Penguin Classics: Crime & Thriller

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'...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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.'...

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 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...

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 detective novelist searches for an elusive rival writer, in this classic work of Japanese crime fiction. A reclusive writer of detective stories, Oe Shundei, has gone missing, leaving behind a suspicious trail of blackmailing letters to a former lover. Another detective novelist, his rival, is the only one who can find him. A sequence of macabre and appalling events...

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...

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books Maigret moved slowly, edging his bulky frame through the throng in Rue Saint-Antoine, which burst into life every morning, the sunshine streaming down from a clear sky onto the little barrows piled high with fruit and vegetables. In these three tales of deception, set in and around Paris, Simenon's celebrated detective...

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,...

A hardback series for le Carré collectors. Stella Rode has twice disturbed the ancient cloisters of Carne School—firstly by being the wrong sort, with her doyleys and china ducks, and secondly by being murdered. George Smiley, who has his own connection with the school, is asked by an old Service friend to investigate. As Smiley probes further beneath Carne's respectable...

Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Thief is the inspiration for the new Netflix series, Lupin, starring Omar Sy. A curated collection of the very best adventures of Arsène Lupin, France's most famous gentleman thief. The poor and the innocent have nothing to fear from Lupin; often they profit from his spontaneous generosity. The rich and powerful, and the detective who tries to spoil...

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...

An imposter has a fortune to win and his life to lose in this gripping country house mystery. A stranger enters the Ashby family home posing as Patrick Ashby, the heir to the family's sizeable fortune. The stranger, Brat Farrar, has been carefully coached on Patrick's mannerisms, appearance, and every significant detail of Patrick's early life, up to his thirteenth...

A new selection of the much-loved Father Brown stories, now part of the Penguin English Library. 'No man's really any good till he knows how bad he is, or might be' 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

One of the great country house detective novels, entertaining and ingenious. Marion Sharpe and her mother are quiet and ordinary villagers, enjoying a peaceful life in their country home, the Franchise. Everything changes when a local schoolgirl accuses them of kidnap and abuse, describing the attic room of the house as her prison. Scotland Yard inspector Alan Grant is called...

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...

As we publish all of le Carré's work for the first time, a special look for the books featuring his iconic character, George Smiley. The Honourable Schoolboy is the sixth Smiley novel, where George Smiley, now chief of the battered British Secret Service, seeks revenge for the betrayals of a Soviet double agent.

Beautifully designed, clothbound edition Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. The terrible spectacle of the beast, the fog of the moor, the discovery of a body — this classic horror story pits detective against...

An English novelist uncovers a trail of crime in Istanbul - and all roads lead to the mysterious master criminal Dimitrios. English crime novelist Charles Latimer is travelling in Istanbul when he makes the acquaintance of Turkish police inspector Colonel Haki. It is from him that he first hears of the mysterious Dimitrios - an infamous master criminal, long wanted...

Penguin Classics relaunch The Moonstone, a priceless yellow diamond, is looted from an Indian temple and maliciously bequeathed to Rachel Verinder. On her eighteenth birthday, her friend and suitor Franklin Blake brings the gift to her. That very night, it is stolen again. No one is above suspicion, as the idiosyncratic Sergeant Cuff and Franklin piece together a puzzling series...

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...

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...

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...

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy finds George Smiley facing his greatest challenge yet: unmasking a Soviet double agent at the heart of the British establishment. George Smiley, a troubled man of infinite compassion, is also a single-mindedly ruthless adversary as a spy. The scene he enters is a Cold War landscape of moles and lamplighters, scalp-hunters and pavement artists, where men...

A chilling, stylish piece of LA noir After the war, cynical veteran Dix Steele has moved to L.A., a city terrified by a strangler preying on young women. Bumping into an old friend, now a detective working on the case, Dix is thrilled by closely following the progress of the police. Meeting his new neighbour, sultry and beautiful actress Laurel...

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...

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,...

One of the great chase stories—Nazi agents will stop at nothing to kill a British weapons expert on his long, fraught journey home from Istanbul. It is 1940 and Mr Graham, a quietly-spoken engineer and arms expert, has just finished high-level talks with the Turkish government. And now somebody wants him dead. The previous night, three shots were fired at...

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...

Inspector Maigret investigates a case of deception in an isolated community. Maigret has been interrogating Carl Andersen for seventeen hours without a confession. He's either innocent or a very good liar. So why was the body of a diamond merchant found at his isolated mansion? Why is his sister always shut away in her room? And why does everyone at...

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

A gripping tale of adultery and murder served hard-boiled. When Maude Slocum—beautiful, frightened and angry—comes to Lew Archer's office with a poison pen letter intended for her husband, he reluctantly agrees to help her. As he follows the Slocums around, Archer finds that Mrs. Slocum might have the least of the family's troubles—her teenage daughter is desolate, her husband is...

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 handpicked selection of novels featuring Simenon's legendary literary detective, Inspector Maigret, with striking new covers. Inspector Maigret is supposed to be working to stop the gangs of robbers terrorising Paris, but then a body is found, dumped in the Bois de Boulogne. It turns out to be a quiet, likeable burglar he has known for years, and for whom...

A handpicked selection of novels featuring Simenon's legendary literary detective, Inspector Maigret, with striking new covers. Maigret and the Old People follows Inspector Maigret as he is called to the home of the Comte de Saint-Hilaire, a highly respected official who has been found shot dead in the study of his elegant Parisian home. The violent death of this distinguished...

A handpicked selection of novels featuring Simenon's legendary literary detective, Inspector Maigret, with striking new covers. For the first time in his career, Inspector Maigret receives a written summons to the Prefect's office, where he is shocked to discover himself accused of a crime. With his career and reputation on the line, Maigret must fight to prove his innocence. Has...

A handpicked selection of novels featuring Simenon's legendary literary detective, Inspector Maigret, with striking new covers. Inspector Maigret and his wife take a much-needed rest cure in the spa town of Vichy, where they quickly become used to the leisurely pace of life. But when a woman whom they regularly pass by on their daily strolls is murdered, Maigret can't...

A handpicked selection of novels featuring Simenon's legendary literary detective, Inspector Maigret, with striking new covers. It seems like a hoax when Inspector Maigret receives a series of strange phone calls from a terrified man claiming he is being followed - and that his life is at risk. But that night, the man is found dead in the Place de...

A handpicked selection of novels featuring Simenon's legendary literary detective, Inspector Maigret, with striking new covers. Xavier Manto, a mild-mannered toy salesman from a Paris department store, has come to confide his secret fears to Inspector Maigret—he suspects his wife is plotting to poison him. Then when Maigret receives a visit from Madame Manton on the same day, he is...

A handpicked selection of novels featuring Simenon's legendary literary detective, Inspector Maigret, with striking new covers. Inspector Maigret is known for his infallible instinct, for getting at the truth no matter how complex the case. However, when someone starts killing women on the streets of Montmartre, he finds himself confounded. In the sweltering Paris summer heat, with the city in...

A handpicked selection of novels featuring Simenon's legendary literary detective, Inspector Maigret, with striking new covers. Maigret's Holiday begins with Inspector Maigret's wife falling ill during their seaside holiday at Les Sables-d'Olonne. When he visits her in the hospital, he receives a strange note instructing him to see a patient in another ward. Soon, he finds himself unexpectedly drawn into...

A handpicked selection of novels featuring Simenon's legendary literary detective, Inspector Maigret, with striking new covers. Inspector Maigret finds himself back on Paris's Rue des Acacias just ten days after cracking another case there. This time it is the murder of a gangster he has known for over twenty years—one he always suspected was behind a string of jewellery robberies...

A wild and wildly compelling noir novel about a train crash and a case of mistaken identity. What if you woke up to discover everyone thought you were somebody else? Pregnant and abandoned, all Helen Georgesson has is five dollars and a one-way ticket to San Francisco. Then she is involved in a train crash, and regains consciousness only to...

A handpicked selection of novels featuring Simenon's legendary literary detective, Inspector Maigret, with striking new covers. The Carter of La Providence opens with Inspector Maigret standing in the pouring rain by a canal near the town of Épernay. A well-dressed woman, Mary Lampson, has been found strangled in a stable nearby. Why did her glamorous, hedonistic life come to such...

A thrilling crime classic, from the bestselling author of Tokyo Express Tokyo, 1960. As the first rays of morning light hit the rails at Kamata Station, a man's body is found on the tracks. With only two leads—a distinctive accent and a single word, 'kameda'—Senior Inspector Imanishi Eitaro is called in to solve the puzzle. Setting aside his beloved bonsai...

A handpicked selection of novels featuring Simenon's legendary literary detective, Inspector Maigret, with striking new covers. The last time Maigret went home to the village of his birth was for his father's funeral. Now an anonymous note predicting a crime during All Souls' Day mass draws him back there. Before long, the prediction has become a brutal reality – and...

One of Inspector Maigret's strangest and most compelling cases. The discovery of a dismembered body in the Canal Saint Martin leads Maigret into a tangled, baffling case involving a taciturn bistro-owner and a mysterious inheritance. This is a matchless description of a harsh, grim part of Paris a long way from the tourist trail, and a perfect example of Maigret's...

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...

Maigret goes to London on the trail of a young man on the run. When Maigret's prized gun goes missing, he must travel to London on the trail of a troubled young man on the run. Maigret's Revolver is a wonderful picture of both London and Paris and one of Simenon's most ingenious and satisfying stories.

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...

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...

One of the classic works by the master of Japanese detective fiction. A super-criminal— as deadly as she is beautiful— wagers all in an epic battle with a master detective, Akechi Kogoro. No trick is too elaborate, no disguise too fantastic as the two perfectly matched antagonists take turns to outwit each other. Experience the gripping tale of cunning and...

An intricate, puzzle-like murder mystery set in Imperial China, featuring the indefatigable Judge Dee. The Chinese Gold Murders invites you into a world where Judge Dee is about to step into the shoes of a dead man... Most people would refuse the job of Magistrate at the lonely port town of Peng-lai—especially as the last occupant of the post has...

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...

A memory loss mystery set in wartime New York Who stole George Matthews' life? 'Doctor, I think I'm losing my mind...' When a wealthy young man turns up at respected psychiatrist Dr George Matthews' office uttering these words, it changes his safe existence forever. Suddenly Matthews finds himself dragged into a strange, surreal world where nothing is certain. And when...

Game Without Rules features two secret agents living in the English countryside who try—and fail—to live a quiet life in these hugely enjoyable crime stories. Behrens and Calder are two secret agents residing in the peaceful English countryside, desperately seeking a quiet life. However, despite their best efforts, they find themselves repeatedly obliged to confront and eliminate a host of...

An endlessly ingenious battle across Japan between dogged detective Akechi Kogoro and the many-faced thief Gold Mask. A frenzied test of wits between ace detective Akechi Kogoro and the seemingly superhuman and fiendishly clever villain known only as Gold Mask, this is one of Edogawa Rampo's most enjoyable and witty novels. The anonymous fiend, lurking imperturbably behind his glittering mask,...

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...

A darkly comic thriller following a cynical LA gumshoe who makes the catastrophic mistake of helping a 14-year-old find her dog... Serendipity Dahlquist is a headstrong roller-blading teenager living in LA who has lost her dog. She asks private investigator Leo Bloodworth to help her find the missing pet. In what proves to have been a moment of madness, Bloodworth...

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...

Two great novels featuring hard-boiled Californian detective Philip Marlowe. 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—alongside an attendant cast of colourful underworld figures—forms the backdrop to a story reflecting all the tarnished glitter of the great American Dream. The hard-boiled...

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...