The murder plan seems so neat, so clever. How can it possibly fail? And when Sonia's stupid, boring little husband is dead, she will be free to marry her handsome lover. But perhaps the boring little husband is not so stupid after all... Murder plans that go wrong, a burglar who makes a bad mistake, a famous jewel thief who meets a very unusual detective... These five stories from the golden age of crime writing are full of mystery and surprises. 80 pages

The murder plan seems so neat, so clever. How can it possibly fail? And when Sonia's stupid, boring little husband is dead, she will be free to marry her handsome lover. But perhaps the boring little husband is not so stupid after all... Murder plans that go wrong, a burglar who makes a bad mistake, a famous jewel thief who meets a very unusual detective... These five stories from the golden age of crime writing are full of mystery and surprises. 80 pages

The job was too good. There had to be a problem - and there was. John
Duncan was an honest man, but he needed money. He had children to look
after. He was ready to do anything, and his bosses knew it. They gave
him the job because he couldn't say no; he couldn't afford to be honest.
And the job was like a poison inside him. It changed him and
blinded him, so that he couldn't see the real poison - until it was too late. 80 pages

'Sometimes I think this search is hopeless. So much has happened since I last saw my friends. Perhaps they have died or the rebels have taken them away. But I know I have to find Laker. I know she needs me.' In a country torn by war, it is easy to stop hoping. All Atita has is an old photograph. She does not even know if she will recognize Laker after all these years... 96 pages

'Sometimes I think this search is hopeless. So much has happened since I last saw my friends. Perhaps they have died or the rebels have taken them away. But I know I have to find Laker. I know she needs me.' In a country torn by war, it is easy to stop hoping. All Atita has is an old photograph. She does not even know if she will recognize Laker after all
these years... 96 pages

Victor Frankenstein thinks he has found the secret of life. He takes parts from dead people and builds a new 'man'. But this monster is so big and frightening that everyone runs away from him - even Frankenstein himself! The monster is like an enormous baby who needs love. But nobody gives him love, and soon he learns to hate. And, because he is so strong, the next thing he learns is how to kill... 80 pages

Victor Frankenstein thinks he has found the secret of life. He takes parts from dead people and builds a new 'man'. But this monster is so big and frightening that everyone runs away from him - even Frankenstein himself! The monster is like an enormous baby who needs love. But nobody gives him love, and soon he learns to hate. And, because he is so strong, the next thing he learns is how to kill... 80 pages

'Your grandmother is old,' says Mr Li to his daughter. 'She has eaten more salt than you have eaten rice.' Mr Li is cross with his daughter when she does not show respect to her
grandmother, but Mr Li himself is not always patient with his old mother. She has lived a long time, and the future holds no promise for her. So she holds on to the past... 80 pages

When a large plane is hijacked, the Prime Minister looks at the list of passengers and suddenly becomes very, very frightened. There is a name on the list that the Prime Minister knows very well - too well. There is someone on that plane who will soon be dead - if the
hijackers can find out who he is! And there isn't much time. One man lies dead on the runway. In a few minutes the hijackers will use their guns again. And the Prime Minister knows who they are going to kill. 80 pages

Every town should have a 'card' - someone who gets talked about, someone who does mad and wonderful things, someone who makes you laugh. Bursley in the Five Towns has a 'card': Edward Henry Machin (Denry for short). Denry begins life in a poor little house where the rent is twenty-three pence a week. But before he's thirty, he's made a lot of money, and had more adventures than you and I have had hot dinners. The town of Bursley never stops talking about him. Whatever will young Denry do next? 80 pages

Nani Tama looked at each of us - Dad, Auntie Hiraina, my cousin Timi, and myself. His eyes were angry. 'You fullas want me to die here in this room? Looking at these four walls? When the whakapapa is not yet finished?' But Nani Tama gets his own way, and his grandson drives him through the night, to find the missing pieces from the family history. 80 pages

'When we are happy, we are always good,' says Lord Henry, 'but when we are good, we are not always happy.' Lord Henry's lazy, clever words lead the young Dorian Gray into a world
where it is better to be beautiful than to be good; a world where anything can be forgiven - even murder - if it can make people laugh at a dinner party. 80 pages

Christmas is humbug, Scrooge says - just a time when you find yourself a year older and not a penny richer. The only thing that matters to Scrooge is business, and making money.
But on Christmas Eve three spirits come to visit him. They take him travelling on the wings of the night to see the shadows of Christmas past, present, and future - and Scrooge learns a lesson that he will never forget. 80 pages

Christmas is humbug, Scrooge says - just a time when you find yourself a year older and not a penny richer. The only thing that matters to Scrooge is business, and making money.
But on Christmas Eve three spirits come to visit him. They take him travelling on the wings of the night to see the shadows of Christmas past, present, and future - and Scrooge learns a lesson that he will never forget. 80 pages

Christmas is humbug, Scrooge says - just a time when you find yourself a year older and not a penny richer. The only thing that matters to Scrooge is business, and making money.But on Christmas Eve three spirits come to visit him. They take him travelling on the wings of the night to see the shadows of Christmas past, present, and future - and Scrooge learns a lesson that he will never forget. 80 pages

In Edinburgh a detective listens to a confession; in Orkney an old man lives with the ghosts of his past. In the Outer Hebrides some travellers learn a lesson; in Glasgow a young woman steals a meeting with a famous actor; and in a small town somewhere a pigeon dies. These stories are as richly varied as the land of Scotland itself. 80 pages

In Edinburgh a detective listens to a confession; in Orkney an old man lives with the ghosts of his past. In the Outer Hebrides some travellers learn a lesson; in Glasgow a young woman steals a meeting with a famous actor; and in a small town somewhere a pigeon dies. These stories are as richly varied as the land of Scotland itself. 80 pages

The job was too good. There had to be a problem - and there was. John Duncan was an honest man, but he needed money. He had children to look after. He was ready to do anything, and his bosses knew it. They gave him the job because he couldn't say no; he couldn't afford to be honest. And the job was like a poison inside him. It changed him and
blinded him, so that he couldn't see the real poison - until it was too late. 80 pages

Life is always hard for the poor, in any place and at any time. Ethan Frome is a farmer in Massachusetts. He works long hours every day, but his farm makes very little money. His
wife, Zeena, is a thin, grey woman, always complaining, and only interested in her own ill health. Then Mattie Silver, a young cousin, comes to live with the Fromes, to help Zeena and do the housework. Her bright smile and laughing voice bring light and hope into the Fromes' house - and into Ethan's lonely life. But poverty is a prison from which few people escape... 80 pages

Life is always hard for the poor, in any place and at any time. Ethan Frome is a farmer in Massachusetts. He works long hours every day, but his farm makes very little money. His wife, Zeena, is a thin, grey woman, always complaining, and only interested in her own ill health. Then Mattie Silver, a young cousin, comes to live with the Fromes, to help Zeena and do the housework. Her bright smile and laughing voice bring light and hope into the Fromes' house - and into Ethan's lonely life. But poverty is a prison from which few people escape... 80 pages

Victor Frankenstein thinks he has found the secret of life. He takes parts from dead people and builds a new 'man'. But this monster is so big and frightening that everyone runs away from him - even Frankenstein himself! The monster is like an enormous baby who needs love. But nobody gives him love, and soon he learns to hate. And, because he is so strong, the next thing he learns is how to kill... 80 pages

A warm summer night. The moon shines down on the quiet houses and gardens. Everyone is asleep. Everyone except the man in pyjamas and slippers, standing on the wet grass at the end of his garden, watching and waiting... In these three short stories, H. E. Bates presents ordinary people like you and me. But as we get to know them better, we see that their feelings are not at all ordinary. In fact, what happens to them - and in them - is
passionate, and even extraordinary. Could this happen to you and me? 80 pages

The Leander pearls were stolen nineteen years ago. The thief was caught, but the pearls were never found, and there is still a $25,000 reward for anyone who finds them. Then somebody comes to private detective Carmady with a story about a guy who knows where the pearls are hidden. Carmady agrees to talk to the guy who says he knows. But he finds him dead in his bed, with burned feet, and it seems there are quite a lot of people in Los
Angeles who have heard the story, and who are out looking for the Leander pearls... 80 pages

London: November. Terrorists blow up the Queen's coach outside Parliament. The Queen escapes, but five people are killed, and forty others badly hurt - ordinary, innocent people, like Alan Cole, the Queen's coachman, who loses his leg in the bombing. And for Alan and his daughter Jane there is more terror to come, in the search for the truth behind the bombing. Will the terrorists be caught and brought to justice? But what kind of justice? What can give Alan Cole his leg back, or give life back to people who have been blown to pieces by a bomb? 80 pages

'I ran to the side of the ship. "Help, help! Murder!" I screamed, and my uncle slowly turned to look at me. I did not see any more. Already strong hands were pulling me away. Then something hit my head; I saw a great flash of fire, and fell to the ground...' And so begin David Balfour's adventures. He is kidnapped, taken to sea, and meets many dangers. He also meets a friend, Alan Breck. But Alan is in danger himself, on the run from the English army across the wild Highlands of Scotland... 80 pages

'I ran to the side of the ship. "Help, help! Murder!" I screamed, and my
uncle slowly turned to look at me. I did not see any more. Already
strong hands were pulling me away. Then something hit my head; I saw a
great flash of fire, and fell to the ground...' And so begin David
Balfour's adventures. He is kidnapped, taken to sea, and meets many
dangers. He also meets a friend, Alan Breck. But Alan is in danger
himself, on the run from the English army across the wild Highlands of Scotland... 80 pages

'Your grandmother is old,' says Mr Li to his daughter. 'She has eaten more salt than you have eaten rice.' Mr Li is cross with his daughter when she does not show respect to her
grandmother, but Mr Li himself is not always patient with his old mother. She has lived a long time, and the future holds no promise for her. So she holds on to the past... 80 pages

This is a love story you won't forget. Oliver Barrett meets Jenny Cavilleri. He plays sports, she plays music. He's rich, and she's poor. They argue, and they fight, and they fall in love.
So they get married, and make a home together. They work hard, they enjoy life, they make plans for the future. Then they learn that they don't have much time left. Their story has made people laugh, and cry, all over the world. 80 pages

This is a love story you won't forget. Oliver Barrett meets Jenny Cavilleri. He plays sports, she plays music. He's rich, and she's poor. They argue, and they fight, and they fall in love.
So they get married, and make a home together. They work hard, they enjoy life, they make plans for the future. Then they learn that they don't have much time left. Their story has made people laugh, and cry, all over the world. 80 pages

This is a love story you won't forget. Oliver Barrett meets Jenny Cavilleri. He plays sports, she plays music. He's rich, and she's poor. They argue, and they fight, and they fall in love. So they get married, and make a home together. They work hard, they enjoy life, they make plans for the future.Then they learn that they don't have much time left. Their story has made people laugh, and cry, all over the world.

'Moondial!' As Minty spoke the word, a cold wind went past her, and her ears were filled with a thousand frightened voices. She shut her eyes and put her hands over her ears - and the voices and the wind went away. Minty opened her eyes... and knew that she was in a different morning, not the one she had woken up to. And so Minty's strange adventure begins - a journey through time into the past, where she finds Tom, and Sarah... and the evil Miss Vole. 80 pages

When Tug wakes up, he is not in his own bedroom at home. The door is locked and there are bars across the window. Loud music hammers through the house and through his head. Then a woman comes in and says that she is his mother, but Tug knows that she is not his mother... Outside, Jinny stares through the trees at the lonely house on the hill. She hears strange noises, but she turns away. After all, it's none of her business... 80 pages

He smiled, showing teeth yellow from cigarette smoke. He looked at his desk diary, then at her papers again. 'Mmm... a hundred pesos a month, Why, that's one thousand two hundred pesos a year. Surely, you can afford to buy me a forty-peso dinner!' How can Marina say no? How can she refuse the Chief's next request? He is an evil man, but she needs her promotion... 80 pages

He smiled, showing teeth yellow from cigarette smoke. He looked at his desk diary, then at her papers again. 'Mmm... a hundred pesos a month, Why, that's one thousand two hundred pesos a year. Surely, you can afford to buy me a forty-peso dinner!' How can Marina say no? How can she refuse the Chief's next request? He is an evil man, but she needs her promotion... 80 pages

Fourteen-year-old Molly and her cousins Daisy and Gracie were mixed-race Aborigines. In 1931 they were taken away from their families and sent to a camp to be trained as good 'white' Australians. They were told to forget their mothers, their language, their home. But Molly would not forget. She and her cousins escaped and walked back to Jigalong, 1600
kilometres away, following the rabbit-proof fence north as part of their guide across the desert. This is the true story of that walk, told by Molly's daughter, Doris. It is also a prize-winning film. 80 pages

When a large plane is hijacked, the Prime Minister looks at the list of passengers and suddenly becomes very, very frightened. There is a name on the list that the Prime Minister knows very well - too well. There is someone on that plane who will soon be dead - if the
hijackers can find out who he is! And there isn't much time. One man lies dead on the runway. In a few minutes the hijackers will use their guns again. And the Prime Minister knows who they are going to kill. 80 pages

The human mind is a dark, bottomless pit, and sometimes it works in strange and frightening ways. That sound in the night... is it a door banging in the wind, or a murdered man knocking inside his coffin? The face in the mirror... is it yours, or the face of someone standing behind you, who is never there when you turn round? These famous short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, that master of horror, explore the dark world of the imagination, where the dead live and speak, where fear lies in every shadow of the mind... 80 pages

The human mind is a dark, bottomless pit, and sometimes it works in strange and frightening ways. That sound in the night... is it a door banging in the wind, or a murdered man knocking inside his coffin? The face in the mirror... is it yours, or the face of someone standing behind you, who is never there when you turn round? These famous short
stories by Edgar Allan Poe, that master of horror, explore the dark world of the imagination, where the dead live and speak, where fear lies in every shadow of the mind... 80 pages

On a September day in 1821, in the church of a Yorkshire village, a man and six children stood around a grave. They were burying a woman: the man's wife, the children's mother. The children were all very young, and within a few years the two oldest were dead, too.
Close to the wild beauty of the Yorkshire moors, the father brought up his young family. Who had heard of the Brontës of Haworth then? Branwell died young, but his sisters became famous writers. But they did not live to grow old or to enjoy their fame. Only their father was left, alone with his memories. 80 pages

When men find gold in the frozen north of Canada, they need dogs - big, strong dogs to pull the sledges on the long journeys to and from the gold mines. Buck is stolen from his home in the south and sold as a sledge-dog. He has to learn a new way of life - how to work in harness, how to stay alive in the ice and the snow... and how to fight. Because when a dog falls down in a fight, he never gets up again. 80 pages

When men find gold in the frozen north of Canada, they need dogs - big, strong dogs to pull the sledges on the long journeys to and from the gold mines. Buck is stolen from his home in the south and sold as a sledge-dog. He has to learn a new way of life - how to work in harness, how to stay alive in the ice and the snow... and how to fight. Because when a dog falls down in a fight, he never gets up again. 80 pages

High up on a stone seat in the great open-air theatre of Athens, Alexis, son of Leon, watches the Festival of Plays - and dreams of seeing his own play on that famous stage. So,
as the summer passes, Alexis writes his play for the next year's Festival. But then, with his friend Corinna, he learns that Athens has enemies - enemies who do not like Athenian democracy, and who are planning a revolution to end it all... 80 pages

Love stories with a difference... There's a kiss by a fireside that was a mistake, there's a man-hating aunt by the seaside, and a gunman in Texas wanting a fight. There's a white heron flying over a forest, and a messenger running between two benches in a park. And of course, there's a girl who meets a boy ...

Love stories with a difference... There's a kiss by a fireside that was a mistake, there's a man-hating aunt by the seaside, and a gunman in Texas wanting a fight. There's a white heron flying over a forest, and a messenger running between two benches in a park. And
of course, there's a girl who meets a boy ...

For fifty years after Dr Watson's death, a packet of papers, written by the doctor himself, lay hidden in a locked box. The papers contained an extraordinary report of the case of Jack
the Ripper and the horrible murders in the East End of London in 1888. The detective, of course, was the great Sherlock Holmes - but why was the report kept hidden for so long?
This is the story that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never wrote. It is a strange and frightening tale... 80 pages

For fifty years after Dr Watson's death, a packet of papers, written by the doctor himself, lay hidden in a locked box. The papers contained an extraordinary report of the case of Jack
the Ripper and the horrible murders in the East End of London in 1888. The detective, of course, was the great Sherlock Holmes - but why was the report kept hidden for so long?
This is the story that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never wrote. It is a strange and frightening tale... 80 pages

Nani Tama looked at each of us - Dad, Auntie Hiraina, my cousin Timi, and myself. His eyes were angry. 'You fullas want me to die here in this room? Looking at these four walls? When the whakapapa is not yet finished?' But Nani Tama gets his own way, and his grandson drives him through the night, to find the missing pieces from the family history. 80 pages

Charles Bravo died from the poison antimony. He took three days to die, and the doctors could do nothing to help him. There were three people who had reasons for wanting Charles Bravo dead - Florence Bravo herself, Charles Bravo's new young wife; Dr James Gully, Florence's former lover; and Mrs Jane Cox, Florence's friend and companion. But the enquiry into the death in 1876 could not decide who the murderer was, and for more than 130 years people have wondered who did kill Charles Bravo... 80 pages

Charles Bravo died from the poison antimony. He took three days to die, and the doctors could do nothing to help him. There were three people who had reasons for wanting Charles Bravo dead - Florence Bravo herself, Charles Bravo's new young wife; Dr James Gully, Florence's former lover; and Mrs Jane Cox, Florence's friend and companion. But the
enquiry into the death in 1876 could not decide who the murderer was, and for more than 130 years people have wondered who did kill Charles Bravo... 80 pages

'When we are happy, we are always good,' says Lord Henry, 'but when we are good, we are not always happy.' Lord Henry's lazy, clever words lead the young Dorian Gray into a world
where it is better to be beautiful than to be good; a world where anything can be forgiven - even murder - if it can make people laugh at a dinner party. 80 pages