classic train thriller The Rome Express. In the Fog, Richard Harding Davis's ingeniously plotted novel, is one of the very best accounts of foggy Victorian London. Haunted by figures of strange horror, Richard Marsh's The Beetle shed fascinating sidelights on forgotten aspects of the Victorian age. All in all, a splendid selection of works rescued from dusty oblivion - a rare treat!

The hit BBC series Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, offers a fresh, contemporary take on the classic Arthur Conan Doyle stories, and has helped introduce a whole new generation of fans to the legendary detective. The debut episode took as its inspiration the very first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet - and this edition of Conan Doyle's novel will allow Sherlock fans to discover, or re-discover, the power of that classic story. A Study in Scarlet is the genre-defining work with which popular crime fiction was born. A potent mix of serial murder, suspense, cryptic clues, red herrings and revenge, the novel introduces us to the world-famous characters of Sherlock Holmes, Dr Watson and Inspector Lestrade and sees Sherlock and Dr Watson meet and join forces for the first time as they track a mysterious killer that stalks London's streets. In addition to the original text, this edition also has an introduction by Sherlock co-creator Steven Moffat, who explains how it inspired the Sherlock script.

She drew off her left glove, a delicate, crinkled suede affair, and offered her bare hand to the surgeon...from the polished pink nails of the tapering fingers to the firm, well-moulded wrist, it was distinctly the hand of a woman of ease - one that had never known labour, a pampered hand, Dr Prescott told himself. "The forefinger," she explained calmly, "I should like to have it amputated at the first joint, please." - from Jacques Futrelle's The Superfluous Finger, just one of the stories from this first-rate collection of Edwardian tales of cosmopolitan crime. Cover design: Ivan Holmes

This work contains the following stories: Max Pemberton: 'The Ripening Rubies' Arthur Morrison: 'The Case of Laker, Absconded' Guy Boothby: 'The Dutchess of Wiltshire's Diamonds' Arthur Morrison: 'The Affair of the "Avalanche Bicycle and Tyre Co. Ltd"' Clifford Ashdown: 'The Assyrian Rejuvenator' L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace: 'Madame Sara' Clifford Ashdown: 'The Submarine Boat' William Le Queux: 'The Secret of the Fox Hunter' Baroness Orczy: 'The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway' R. Austin Freeman: 'The Moabite Cipher' Baroness Orczy: 'The Woman in the Big Hat' William Hope Hodgson: 'The Horse of the Invisible' Ernest Bramah: 'The Game Played in the Dark'

Perkis, C.L. The Redhill sisterhood. -- Morrison, A. The loss of Sammy Throckett. -- Donovan, D. The problem of Dead Wood Hall. -- Morrison, A. The case of Janissary. -- Bodkin, M. McD. Murder by proxy. -- Hume, F. The amber beads. -- Bodkin, M. McD. How he cut his stick. -- Meade, L.T. and Halifax, C.A race with the sun. -- Fletcher, J.S. The contents of the coffin. -- Futrelle, J. The mystery of room 666. -- Marsh, R. The man who cut off my hair. -- Whitechurch, V.L. The affair of the German dispatch-box. -- Bramah, E. The tragedy at Brookbend Cottage