British Mystery Megapack Volume 4 — Createspace

THE SECRET ADVERSARY by Agatha Christie

Jobless and penniless, Thomas Beresford and Prudence "Tuppence" Cowley place an ad in the paper marketing themselves as adventurers, leading to an encounter that starts their career as spies for an unnamed British intelligence agency.

The Tommy and Tuppence books are:

'The Secret Adversary' (1922); 'Partners in Crime' (short story collection) (1929); 'N or M?' (1941); 'By the Pricking of My Thumbs' (1968); 'Postern of Fate' (1973)

Tales of Chinatown by Sax Rohmer

All ten stories are presented here:

THE DAUGHTER OF HUANG CHOW

KERRY'S KID

THE PIGTAIL OF HI WING HO

THE HOUSE OF GOLDEN JOSS

MAN WITH THE SHAVEN SKULL

THE WHITE HAT

TCHERIAPIN

THE DANCE OF THE VEILS

THE HAND OF THE MANDARIN QUONG

THE KEY OF THE TEMPLE OF HEAVEN

At the Villa Rose by A. E. W. Mason

A heinous crime has been committed at the Villa Rose in Aix-les-Bains, France. A wealthy woman has been savagely murdered and the young Englishwoman who was her companion has disappeared. Authorities suspect that the Englishwoman played a role in the crime, but her fiance, Harry Wethermill, hired a private French detective, Hanaud, to take on the case in an attempt to prove her innocence.

"A real page turner - One of the best 'fair play' detective novels of all time."

An Egyptian Cigarette by Kate Chopin

This short but haunting short story is included as a divertissement. It is a superb example of fin de siecle despair and a favorite of mystery anthologies.

A Study In Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle

"I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson," said he. "When your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long one you use a hansom. As I perceive that your boots, although used, are by no means dirty, I cannot doubt that you are at present busy enough to justify the hansom."

"Excellent " I cried.

"Elementary," said he.

It all started here. A Study In Scarlet, 1887. The first story introducing Sherlock Holmes to the world.

Dr. Watson, a military surgeon lately returned from the Afghan War, needs a flat-mate and a diversion. Holmes needs a foil. And thus a great literary collaboration begins. Watson and Holmes move to a now-famous address, 221B Baker Street, where Watson is introduced to Holmes's eccentricities as well as his uncanny ability to deduce information about his fellow beings. Somewhat shaken by Holmes's egotism, Watson is nonetheless dazzled by his seemingly magical ability to provide detailed information about a man glimpsed once under the streetlamp across the road.

Then murder. Facing a deserted house, a twisted corpse with no wounds, a mysterious phrase drawn in blood on the wall, and the buffoons of Scotland Yard--Lestrade and Gregson--Holmes measures, observes, picks up a pinch of this and a pinch of that, and generally baffles his faithful Watson. Later, Holmes explains: "In solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backward.... There are few people who, if you told them a result, would be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to that result." Holmes is in that elite group."