Engaging, whimsical, and culturally reflective, *Mr. Punch's After-Dinner Stories* enchants readers with its vibrant array of comedic illustrations and narratives. This anthology, a tribute to the Victorian and Edwardian eras, features a collection of satirical pieces that explore themes of social mores, political nuances, and human folly. These stories are imbued with humor of various shades'Äîfrom the sharp wit of caricatures to the gentle irony found in quiet observations of everyday li...

Mr. Punch with the Children is a captivating anthology that delves into the whimsical yet poignant realm of childhood through the lens of classic illustration and narrative. This collection showcases an extensive array of literary and artistic styles, ranging from satirical caricatures to tender depictions of youthful innocence. Highlighting the societal nuances and cultural norms surrounding childhood between the Victorian and Edwardian eras, this anthology offers readers an engaging glim...

We don't just look at buildings: their facades, beautiful or ugly, conceal the spaces where we live. We are born, work, love, and die in architecture. We buy and sell it, rent and squat it, create and destroy it. All of these aspects of buildings-economic, erotic, political, and psychological-are crucial if we are to understand architecture properly. And because architecture molds us just as much as we mold it, understanding architecture helps us to understand our lives and our world....

It’s San Francisco, 1928, and Sam Spade is a wisecracking, womanising Private Investigator. Missing husbands and unfaithful wives are his usual stock-in-trade, but when the beautifully distressed Miss Wonderley calls he gets involved in a dangerous caper most people would run a mile from. Miss Wonderley asks Sam’s partner, Miles Archer, to shadow Floyd Thursby, whom she maintains has kidnapped her sister. But then Archer is shot dead, and Miss Wonderley’s story turns out to be a lie – just...

The godfather of the hard-boiled detective novel, Dashiell Hammett is widely acknowledged as one of America's greatest mystery writers. This collection brings together the BBC radio adaptations of his works for the first time, including the iconic The Maltese Falcon featuring his most famous character: Sam Spade.The Maltese FalconSan Francisco, 1928. When his partner is murdered on an assignment, private detective Sam Spade is drawn into a ...

At the age of fourteen, György Köves is plucked from his home in a Jewish section of Budapest and, without any particular malice, placed on a train to Auschwitz. He does not understand the reason for his fate. He doesn’t particularly think of himself as Jewish. And his fellow prisoners, who decry his lack of Yiddish, keep telling him, “You are no Jew.” In the lowest circle of the Holocaust, György remains an outsider.The genius of Imre Kertész’s unblinking novel lies in its refusal...

Five BBC Radio 4 full-cast crime dramas featuring DI Charlie Resnick'John Harvey is one of the all-time greats and remains one of my favourite writers.' - Ian RankinJazz-loving policeman Charlie Resnick is one of the most popular characters in contemporary crime fiction. This thrilling collection brings together three dramatisations and two original radio stories starring the Nottingham-based detective, all scripted by his creator,...

The Thin Man introduces Nick and Nora Charles, New York’s coolest crime-solving couple.Nick retired from detecting after his wife inherited a tidy sum, but six years later, a pretty blonde spies him at a speakeasy and asks for his help finding her father, an eccentric inventor who was once Nick’s client.Nick can no more resist the case than a morning cocktail or a good fight, and soon he and Nora are caught in a complicated web of confused identiti...

Paul Madvig was a cheerfully corrupt ward heeler who aspired to something better: the daughter of Senator Ralph Bancroft Henry, the heiress to a dynasty of political purebreds. Did he want her badly enough to commit murder? And if Madvig was innocent, which of his dozens of enemies was doing an awfully good job of framing him? Dashiell Hammett's tour de force of detective fiction combines an airtight plot, authentically venal characters, and writing of telegraphic crispness.A one-t...

The Continental Op is a short, squat, and utterly unsentimental tank of a private detective. Miss Gabrielle Dain Leggett is young, wealthy, and a devotee of morphine and religious cults. She has an unfortunate effect on the people around her: they have a habit of dying violently. Is Gabrielle the victim of a family curse? Or is the truth about her weirder and infinitely more dangerous? The Dain Curse is one of the Continental Op's most bizarre cases and a tautly crafted masterpiec...

When Sam Spade gets drawn into the Maltese Falcon case, we know what to expect: straight talk, hard questions, no favors, and no way for anyone to get underneath the protective shell he wears like a second skin. We know that his late partner, Miles Archer, was a son of a bitch; that Spade is sleeping with Archer’s wife, Iva; that his tomboyish secretary, Effie Perine, is the only innocent in his life. What we don’t know is how Spade became who he is. Spade & Archer completes the p...

Here's Mickey Spillane and Mike Hammer in their roughest and readiest—a double-strength shot of sex, violence, and action that is vintage Spillane all the way. It's a tough-guy mystery to please even the most bloodthirsty of fans!