Penguin Classics: Crime & Thriller

A complex, psychological novel about familial loyalty, new to Penguin Modern Classics. A corporate lawyer from the House of Single & Single is shot dead in cold blood on a Turkish hillside. A children's entertainer in Devon is hauled to his local bank late at night to explain a monumental influx of cash. A Russian freighter is arrested in the...

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré was Le Carre's breakthrough work of 1963; an award-winning number one global bestseller that brought him international renown. It redefined the spy story as a gritty and terrible tale of men who are caught up in politics beyond their imagining. Alex Leamas is tired. It's the 1960s, and...

The Honourable Schoolboy, the second book in John le Carré's revered 'Karla Trilogy' and a distinguished addition to Penguin Modern Classics, delves deep into the shadowy world of espionage with its gripping and intricate narrative. In the aftermath of a shocking betrayal, the once-mighty British Secret Service is left in shambles, and the responsibility of reviving it falls to George...

There is no rest for Inspector Maigret when his seaside holiday leads him to a troubling discovery. At what point in the day could the note have been slipped into his pocket, his left breast pocket? It was an ordinary sheet of glazed squared paper, probably torn out of an exercise book. The words were written in pencil, in a...

A new translation of this novel set in the demi-monde of the sun-soaked Riviera, part of the Maigret series. Half an hour later, he was in Cannes ... White everywhere! Huge white hotels, white shops, white trousers and dresses, white sails out at sea. It was as if life were no more than a pantomime fairy-tale, a white and blue...

A new translation of this gripping novel set in an insular fishing community, part of the new Maigret series. It was indeed a photo, a picture of a woman. But the face was completely hidden, scribbled all over in red ink. Someone had tried to obliterate the head, someone very angry. The pen had bitten into the paper. There were...

The Saint-Fiacre Affair by Georges Simenon features Maigret returning to his home town in a new translation of this thrilling novel, part of the new Maigret series. The Countess of Saint-Fiacre dies from heart failure during mass on All Soul's Day, exactly when the police had been forewarned that a crime would occur.

Liège, the city of Simenon's youth, comes to life in this disturbing Maigret novel. A vast emptiness. The room, in the darkness, seemed big as a cathedral. Warm currents of air still drifted from the radiators. Delfosse struck a match. They paused for a moment to take a breath and get their bearings. And suddenly the match dropped. A piercing...

A new translation of this tragic tale of lost identity, part of the Maigret series. What was the woman doing here? In a stable, wearing pearl earrings, her stylish bracelet and white buckskin shoes! She must have been alive when she got there because the crime had been committed after 10 in the evening. But how? And why? And no...

A devastating tale of misfortune, betrayal and the weakness of family ties, newly translated for the Maigret series. Instead of the detail filling itself in and becoming clearer, it seemed to escape him. The face of the man in the ill-fitting coat just misted up so that it hardly looked human. In theory, this mental portrait was good enough, but...

MAMista is a dramatic departure for Len Deighton, taking readers to the jungles of Spanish Guyana where Marxist revolutionaries are fighting for their lives. Deep in Marxist Guerrilla territory, a hopeless war is being fought. The Berlin Wall is demolished. Marx is dead. Try telling that to Ramon and his desperate men hiding in the jungle, cradling their AK 47s,...

A hard-nosed criminal lawyer gets caught up in a murder in a classic LA thriller. If America is a lunatic asylum, then California is the Violent Ward. Mickey Murphy is a criminal lawyer with an office in LA's downtown low-rent district, an ex-wife who bleeds him for money, and 'clients who would plead the Fifth Amendment if they could count...

A new translation of this novel in which Maigret's leave in the Dordogne is disrupted by some sinister happenings. He recalled his travelling companion's agitated sleep—was it really sleep—his sighs, and his sobbing. Then two dangling legs in their patent leather boots and hand-knitted socks... A lacklustre face. Glazed eyes. And Maigret was not surprised to see a grey beard...

Imperious, clever, mysterious—Maigret meets his match in the alluring form of Felicie. In his mind's eye, he would see that slim figure in the striking clothes, those wide eyes the colour of forget-me-not, the pert nose, and especially the hat: that giddy, crimson bonnet perched on the top of her head with a bronze-green feather shaped like a blade stuck...

The Labyrinth Makers by Anthony Price is a classic Cold War thriller where a crashed plane becomes a case for a civil servant turned detective. A missing plane resurfaces—and so do long-submerged secrets. An RAF Dakota, presumed lost at sea during World War Two, has just been discovered at the bottom of a drained lake over twenty years later. The...

Fast-paced and hard-boiled, this Harlem Detectives novel follows a pile of stolen money—or it would if anyone could find it... Alberta Wright drops dead on the street during a sermon by the charismatic con man Sweet Prophet. Her partner rushes home to avoid the cops, only to find her apartment looted by someone looking for her stash of cash. But...

A murderer targets British historians of the First World War in this 1970s classic. 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...

The Crazy Kill is a classic thriller from the Harlem Detective series, where love, jealousy, and many-peopled mayhem abound. Big Joe Pullen is dead, and his wake is becoming increasingly boozy. During the wake, the opium-addicted Reverend Short falls out of a window while trying to see a thief fleeing the robbed store opposite. Remarkably, his life is saved when...

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is a tale of a boy's picaresque journey down the Mississippi on a raft, capturing the voice and experience of the American frontier as no other work had done before. When Huck escapes from his drunken father and the 'sivilizing' Widow Douglas with the runaway slave Jim, he embarks on a series...

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics – irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas, and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. Georges Simenon's brilliant pipe-smoking detective, Jules Maigret, is one of the most beloved literary creations of the twentieth century. In this adventure, an officer from Scotland Yard is studying Maigret's methods when a call from...

In this cautionary tale, a ruthless businessman finally gets his comeuppance. When a wealthy wine merchant is shot and killed in Paris, Inspector Maigret must investigate a long list of family, colleagues, and lovers to uncover just who could have committed the crime. Delving into the depths of the man's personality, Maigret discovers that the victim may have made one...

The final novel in the trailblazing Harlem Detective series, set in a New York City at boiling point. Bawdy and tough-talking, wickedly funny and wantonly sensual, Blind Man with a Pistol is a surreal joyride through Harlem in a heatwave. Detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson are side-tracked from investigating a series of organised race riots when a...

A seminal work of science fiction—an unnerving vision of the consequences of unchecked overpopulation. The planet's population has exploded. The 35 million inhabitants of New York City run their TVs off pedal power, riot for water, trample for lentil 'steaks', and sweat beneath a sweltering sun. Amid it all, a city cop tries to catch a gangster's killer and vie...

The searing debut novel by Chester Himes, written with youthful panache and a bellyful of anger (Observer). Robert 'Bob' Jones—crew leader, shipyard worker, educated, employed—is finding life impossible. Though he has recently been promoted to supervisor at the Los Angeles shipyard where he works, he is disrespected and resented by white colleagues; and despite his relationship with the high-class Alice,...

This collection includes many of the famous cases—and great strokes of brilliance—that made the legendary Sherlock Holmes one of fiction's most popular creations. With his devoted amanuensis, Dr Watson, Holmes emerges from his smoke-filled rooms in Baker Street to grapple with the forces of treachery, intrigue, and evil in such cases as The Speckled Band, in which a terrified woman...

Twenty new titles in the much-loved and hugely successful Penguin English Library series. The Thirty-Nine Steps 'My guest was lying sprawled on his back. There was a long knife through his heart which skewered him to the floor.' Richard Hannay has just returned to England after years in South Africa and is thoroughly bored with his life in London. But...

A gripping tale of adventure that has enthralled readers since it was first published, John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps is edited with an introduction and notes by Sir John Keegan in Penguin Classics. Adventurer Richard Hannay has just returned from South Africa and is thoroughly bored with his London life — until a spy is murdered in his flat, just...

As a dense yellow fog swirls through the streets of London, a deep melancholy has descended on Sherlock Holmes, who sits in a cocaine-induced haze at 221B Baker Street. His mood is only lifted by a visit from a beautiful but distressed young woman, Mary Morstan, whose father vanished ten years before. Four years later, she began to receive an...

The High Window by Raymond Chandler introduces us to Philip Marlowe, a private investigator entangled in a seemingly straightforward case. His client, a dried-up husk of a woman, has tasked him with retrieving a rare gold coin, the Brasher Doubloon, that has disappeared from her late husband's collection. It sounds simple enough. Maybe too simple. However, with every reappearance of...

The adventures of the well-loved clerical sleuth, collected in a single volume and introduced by Michael D. Hurley. Shabby and lumbering, with a face like a Norfolk dumpling, Father Brown makes for an improbable super-sleuth. But his innocence is the secret of his success—refusing the scientific method of detection, he adopts instead an approach of simple sympathy, interpreting each crime...

Twenty new titles in the much-loved and hugely successful Penguin English Library series. The Call of the Wild 'The facts of life took on a fiercer aspect and, while he faced that aspect uncowed, he faced it with all the latent cunning of his nature aroused.' The biting cold and the aching silence of the far North become an unforgettable...

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics—irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas, and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. Emerging from their smoke-filled rooms at 21B Baker Street, Holmes and Watson grapple with the forces of crime that stalk the streets of London. From the first story, A Scandal in Bohemia, where Holmes is foiled by...

Innocents abroad are drawn into the darkest recesses of the financial world in this urgent and electrifying thriller, now in the giftable hardback series. An English couple, Perry and Gail, are taking an off-peak holiday on the Caribbean island of Antigua. By seeming chance they bump into a Russian millionaire called Dima who owns a peninsula and a diamond-encrusted gold...

Convalescing in London after a disastrous experience of war in Afghanistan, Dr John Watson finds himself sharing rooms with his enigmatic new acquaintance, Sherlock Holmes. But their quiet bachelor life at 221B Baker Street is soon interrupted by the grisly discovery of a dead man in a grimy, ill-omened house in south-east London, his face contorted by an expression of...

A novel of tremendous political relevance now in the giftable hardback series A half-starved young Russian man in a long black overcoat is smuggled into Hamburg at dead of night. He has an improbable amount of cash secreted in a purse round his neck. He is a devout Muslim. Or is he? He says his name is Issa. Poignant, compassionate,...

The terrible spectacle of the beast, the fog of the moor, the discovery of a body—this classic horror story pits detective against dog. When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead on the wild Devon moorland with the footprints of a giant hound nearby, the blame is placed on a family curse. It is left to Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson...

Alternate history meets Cold War thriller in a vintage Len Deighton escapade. XPD begins on 11 June, 1940 - where is Winston Churchill? A private aircraft takes off from a small town in central France, while Adolf Hitler, the would-be conqueror of Europe, prepares for a clandestine meeting near the Belgian border. For more than forty years, the events of...

A sweeping portrait of one Berlin family, spanning generations and two world wars. Peter and Paul, the two sons of German businessman Harald Winter, are bonded together by a childhood trauma. But as they grow up, the brothers also grow apart. When the shadow of the Third Reich falls, they become divided by war and their differing ideals—only to meet...

An action-packed Cold War thriller set in the deserts of North Africa. A Soviet space scientist defects to win academic freedom, but western intelligence has other plans for him and sends an unnamed spy—perhaps the same reluctant hero of The IPCRESS File—to look after him. But what follows is a blood-streaked trail across three continents... Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy reveals...

A gripping tale of small town suspicion and revenge, part of the new Maigret series. 'There was an exaggerated humility about her. And yet he sensed, beneath that image, glints of pride held firmly in check. She was anaemic. Her flat chest was not formed to rouse desire. Nevertheless, she was strangely appealing, perhaps because she seemed troubled, despondent, sickly.'...

The latest title from the bestselling author John le Carré to come into Penguin Modern Classics. The Tailor of Panama follows Harry Pendel, the charismatic proprietor of Pendel and Braithwaite Limitada of Panama, through whose doors everyone who is anyone in Central America passes. Andrew Osnard, mysterious and fleshly, is a spy. His secret mission is two-pronged: to keep a...

Le Carre's singular story of a cautious man plunged into recklessness, published in Penguin Modern Classics for the first time. Aldo Cassidy is the naive and sentimental lover. A successful, judicious man, he is wrenched away from the ordered certainties of his life by a sudden encounter with Shamus, a wild, carousing artist, and Helen, his nakedly alluring wife. Cassidy,...

Le Carre shows espionage at its best and worst in this novel, new to Penguin Modern Classics. When the Department—faded since the war and busy only with bureaucratic battles—hears rumour of a missile base near the West German border, it seems like the perfect opportunity to regain some political standing in the Intelligence market place. The Cold War is at...

The poignant story of an outsider falsely accused of murder from the celebrated author of the Maigret series. She was beautiful, full of vitality, and he was sixteen years older, a dusty, lonely bookseller whose only passion in life was collecting stamps. Jonas is used to his young wife disappearing. Everyone in the town knows that she goes off with...

Len Deighton's best-selling first spy novel, which revolutionised the genre, is now published in Penguin Classics for the first time. A high-ranking scientist has been kidnapped. A secret British intelligence agency must find out why. But as the quarry is pursued from grimy Soho to the other side of the world, what seemed a straightforward mission turns into something far...

Len Deighton's best-selling first spy novel, now adapted into a major new ITV series. A high-ranking scientist has been kidnapped. A secret British intelligence agency must find out why. But as the quarry is pursued from grimy Soho to the other side of the world, what seemed a straightforward mission turns into something far more sinister. With its sardonic, cool,...

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 detective's iconic image burns just as brightly in Farewell My...

SS-GB offers a chilling alternative history of the Second World War, in which the Nazis have conquered Britain. It is 1941, and Germany has won the war. Britain is occupied, Churchill has been executed, and the King is imprisoned in the Tower of London. At Scotland Yard, Detective Inspector Archer tries to do his job and keep his head down....

A classic Cold War thriller featuring computer hacking, nuclear submarines, and violence on the Arctic ice. Computer games run in a classified war studies centre in London. Nuclear submarines prowl beneath Arctic ice. And war games go into real time. Patrick Armstrong—possibly the same reluctant hero of The IPCRESS File—is sent to investigate. Patrick Armstrong is a tough, dedicated agent...

A new narrator provides some long-awaited answers to the Bernard Samson mystery in the final novel of the Hook, Line and Sinker trilogy. Of all the mysteries Bernard Samson has encountered, the greatest is his wife Fiona. Dedicated agent of the Service and a woman of secrets, she will risk everything to play the long game. As the truth about...

The second book of the Hook, Line and Sinker series finds Bernard Samson on the run through Berlin, Vienna and Prague. Bernard Samson is a spy on the run. But in the murky streets of Berlin, he knows where to hide. Wanted for an act of treachery he has not committed, he must not only escape the grasp of London...

Spy Hook introduces us to Bernard Samson, a spy forced on the run from his own government in this nail-biting first instalment of the Hook, Line and Sinker series. Millions of pounds have gone missing, and the Department has sent agent Bernard Samson to Washington to track them down. But this mission is just the start of something far deeper...

Ambler's classic thriller of post-war international politics and intrigue, centring on gun-smuggling in South-East Asia. Girija Krishnan, an Indian clerk, sees the opportunity of his lifetime when he stumbles on a lost cache of arms hidden in the Malayan jungle. If he can find a buyer for the weapons, he will be able to achieve his life-long dream of creating...

Only When I Larf is a comedy thriller about three New York con artists whose biggest heist goes awry. The three confidence tricksters had a style that earned them millions. Silas was the leader, slick and self-assured—but dissatisfied. Bob was the junior partner, longing for the open road where pickings were rich and the living was easy. And Liz, Silas'...

The Cold War plays out in the shadow of the Second World War as old loyalties collide. Sinister rumours link clandestine Arab arms dealing with a hero of the French resistance. Time to re-open the master file on Yesterday's Spy...

The British Secret Service turns their attentions to a linguistic prodigy in the Congo in this espionage thriller, new to Penguin Modern Classics. At a top-secret meeting between Western financiers and Congolese warlords, an interpreter finds his conscience re-awakening. Bruno Salvador has worked on clandestine missions before. A highly skilled interpreter, he is no stranger to the Official Secrets Act....

Enthralling and thought-provoking, The Little Drummer Girl is le Carré's only spy novel set in the Middle East, and is now published in Penguin Modern Classics for the first time. Charlie, a brilliant and beautiful young actress, is lured into 'the theatre of the real' by an Israeli intelligence officer. Forced to play her ultimate role, she is plunged into...

'The greatest find in American crime fiction since Raymond Chandler' – Sunday Times Detectives Coffin Ed and Grave Digger Jones have lost two criminals. Pinky ran off – but it shouldn't be hard to track down a giant albino in Harlem. Jake the drug dealer, though, isn't coming back – he died after Grave Digger punched him in the stomach....

A new translation of this haunting tale about the lengths to which people will go to escape from guilt, part of the Maigret series. A first ink drawing showed a hanged man swinging from a gallows on which perched an enormous crow. And hanging was the leitmotif of at least twenty other etchings and pen or pencil sketches. On the...

A brilliantly atmospheric and gripping portrayal of the dark heart of a killer, new to Penguin Modern Classics. At the Universal Advertising Agency on the Strand, London, a murder is being planned. Three men have been discovered taking bribes and face the grim prospect of the dole queue, unless they can get rid of the person who caught them. Their...

Le Carré's post-Cold War masterpiece, filled with suspense, betrayal, desire and drama. The Cold War is over and retired secret servant Tim Cranmer has been put out to pasture, spending his days making wine on his Somerset estate. But then he discovers that his former double agent Larry—dreamer, dissolute, philanderer and disloyal friend—has vanished, along with Tim's mistress. As their...

The second novel in the Game, Set and Match trilogy is a gripping study in the art of spy enrolment. World-weary agent Bernard Samson is losing control of his personal and professional life. Sent to Mexico to aid the defection of a KGB agent to the West, he has a chance to prove his worth. Instead, he is torn between...

Maigret Travels delves into the intriguing circumstances surrounding the attempted suicide of a countess and the mysterious death of a multi-millionaire. Both incidents involve seemingly unrelated individuals, yet they occur in the same hotel. When multi-millionaire David Ward is found dead just hours after the countess's suicide attempt, Maigret suspects a connection between the two cases. The investigation intensifies when...

Maigret Takes a Room sees Maigret take on a complex undercover investigation in the heart of Paris. What he thought he had discovered, in place of the joyful candour that she usually displayed, was an irony which was neither less cheerful nor less childish, but which troubled him... He wondered now if his exultation wasn't down to the fact that...

Maigret's Secret explores Maigret's internal struggle with an old case whose conclusion continues to haunt him. At a dinner party, Maigret recounts the case of Adrien Josset, who was found guilty and executed for the murder of his wife, Christine. Despite all clues pointing to Josset's guilt under the controlling influence of the magistrate, Maigret remains unconvinced following his one...

Maigret's Revolver follows Maigret as he travels to London on the trail of a young man on the run. The most exasperating of all was the head clerk at reception, dressed in an elegant morning coat and stiff collar, which did not wilt with a drop of perspiration. He treated Maigret in a cordial manner, possibly feeling sorry for him....

Maigret's Patience follows Inspector Maigret as he delves into the murder of a criminal he had known for twenty years. Maigret finds himself back on the Rue des Acacias just ten days after cracking another case there. This time, it is the murder of a criminal Maigret has known for over twenty years, someone he always suspected was behind a...

A well-to-do Paris surgeon and his down-at-heel neighbour become the focus of Maigret's investigation. Maigret had questioned thousands, tens of thousands of people in the course of his career, some occupying important positions, others who were more famous for their wealth, and others still who were considered the most intelligent of international criminals. Yet he attached an importance to this...

An old woman's cries for help are left unanswered in this gripping story. A kind but seemingly paranoid old lady turns to Inspector Maigret for help. Against the judgement of his subordinates, he decides to pay a visit to her Parisian apartment to investigate, but is he already too late? Maigret's Madwoman is a tale of mystery and suspense that...

With Paris under siege following a series of murders, Maigret must hatch a cunning plan to lure the murderer out. High up in Montmartre, there was a festive atmosphere, people were crowding round the little tables where rosé wine was being served... Yet a hundred metres further on, the little alleyways were deserted, and the killer might find it easy...

When a toy salesman confides in Maigret, he quickly becomes caught up in a poisonous feud between husband and wife. An unusually quiet day for Maigret at the Quai des Orfèvres is disturbed by a visit from a mild-mannered toy salesman, Xavier Manton. Maigret is puzzled by Manton's admission that he suspects his wife of plotting to poison him, and...

Maigret's Dead Man plunges into the murky Parisian underworld in the latest addition to the Penguin Maigret series. Without the injuries, the man's face would have been unremarkable, fairly young and probably quite cheerful. Even in death, there were traces of something open and honest in his expression. That shoeless foot looked incongruous lying on the pavement next to another...

A visit from an old school-friend leads Maigret to a murderous affair. When a long lost friend pays a visit to Maigret's office, he is shocked to learn that the man's roommate has been murdered. With the help of his old friend, Maigret delves into the life of the victim and finds a complex web of relationships that leads him...

Maigret's Anger is a gripping tale where Maigret loses his composure when a suspect plots to tarnish his reputation. During a quiet spell in June, Maigret is called to investigate the disappearance of a reputable businessman. When a body is discovered near the famous Père Lachaise cemetery, Maigret struggles to find any clues to the perpetrator. He loses his temper...

Maigret, Lognon and the Gangsters sees Maigret getting tangled up with some notorious American gangsters in this new translation. Maigret was less angry, in fact, than he seemed. Pozzo was a tough customer, but he didn't mind that. Nor did he mind dealing with characters who had sent the American police packing—genuine hard men who played for keeps. Maigret hadn't...

An impromptu visit to an old school friend in the Vendee draws Maigret into a disturbing local investigation. The mood of the town was still jittery. It was all very well for people to go about their day-to-day activities as usual, but there was a certain anxiety in people's eyes, and they seemed to be walking faster, as if they...

While on holiday Maigret gets involved in a local murder case. Maigret and his wife take a much-needed holiday to Vichy, where they quickly become accustomed to the slower pace of life. When a woman, whom they regularly pass by on their daily strolls, is murdered, Maigret can't help but offer his assistance to the local Inspector, a former colleague...

Maigret in Court sees Maigret called to testify in court, where he reveals his doubts about the guilt of the accused. Maigret receives an anonymous phone call concerning the brutal murder of a woman and a young child. The tip-off points to the woman's nephew, a mild-mannered man by the name of Gaston Meurant. Maigret, however, remains unconvinced of the...

A series of letters set Maigret up for a peculiar case. Maigret Hesitates features Inspector Maigret as he receives a series of letters warning of a murder that is going to take place. The letters do not reveal who will die, when it will happen, or who will do it. Maigret must trace the letters back to their source before...

Maigret Goes to School follows the renowned detective as he heads to a small seaside town where the residents are closing ranks to hide the truth. When a school teacher from near La Rochelle seeks Maigret's help to defend his innocence, Maigret accompanies him back to a small coastal town. There, he confronts the insular community in order to uncover...