The investigators in these stories are from all walks of life – retired magicians to schoolteachers, Broadway producers to nuns. Whether professional or amateur, these keen-eyed detectives must get to the bottom of the most baffling cases of their careers.

Edgar Award-winning Otto Penzler has hand-picked some of the most illustrious writers of the classic detective story from the Golden Age of mystery fiction. With authors including Ellery Queen, Cornell Woolrich and Erle Stanley Gardner, this gripping collection is sure to delight and entertain mystery fans.

Praise for Golden Age Detective Stories:

‘In addition to well-known contributors, such as Ellery Queen and Erle Stanley Gardner, Penzler presents memorable tales from the lesser-known‘ – Publishers Weekly

‘Belongs on the shelf of any true mystery fan, and in the collection of every library’s mystery section’ – Booklist

‘Exemplary‘ – Kirkus

The year is 1932. You are Dr Kinn Tenor, a Scotland Yard pathologist with a sideline in private detection when the boys in blue are stumped. You’re celebrated in the newspapers, but you tend to get the official police’s backs up – they don’t take kindly to being upstaged.

Two days before Christmas, you attend the opening of your friend Johnny McAlister’s ritzy new nightclub, the Golden Star. There you meet his cousin, Melissa Thresh – she is being followed and would like you to identify the culprit. But you have also promised your friend Algy Hurley to visit his family seat in Kent, where some poison-pen letters have been causing unrest.

? If you travel to Yorkshire with Melissa, you’re caught up in a locked-room murder mystery featuring a cast of dubious friends, relatives and business associates
? If it’s Hurley Court, you’re embroiled in a country house whodunnit involving an old family ritual and generations of hidden secrets

This is just the first of many choices you must make: will you pursue this thread? Chase the mysterious stranger? Lay a trap for the guilty party? The decisions you make will take you on your own path to the final unmasking of the villain – or failure.

What will you choose? And can you unravel the mystery without losing your festive spirit, your reputation? or your life?

MAKE YOUR CHOICE
TURN THE PAGE
SOLVE THE CRIME!  

Perfect for fans of Cabaret and The Whalebone Theatre

‘Julie Owen Moylan writes about mid-20th century women like no-one else’ Laura Price

‘Sexy, electrically stylish, and beautiful – a gorgeous story about sisterhood, and a glamorous, evocative passport to a period we all long to get lost in’ Daisy Buchanan

—-

BERLIN, 1926: After the death of their parents, sisters Leni and Annette only have each other.
Desperate, but dreaming of better days, Leni finds work at a notorious cabaret: the Babylon Circus.

From the dancer’s barely-there costumes, to the glimmering mirrors that cover the walls, the Babylon Circus is where reality and fantasy merge. For Leni, it’s an overwhelming new world, and she’s happiest hiding in the shadows.

Until she meets the cabaret’s resident pianist, Paul. And so begins a tentative love affair that will play out over the next forty years.

But, in a city whose divisions will define a century, can a love born within the feverish walls of the Babylon Circus ever survive?

And can the bond between Leni and Annette – tugged in opposite directions of their own – also endure?

In Berlin, two sisters dared to dream of a better life – but where in this dark and dazzling city will they find their true home?

—-

‘Julie’s best novel yet’ Georgina Moore

‘A tale of two sisters and a city, all three of them so vividly drawn, I felt I knew them. Superbly atmospheric, with convincingly flawed characters that just leap off the page’ Frances Quinn

‘An all-singing, all-dancing, moving and masterful book about two complex sisters living in incredibly complex times. Brilliant.’ Anna Mazzola

‘Bold, brave and absorbing’ Elizabeth Buchan

‘An epic novel, spanning decades as it explores with compassion and humanity the relationship of two sisters torn between the love and obligation they feel towards one another, and their desire for freedom and a better life that will split them apart’ Louise Fein

PRAISE FOR JULIE OWEN MOYLAN:

‘Touching, entertaining and hopeful’ Sunday Times

‘Dazzling’ Good Housekeeping

‘I was gripped from the first page’ Sara Cox

‘Psychologically astute and emotionally absorbing,’ DAILY MAIL

‘A wonderfully evocative, immersive novel that brings 50s London to life, from the smog and the
nightlife to attitudes towards women’ SUNDAY EXPRESS

‘Emotional, immersive and utterly absorbing’ JENNIFER SAINT

‘An excellent guide to a colourful life for readers who enjoy tales of adventure in the desert sands’ Daily Telegraph

‘Corking, rip-roaring, crisply written, full of extraordinary characters. An immaculate retelling of this cracking story’ Daily Mail

—

Thomas Edward Lawrence first set foot on the hot sands of Arabia in 1909. By 1918 there was a £20,000 price on his head.

How did this fresh-faced archaeologist, liaison and map officer end up fighting alongside guerrilla forces during the Arab Revolt?

How did a slight man journey more than 300 miles through blistering heat to capture Aqaba?

And how did an unhappy outsider take a pivotal role in peace conferences to decide the future of the Middle East?

Explorer Ranulph Fiennes tells the extraordinary story of how Lawrence gave over his life fully to this land and its peoples, while making enemies of those who sought to subjugate it . . .

—

‘Gripping. Rattles along like an enthralling Boys’ Own adventure’ Irish Independent

‘Fiennes’ own experiences certainly allow him to write vividly and with empathy’ Sunday Times

‘Elegant, subtle, sympathetic’ Wall Street Journal

‘Faulks’s most poignant love story yet’ ANTONY BEEVOR

1914: Aspiring journalist Anton arrives in Vienna where he meets Delphine, a woman of deep secrets. Anton is entranced by the light of first love, until his country declares war on hers.

1927: For Lena, life in a small town has been harsh and cold. When her love affair with a young lawyer crumbles, she leaves to take a post at a remote snow-capped sanatorium.

1933: Anton is sent to write about the same clinic, the mysterious Schloss Seeblick. In this place, on the banks of a silvery lake where the roots of human suffering are laid bare, two people will see each other as if for the first time.

‘A magnificent, moving novel’ INDEPENDENT

‘Faulks on his best form’ TELEGRAPH

Thomas Edward Lawrence first set foot on the hot sands of Arabia in 1909.
By 1918 there was a £20,000 price on his head.

His journey to this point has long been legend. From his first postings as archaeologist, liaison and map officer, to fighting alongside guerrilla forces during the Arab Revolt. Journeying more than 300 miles through blistering heat to capture Aqaba, to his involvement in peace conferences that decided the future of the Middle East. Lawrence gave over his life the Middle East and its people.

A legend in his own lifetime, Lawrence’s epic story has always been ripe for the retelling – but Ranulph Fiennes is no ordinary biographer . . . Having led Arab troops into battle on the Arabian peninsula in a war fought only fifty years later. Fiennes too discovered the wonders of these far-flung lands and the people who live there, and is one of very few who can claim a true insight into the kind of life that Lawrence lived – bold and adventurous to the end.

With detailed access to records and an in-depth knowledge, Lawrence of Arabia is at long last a true and full account of this mysterious adventurer who captivated the world.

A brilliant young composer, Adrian believes that the disease-induced madness will fuel his genius. But while his music reaches new heights, his mind and morality begin to unravel. Mann’s interpretation of the Faustian legend is a story of madness and sanity, genius and corruption, intellectual attainment and Germany’s moral fall.

‘Arguably the great German novel’ New York Times

(Cover may vary)

From familiar fairy tales and legends – Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires and werewolves – Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual, fantastic stories.

‘Magnificent set pieces of fastidious sensuality’ Ian McEwan

‘A quirky, original, and baroque stylist’ Margaret Atwood

Featuring an introduction from award-winning short story writer Helen Simpson