This giant anthology brings together forty of the finest mystery stories ever written--many rare or unanthologized--by such towering names in the field as Edgar Allan Poe, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Rex Stout, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Ellery Queen, Ruth Rendell, P.D. James, Isaac Asimov, and many others.

Contents:

• Introduction by Martin H. Greenberg
• The Copper Beeches [“The Adventure of the Copper Beeches”] by Arthur Conan Doyle
• The Blue Cross by G.K. Chesterton
• The Submarine Plans by Agatha Christie
• The Necklace of Pearls by Dorothy L. Sayers
• Death on the Air by Ngaio Marsh
• Help Wanted, Male by Rex Stout
• Midnight Blue by Ross MacDonald
• Abraham Lincoln’s Clue by Ellery Queen
• The Fever Tree by Ruth Rendell
• Twenty-One Good Men and True by Dick Francis
• The Victim by P.D. James
• Little Terror by Robert Barnard
• The Dream Is Better by Julian Symons
• The Homesick Buick by John D. MacDonald
• Danger Out of the Past by Erle Stanley Gardner
• The Case of the Emerald Sky by Eric Ambler
• Strictly Diplomatic by John Dickson Carr
• The African Tree Beavers by Michael Gilbert
• There Are No Snakes in Ireland by Frederick Forsyth
• The Splintered Monday by Charlotte Armstrong
• The Dancing Detective by Cornell Woolrich
• And So Died Riabouchinska by Ray Bradbury
• Quitters, Inc. by Stephen King
• The Nine-to-Five Man by Stanley Ellin
• The Man Who Collected Poe by Robert Bloch
• The Nuggy Bar by Simon Brett
• The Theft of the Four of Spades by Edward D. Hoch
• The Parker Shotgun by Sue Grafton
• Lucky Penny by Linda Barnes
• Never Shake a Family Tree by Donald E. Westlake
• The Marked Man by Ursula Curtiss
• Have a Nice Death by Antonia Fraser
• The Stolen White Elephant by Mark Twain
• The Cross of Lorraine by Isaac Asimov
• The Worst Crime Known to Man by Reginald Hill
• The Honest Blackmailer by Patricia Moyes
• Cat’s-Paw by Bill Pronzini
• A Nice Place to Stay by Nedra Tyre
• Milady Bigamy by Lillian de la Torre
• One Thousand Dollars a Word by Lawrence Block