Collins' collectors' choice

Contains: - Gift - Glory - Invitation to a Beheading - King, Queen, Knave - [Lolita](

The murder at the vicarage.--A murder is announced.--A pocket full of rye.--The mirror crack'd from side to side.--At Bertram's hotel

Contains: After the Funeral Death on the Nile Dumb Witness [Murder of Roger Ackroyd]( Mystery of the Blue Train

Four mystery stories featuring Agatha Christie's world famous detective, Hercule Poirot.

Ross Poldark: Tired from a grim war in America, Ross Poldark returns to his land and family, only to find his father has died, his estate is derelict and the girl he loved is engaged to another. But then he rescues a half-starved urchin girl and takes her home, an act which, it turns out, will alter his life. Demelza: Demelza, the miner's daughter Poldark rescued from a fairground rabble, is now his wife. Demelza's efforts to adapt to the ways of the gentry and her husband, bring her confusion and heartache, despite the joy in the birth of their first child. And the seeds of dispute with Warleggan are also sown. Jeremy Poldark: Ross Poldark stands accused of wrecking two ships. Despite their stormy marriage, Demelza has tried to rally support for her husband. But there are enemies who would be happy to see Ross convicted, not least George Warleggan, the powerful banker, whose personal rivalry grows ever more intense. Warleggan: Set in Cornwall in 1792. Ross's marriage to Demelza is threatened when he plunges into a risky mining venture and starts a new liaison with old flame Elizabeth, while Demelza retaliates by getting involved with a Scottish soldier.

Ice station Zebra: The Dolphin, pride of America's nuclear fleet, is the only submarine capable of attempting the rescue of a British meteorological team trapped on the polar ice cap. The officers of the Dolphin know well the hazards of such an assignment. What they do not know is that the rescue attempt is really a cover-up for one of the most desperate espionage missions of the Cold War - and that the Dolphin is heading straight for sub-zero disaster, facing sabotage, murder - and a deadly, invisible enemy. The dark crusader: Research scientists needed for rocket project overseas. Top priority work. Highest salaries. Box 141 Eight famous scientists answered this ad. Eight left England for Australia. None arrived or were heard from again. The ninth who answered was Benlall, complete with a scientific cover and a girl named Marie, a secret agent like himself. From the moment they were kidnapped at gunpoint from their Fiji hotel, they were plunged into a fantastic plot for world domination, played out on a secret missile site on a remote Polynesian island. Bear Island: October is no time to be aboard ship in the Barents Sea, three hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle. But that's where the cast and crew of Olympus Productions find themselves. And even before they reach their destination, the ship's doctor has his hands full. Three men are violently murdered, and the company's unspoken fears are confirmed: a pathological killer awaits them on the loneliest, most desolate island in the world. Does Bear Island guard a secret more valuable than five lives? Why is there no shooting script for the movie - and why has no one except the director been allowed to see the screenplay? Is the entire company marked for death? Does a mass murderer lurk in its midst, a pathological killer? The Satan bug: To the outside world, the Mordon Labs existed solely for experiments in preventative medicine...but in reality they were secret laboratories for the development of germ warfare. The most carefully hidden secret was the Satan Bug - a strain of toxin so deadly that the release of one tablespoon could annihilate mankind. Late one night, the Mordon security officer was found murdered outside that lab. And the Satan Bug was missing... Fear is the key: With the exception of the British frigate, Die Braak sunk in a storm off the coast of Delaware in 1798, it was the biggest underwater treasure in the Western Hemisphere. Ten million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars of gold ingots, emeralds and uncut diamonds, locked in the fuselage of a DC-3 lying half-buried on the ocean floor and guarded by the remains of two men, a woman and a very small boy. The fortune was there for the taking and ready to grab it were a blueblooded oilman with his own offshore oil rig, a hood so cold and independent even the Mafia couldn't do business with him and a psychopathic hired assassin. Against them stood one man, and those were his people, those skeletons in their watery coffin. His name was Talbot and he would bury his dead - but only after he had avenged their murders.