The Thirty-nine Steps

Understanding that his beauty will fade, Dorian Gray expresses the desire to sell his soul, to ensure that his picture, rather than he, will age and fade. The wish is granted, and Dorian pursues a libertine life of varied and amoral experiences, while staying young and beautiful; all the while his portrait ages and records every sin.

Wilkie Collins’s spellbinding tale of romance, theft, and murder inspired a hugely popular genre–the detective mystery. Hinging on the theft of an enormous diamond originally stolen from an Indian shrine, this riveting novel features the innovative Sergeant Cuff, the hilarious house steward Gabriel Betteridge, a lovesick housemaid, and a mysterious band of Indian jugglers. A total page-turner.

The Maltese Falcon is a classic of noir literature that will immerse you in a labyrinth of intrigue and deception, where a cunning detective faces a ruthless search for a valuable statuette. With themes of greed, betrayal, and morality in a dark world, The Maltese Falcon explores the fragility of human nature and the limits of loyalty in a plot full of surprising twists

The second book of Sherlock Holmes adventures. Yellow fog is swirling through the streets of London, and Sherlock Holmes himself is sitting in a cocaine-induced haze until the arrival of a distressed and beautiful young lady forces the great detective into action. Each year following the strange disappearance of her father, Miss Morstan has received a present of a rare and lustrous pearl. Now, on the day she is summoned to meet her anonymous benefactor, she consults Holmes and Watson.

A rich American art-collector and his daughter Maggie buy in for themselves and to their greater glory a beautiful young wife and noble husband. They do not know that Charlotte and Prince Amerigo were formerly lovers, nor that on the eve of the Prince’s marriage they had discovered, in a Bloomsbury antique shop, a golden bowl with a secret flaw. In this, the last of his three great poetic masterpieces, James combined with a dazzling virtuosity elements of social comedy, of mystery, terror, and myth.

The Secret of Sarek, also known as The Island of Thirty Coffins, is the tenth novel in the Arsène Lupin series of books by Maurice Leblanc. First published in 1919, it is the story of Véronique Degremont. Fourteen years previously, her own father had kidnapped her baby in an act of revenge for Veronique’s marriage, and both her father and her child drowned at sea. While watching a film, she spots her childhood signature on the side of a hut in the background of a scene, and after visiting the place where the film was shot, she becomes trapped in a mystery of prophecies, sinister forces, long lost relations, and ancient secrets.