The Agatha Principle and Other Mystery Stories


Book Description

The least likely person is the killer, and no one is really who they seem. So Jordan Hope tells his cast as they prepare to rehearse Agatha Christies The Mousetrap. However, Jordan does not realize that, nearby, in the snowy streets of Gastown, a real murder has taken place. By the time the show is over, another will die and The Agatha Principle will strike again. In her fourth book featuring the Beary family, Elizabeth Elwood delivers another thoroughly satisfying collection. The Agatha Principle is followed by seven cleverly crafted shorter stories with a variety of settings. In The Man in the Cage, a child falls into deadly peril at the 2010 Winter Olympics; a dramatic historical mystery dating back to the War of 1812 is featured in Tragedy at The Oaks, and the book closes on a delightfully light-hearted note as the Bearys visit Vancouvers Bright Nights and solve The Mystery of the Christmas Train. With intriguing puzzles to challenge the reader and an engaging story of a charming heroine whose relationship with a Vancouver detective is as captivating as the cases they solve together, The Agatha Principle and Other Mystery Stories is a must for lovers of classic mystery fiction.




The Beacon and Other Mystery Stories


Book Description

Praise for The Beary Mysteries: Well-crafted stories which will delight mystery fans. Kirkus Discoveries Elwoods believable situations, natural dialogue and wit make her stories a pleasure to read. Annie Boulanger, Burnaby Now I found great enjoyment reading the stories Original and evocative. Barbara Kay, National Post columnist The Beary family returns in The Beacon and Other Mystery Stories, the third book featuring feisty city councillor, Bertram Beary, his opera-singing daughter, Philippa, and his detective inspector son, Richard. In the title story, a former opera singer who was renowned for her performance as La Gioconda becomes the prime suspect when her husbands body washes ashore near their waterfront home the same day that his mistress dies in a fiery inferno on the other side of the channel. As the book progresses, the senior members of the Beary family solve The Mystery of the Boston Teapots while walking The Freedom Trail during a visit to Massachusetts. Back at home, Philippa discovers that no one can solve a problem like Maria when she takes on the leading role in a local production of The Sound of Music. While every story presents a puzzle of its own, Philippas own story is interwoven throughout the book as she overcomes personal disappointments and forms new friendships. Ultimately, when she and her sister, Juliette, undertake a prestigious engagement at a high-society Christmas party, even the blanket of snow covering the Lower Mainland cannot quell her spirits as she realizes that someone who seemed an enemy in the past may well turn out to be a very special somebody in her future.




Cain's Jawbone


Book Description

Six murders. One hundred pages. Millions of possible combinations... but only one is correct. Can you solve Torquemada's murder mystery? 'If James Joyce and Agatha Christie had a literary love child, this would be it.' The Daily Telegraph In 1934, the Observer's cryptic crossword compiler, Edward Powys Mathers (aka Torquemada), released a novel that was simultaneously a murder mystery and the most fiendishly difficult literary puzzle ever written. The pages have been printed in an entirely haphazard order, but it is possible - through logic and intelligent reading - to sort the pages into the only correct order, revealing six murder victims and their respective murderers. Only three puzzlers have ever solved the mystery of Cain's Jawbone: do you have what it takes to join their ranks? Please note: this puzzle is extremely difficult and not for the faint-hearted. 'A unique hybrid of word puzzle and whodunnit.' Literary Review




The Golden Ball


Book Description

A brave young man is fired from the family business by his millionaire uncle. Embittered, he accidentally meets a girl who is fleeing her engagement to a duke and seems to be looking for the same thing as him: a day off. They will live a great adventure together and discover that despite their differences they can be soul mates.




Murder for Pleasure


Book Description

"Genuinely fascinating reading."—The New York Times Book Review "Diverting and patently authoritative."—The New Yorker "Grand and fascinating … a history, a compendium and a critical study all in one, and all first rate."—Rex Stout "A landmark … a brilliant study written with charm and authority."—Ellery Queen "This book is of permanent value. It should be on the shelf of every reader of detective stories."—Erle Stanley Gardner Author Howard Haycraft, an expert in detective fiction, traces the genre's development from the 1840s through the 1940s. Along the way, he charts the innovations of Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, and Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as the modern influence of George Simenon, Josephine Tey, and others. Additional topics include a survey of the critical literature, a detective story quiz, and a Who's Who in Detection.




The LeMesurier Inheritance


Book Description

Using his gray cells, Poirot will need very little time to discover the mystery behind the Lemesurier curse according to which all the firstborn die before inheriting the family fortune. The mother of the next heir asks Poirot to protect Ronald who has been having accidents that could have been fatal. The Belgian detective and his faithful companion Hasting will discover that the ancient curse could not be true.




The Under Dog and Other Stories


Book Description

A beautiful heiress has been found dead on a train. A playboy has been stabbed through the heart during a costume ball. An elderly woman suspects that she is being slowly poisoned to death. A prince fears for his reputation when his fiancÉe is embroiled in another man's murder. A forgotten recluse makes headlines after he is shot in the head. Who but Agatha Christie could concoct such canny crimes? Who but Belgian detective Hercule Poirot could possibly solve them? It's a challenge to be met—in a triumph of detection.




Overture to Death


Book Description

A local busybody is silenced for good in this tale by “a peerless practitioner of the slightly surreal, English-village comedy-mystery” (Kirkus Reviews). In their Dorset village, neither Miss Campanula nor her friend Miss Prentice are known as lovable little old ladies. They’re waspish, gossiping snobby little old ladies, passionate only about their amateur theatrical productions, their narrowly defined opinions about how everyone else should behave . . ..and, perhaps, about the local vicar. But could one of them have been sufficiently unpleasant to provoke a murderer? For Miss Campanula has perished on her piano bench—and it’s unclear whether Miss Prentice may have been the actual intended victim . . . “A goodie.” —Kirkus Reviews “It’s time to start comparing Christie to Marsh instead of the other way around.” —New York Magazine “In her ironic and witty hands the mystery novel can be civilized literature.” —The New York Times




Theory of Prose


Book Description

"Viktor Shklovsky's 1925 book Theory of Prose might have become the most important work of literary criticism in the twentieth century had not two obstacles barred its way: the crackdown by the Soviet dictatorship on Shklovsky and other Russian Formalists in the 1930s, and the unavailability of an English translation. Now translated in its entirety for the first time, Theory of Prose not only anticipates structuralism and post-structuralism, but poses questions about the nature of fiction that are as provocative today as they were in the 1920s. Arguing that writers structure their material according to artistic principles rather than from attempts to imitate "reality," Shklovsky uses Cervantes, Tolstoi, Sterne, Dickens, Bely, and Rozanov to give us a new way of thinking about fiction and, in his most impassioned moments, about the world. Benjamin Sher's lucid translation will allow Shklovsky's Theory of Prose to fulfill its destiny as a major theoretical work of the twentieth century." from back cover.




Agatha Christie, Woman of Mystery


Book Description

What does the name " Agatha Christie " mean? To many people, it means a book about a murder mystery - a " whodunnit ". " I'm reading an Agatha Christie, " people say. " I'm not sure who the murderer is - I think it's . . . " But they are usually wrong, because it is not easy to guess the murderer's name before the end of the book. But who was Agatha Christie? What was she like? Was her life quiet and unexciting, or was it full of interest and adventure? Was there a mystery in her life, too? Cover images courtesy of The Mander and Mitchenson Theatre Collection/Angus McBean, Topham Picturepoint, Topham Picturepoint/Press Association, National Railway Museum/Science & Society Picture Library, and Stephen Oliver.