It's seven in the morning. The Bantrys wake to find the body of a young woman in their library. She is wearing evening dress and heavy make-up, which is now smeared across her cheeks. But who is she? How did she get there? And what is the connection with another dead girl, whose charred remains are later discovered in an abandoned quarry?

Baghdad is the chosen location for a secret summit of superpowers, concerned but not convinced, about the development of an, as yet, unidentified and undescribed secret weapon. Only one man has the proof that can confirm the nature of this fantastic secret weapon, a British agent named Carmichael. Unfortunately the criminal organisation responsible for the weapon's development will stop at nothing to prevent him entering Baghdad and presenting his proof to the assembled delegates.

Mrs Packington felt alone, helpless, and utterly forlorn. But her life changed when she stumbled upon an advertisement in The Times which read: "ARE YOU HAPPY? IF NOT, CONSULT MR PARKER PYNE". Equally adept at putting together the pieces of a marriage or the fragments of a murder mystery, Mr Parker Pyne was possibly the world's most unconventional private eye, and certainly its most charming.

What is the connection between a failed suicide attempt, a wrongful accusation of theft against a schoolgirl, and the romantic life of a famous tennis player? To the casual observer, apparently nothing. But when a houseparty gathers at Gull's Point, the seaside home of an elderly widow, earlier events come to a dramatic head. It's all part of a carefully paid plan for murder.

A new unabridged Agatha Christie mystery, featuring the young adventurers Lady ‘Frankie’ Derwent and Bobby Jones.While playing an erratic round of golf, Bobby Jones slices his ball over the edge of a cliff. His ball is lost, but on the rocks below he finds the crumpled body of a dying man. With his final breath the man opens his eyes and says, ‘Why didn’t they ask Evans?’Haunted by these words, Bobby and his vivacious companion, Frankie, set out to solve a mystery that will bring them into mortal danger…

When a number of leading scientists disappear without a trace, concern grows within the international intelligence community. Are they being kidnapped? Blackmailed? Brainwashed? One woman appears to have the key to the mystery. Unfortunately, Olive Betteron now lies in a hospital bed, dying from injuries sustained in a Moroccan plane crash.

Clarissa, the wife of a Foreign Office diplomat, is given to daydreaming. "Supposing I were to come down one morning and find a dead body in the library, what should I do?" she muses. Clarissa has her chance to find out when she discovers a body in the drawing-room of her house in Kent. Desperate to dispose of the body before her husband comes home with an important foreign politician, Clarissa persuades her three house guests to become accessories and accomplices.

Gipsy's Acre was a truly beautiful upland site with views out to sea, and in Michael Rogers it stirred a child-like fantasy. There, amongst the dark fir trees, he planned to build a house, find a girl, and live happily ever after. But as he left the village, a shadow of menace hung over the land, for this was the place where accidents happened. Perhaps Michael should have heeded the locals' warnings: "There's no luck for them as meddles with Gipsy's Acre."

All great crime writers have their favourite creations. Similarly, every great sleuth has his, or her, own preferred method of deduction. Take the charming Parker Pyne, who relies upon an intuitive knowledge of human nature to solve the 'Problem at Pollensa Bay'. Or Mr Satterthwaite, who seeks inspiration through his collaboration with the enigmatic Mr Quin in 'The Harlequin Tea Set' mystery. Then, of course, there's Poirot, whose measured analysis of motive and opportunity is tested to the full in 'Yellow Iris', when he receives an anonymous call about a matter of life and death. 

In a remote house in the middle of Dartmoor, six shadowy figures huddle around a small table for a seance. Tension rises as the spirits spell out a chilling message: "Captain Trevelyan...dead...murder."

Here are 12 ingenious, witty mysteries showing the author at her best, including: the curious disappearance of Lord Listerdale, the strange meeting on a train of a feckless man and a beautiful girl, and Philomel Cottage and the extraordinary country house visit of Edward Robinson. Each is expertly narrated by Hugh Fraser.

The Leonides are one big happy family living in a sprawling, ramshackle mansion - until the head of the household, Aristide, is murdered with a fatal barbiturate injection. Suspicion naturally falls on the old man's young widow, 50 years his junior. But the murderer hasn't reckoned on the tenacity of Charles Hayward, fiancé of the late millionaire's granddaughter.

The house guests at Styles seemed perfectly pleasant to Captain Hastings. There was his own daughter, Judith; an inoffensive ornithologist called Norton; dashing Mr Allerton; brittle Miss Cole; Doctor Franklin and his fragile wife, Barbara; Nurse Craven; Colonel Luttrell and his charming wife, Daisy; and the charismatic Boyd-Carrington. So Hastings was shocked to learn from Hercule Poirot's declaration that one of them was a five-times murderer.

So far, it had been a typical New Year's Eve house party. But Mr. Satterthwaite, a keen observer of human nature, sensed that the real drama of the evening was yet to unfold. So it proved when a mysterious stranger arrived after midnight. Who was this Mr. Quin? And why did his presence have such a pronounced effect on Eleanor Portal, the woman with the dyed-black hair?

When a stranger runs his car into a ditch in dense fog near the South Wales coast, and makes his way to an isolated house, he discovers a woman standing over the dead body of her wheelchair-bound husband, a gun in her hand. She readily admits to murder, and the unexpected guest offers to help her concoct a cover story.