Valeria Woodville's first act as a married woman is to sign her name in the marriage register incorrectly, and this slip is followed by the gradual disclosure of a series of secrets about her husband's earlier...
When a condemned woman asks the local Minister to take her daughter home, the childless man is touched and finds himself unable to refuse. Yet the prisoner is unrepentant of the murder of her husband. Will her...
No Name (1862) by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century novel revolving around the issue of illegitimacy. The story begins in 1846, at Combe-Raven in West Somersetshire, the country residence of the happy Vanstone...
The Woman in White is an epistolary novel written by Wilkie Collins in 1859, serialized in 1859–1860, and first published in book form in 1860. It is considered to be among the first mystery novels and is...
Widely regarded as the precursor of the modern mystery and suspense novels, The Moonstone tells of the events surrounding the disappearance of a mysterious (and cursed) yellow diamond. T. S. Eliot called it...
Ancient Rome, AD 408: Young Antonia had the misfortune to live in interesting times -- the days when mighty Rome was brought low by the terror of the Goths.
Armadale (1866) by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century semi-epistolary novel. Some chapters consist of letters between the various characters, while other chapters record the events as the characters perceive them....
Described by Hardy as a tale of "mystery, entanglement, surprise and moral obliquity", his first published novel violated the literary decorum of its day with blackmail, murder, and romance. It relates the story...
A mysterious murder on a flying express train, a wily Italian, a charming woman caught in the meshes of circumstantial evidence, a chivalrous Englishman, and a police force with a keen nose for the wrong clue,...
An illusive Chinese mastermind and his henchman have already killed one socialite and they hold a mysterious sway over many of London's elite. What is the secret of their power? Follow the trail with Sax Rohmer's...
A classic espionage and adventure novel set during The Great War, featuring the reckless Richard Hannay. Tasked with unraveling a mysterious message, Hannay travels through Germany and the Middle East, searching...
Fantômas was introduced a few years after Arsène Lupin, another well-known thief. But whereas Lupin draws the line at murder, Fantômas has no such qualms and is shown as a sociopath who enjoys killing in...
The tale bristles with breathless adventure, mistaken identities, detective investigations, romantic developments, and startling situations... It is a rousing story, told with a stimulating style, and culminating...