Steve Roud was Local Studies Librarian for the London Borough of Croydon and served as Honorary Librarian of the Folklore Society for over fifteen years. He has been researching British folklore for over thirty years and is the joint author of the Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore, plus other books on traditional drama and folk song, and the Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland, which won the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award in 2004. His publications include London Lore (2008) and The Lore of the Playground (2010). He also compiles the Folk Song Index and the Broadside Index, two internationally acclaimed computer databases of traditional folk and popular song. He lives in Sussex.

Steve Roud

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

Edgar Allan Poe

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MATTHEW PEARL 
 
Edgar Allan Poe invented detective fiction with these three mesmerising stories of a young eccentric named C. Auguste Dupin: 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue', 'The Mystery of Marie Rogêt' and 'The Purloined Letter'. Dorothy L. Sayers would later describe these tales as 'almost a complete manual of detective theory and practice'. Indeed, Poe's short mysteries inspired the creation of countless literary sleuths, among them Sherlock Holmes. Today the unique Dupin stories still stand out as utterly engrossing page-turners. 
 
This edition includes the definitive text of these stories and an introduction and appendix on 'The Earliest Detectives' by Matthew Pearl.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue

John Bowen

In summer, and particularly when the wind blows south-west across the lawn, the sceptic tank gives out a strong stench… ‘Oh, it is a body,’ the girls say. ‘We have a body in there. No one you know. It decomposes, of course, but so slowly one quite despairs.’ 
 
In their lovely, quiet Cotswolds village, Janet and Susan are known to the villagers simply as ‘the girls’. Partners in love and work, co-proprietors of a picturesque shop, they lead an enviable, enviably settled life. 
 
But when a moment of small, surprising passion intrudes into the equilibrium of their world, the girls’ lives take a deeply unsettling turn. First comes motherhood. Then comes murder. 
 
Part-macabre comedy, part-crime thriller, part-cosy romance, John Bowen’s The Girls is a novel like none other. Told with warmth, affection and fun, yet laced with darkness and unease, 'the girls' will ensure you never look on Middle England quite so quaintly again. 
 
‘Absolutely wicked’ Armistead Maupin 
 
‘Startlingly offbeat’ Gore Vidal 
 
‘[For] people who like Myra Breckinridge as well as Miss Marple; fans of Beryl Bainbridge, Russell Greenan and Patricia Highsmith; those who feel Barbara Pym-ish on some days and Stephen King-ish on others . . . The Girls charms us as only certain tales ‘of village life’ can’ Washington Post

The Girls

Georges Perec

Anton Vowl is missing. Ransacking his Paris flat, a group of his faithful companions trawl through his diary for any hint as to his location and, insidiously, a ghost, from Vowl's past starts to cast its malignant shadow. This virtuoso story, chock-full of plots and subplots, shows the skill of both author and translator who impart all the action without a crucial grammatical prop: the letter 'e'.

A Void

Nevil Shute

After Philip Stenning is involved in a near-fatal plane crash, he feels he owes a debt of gratitude to the man who rescued him. However, his mysterious saviour is an escaped convict, and his determination to help him leads Stenning into a tense and dramatic adventure of intrigue, drug-running and murder.

Marazan

Roberto Bolaño

Dropped from the Olympic figure skating team, Nuria Martí&rsquo;s fate pivots her into a world of corruption, jealousy &ndash; and revenge. 
 
Cushioning her fall from grace, a besotted admirer builds a secret ice rink for her in the ruins of an old masion on the outskirts of their seaside town. What he doesn&rsquo;t tell her is he paid for it using public funds. Such deceit is not without repercussions, and the skating rink soon becomes a crime scene. 
 
Narrated by a corrupt and pompous civil servant, a beleaguered romantic poet, and a duplicitous civil servant, The Skating Rink is a darkly atmospheric tale of murder and its motives. 
 
TRANSLATED BY CHRIS ANDREWS 
 
'A work of intense and unrealized longing' The New York Times 
 
&lsquo;Bolaño makes you feel changed for having read him; he adjusts your angle of view on the world&rsquo; Guardian

The Skating Rink

John Hartley Williams

Alongside the names of James Hadley Chase and Erle Stanley Gardner we must now add that of John Hartley Williams - though Mystery in Spiderville is no run-of-the-mill hard-boiled thriller. The décor is by Dali, the plot is a mixture of Breton and Burroughs, and the main character - the protean and unkillable Spider Rembrandt - has six toes, sleeps in a grave and dreams of congress with the pert and playful Reedy Buttons. 
 
Sucked into the vortex of Spider's philandering mind is a narrator - sometimes Spider's adversary, sometimes his victim - who lies upon a bed brooding on the absence of a nameless, brown-haired woman. He, too, is protean: full of passionate longings and homicidal tendencies. 
 
A surrealist film-noir that blends the forensic with the erotic, the seedy penny-dreadful and the lyric prose-poem, Mystery in Spiderville is one of the strangest, strongest and most arresting fictional debuts in years.

Mystery In Spiderville

Andrey Kurkov

All that stands between one man and murder by the mafia is a penguin.Viktor writes obituaries for a newspaper in Kyiv; the only creature he trusts is his pet penguin, Misha. But when his ‘subjects’ start dying while their tributes sit in his drawer, Viktor realises he’s writing death notices to order.Bleakly funny and quietly tragic, Death and the Penguin captures life in a collapsing world where conscience and corruption blur. Kurkov’s understated prose turns absurdity into menace - a masterpiece of Eastern European noir with feathers and frostbite.‘A tragicomic masterpiece’ Daily Telegraph‘A black comedy of rare distinction’ Spectator

Death and the Penguin

A BBC Two Between the Covers Pick

Hammond Innes

When Jim Pryce, a deserter from the army, returns secretly to his native Cornwall, he finds the coast cold and unfriendly. He is soon plunged into a hazardous world of crooks,contraband, madness and mysteries underneath the rocky cliffs.

Killer Mine

Joan Lindsay

Read this fantastic, atmospheric Australian thriller about the mysterious disappearance of a group of young girls. 
 
It was a cloudless summer day in the year nineteen hundred. 
 
Everyone at Appleyard College for Young Ladies agreed it was just right for a picnic at Hanging Rock. After lunch, a group of three girls climbed into the blaze of the afternoon sun, pressing on through the scrub into the shadows of Hanging Rock. Further, higher, till at last they disappeared. 
 
They never returned. 
 
Whether Picnic at Hanging Rock is fact or fiction the reader must decide for themselves. 
 
NOW A MAJOR BBC TV SERIES - STARRING NATALIE DORMER

Picnic At Hanging Rock

Mark Haddon

Fifteen year old Christopher is about to embark on an investigation... 
 
Lots of things are mysteries. But that doesn't mean there isn't an answer to them. 
 
It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs Shears' house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its side, the way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog was not running or asleep. The dog was dead. 
 
This is Christopher's murder mystery story. There are also no lies in this story because Christopher can't tell lies. Christopher does not like strangers or the colours yellow or brown or being touched. On the other hand, he knows all the countries in the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7507. When Christopher decides to find out who killed the neighbour's dog, his mystery story becomes more complicated than he could have ever predicted. 
 
'Outstanding... a stunningly good read' Observer 
 
'A superb achievement. He is a wise and bleakly funny writer with rare gifts of empathy' Ian McEwan 
 
**ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY**

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Vintage Children's Classics

Michael Ondaatje

Booker prize winning author Michael Ondaatje invites you on a brutal, beautiful journey into the American West. . . 
 
At twenty-one years old, Billy the Kid has killed a man for each year he’s been alive. 
 
Roaming the blasted planes of the Wild West, he moves between friends, foes and lovers, fighting to keep just one step ahead of the law. Yet in this twisted wasteland – a country of mad dogs, of sweat and gore and blinding heat – the sheriffs play dirty too.Melding prose, poetry, imagined interviews and ephemeral photography, Ondaatje weaves together a lyrical reinterpretation of Billy’s short, infamous existence, forming a portrait of a young man, and a young country, borne out of violence, threaded through with disaster, yet rich in wonder. 
 
‘Ondaatje’s language is clean and energetic, with the pop of bullets. This is literature, art.’ Annie Dillard 
 
'Ondaatje’s eye for detail is wonderful and he uses it poetically, with superb restraint' Larry McMurtry

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid

William Faulkner

An elderly, proud black farmer, Lucas Beauchamp, is wrongfully arrested for the murder of a white man. The lynch mob are baying for his blood. His sole hope lies with a young white boy, bent on repaying an old favour, who with the help of Lucas's cynical lawyer will work to find the truth and hatch a risky plot to prove his innocence.

Intruder in the Dust

Patricia Highsmith

"You're always good on ideas, Tom..." 
 
An American art collector is claiming that the expensive masterpiece he bought is a fake. He wants to meet with the artist - but Tom Ripley knows that artist no longer exits. 
 
Ripley needs to hide his role in the fraud, and keep his colleague's mouth shut. But not everyone's nerves are as steady as his, especially when it comes to murder. 
 
The second in Highsmith's Ripley series, Ripley Under Ground is set six years after the events of The Talented Mr Ripley. 
 
'Patricia Highsmith is unrivalled' Daily Telegraph

Ripley Under Ground

Ottessa Moshfegh

VINTAGE CLASSICS' AMERICAN GOTHIC SERIES 
Spine-tingling, mind-altering and deliciously atmospheric, journey into the dark side of America with nine of its most uncanny classics. 
 
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE* 
**FROM THE AUTHOR OF TIKTOK SENSATION MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION** 
 
Trapped between caring for her alcoholic father and her job as a secretary at the boys' prison, Eileen Dunlop dreams of escaping to the big city. 
 
In the meantime, her nights and weekends are filled with shoplifting and cleaning up her increasingly deranged father's messes. 
 
When the beautiful, charismatic Rebecca Saint John arrives on the scene as the new counsellor at the prison, Eileen is enchanted, unable to resist what appears to be a miraculously budding friendship. But soon, Eileen's affection for Rebecca pull her into a crime that far surpasses even her own wild imagination. 
 
'Fully lives up to the hype. A taut psychological thriller, rippled with comedy as black as a raven's wing, Eileen is effortlessly stylish and compelling' The Times 
 
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA NEW BLOOD DAGGER AWARD*

Eileen

Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami's third novel, A Wild Sheep Chase is the mystery hybrid which completes the odyssey begun in Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973. 
 
The man was leading an aimless life, time passing, one big blank. 
 
His girlfriend has perfectly formed ears, ears with the power to bewitch, marvels of creation. The man receives a letter from a friend, enclosing a seemingly innocent photograph of sheep, and a request: place the photograph somewhere it will be seen. Then, one September afternoon, the phone rings, and the adventure begins. Welcome to the wild sheep chase. 
 
‘A science fiction fantasy, a romance, a metaphysical tease, or a dramatisation of philosophical ideas’ Independent 
 
‘A highly accomplished piece of craftsmanship’ New Yorker 
 
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR

A Wild Sheep Chase

the surreal, breakout detective novel, now in a deluxe gift edition

Special 3D Edition

Graham Greene

A young boy, Victor, is collected from school by a stranger in a bowler hat - the stranger says he has won Victor in a game of backgammon with Victor's father. The stranger, known as the Captain, takes Victor to live with the sweet but withdrawn Lisa, where he serves as her conduit to the outside world. From mysterious beginnings, Graham Greene's final novel becomes a twisting thriller of smuggling, jewel theft and international espionage which culminates in a dramatic showdown in Panama.

The Captain and the Enemy

For Arthur Rowe the charity fête was a trip back to childhood, to innocence, a welcome chance to escape the terror of the Blitz, to forget twenty years of his past and a murder. Then he guesses the weight of the cake, and from that moment on he's a hunted man, the target of shadowy killers, on the run and struggling to remember and to find the truth.

The Ministry of Fear

Read this classic uplifting, moving and heartwarming story about life in the face of the cold war. 
 
 Theodore Honey is a shy, inconspicuous aircraft engineer whose eccentric interests in quantum mechanics and spiritualism are frowned upon in aviation circles. But when a passenger plane crashes in unexplained circumstances, Honey must convince his superiors that his unorthodox theories are correct before more lives are lost.

No Highway

Jean-Patrick Manchette

Eugène Tarpon is back to sleeping in his office and waiting for a job that pays. Then he gets a call from an old contact in the police. A distant relative of his – a polite, persistent widow – wants someone to look into her daughter’s disappearance. The police have already given up. No leads, no hope, no point. Just take the case, take her money, and keep her busy. 
 
Tarpon’s too broke to refuse, and too much of a gentleman to brush her off. But the story doesn’t sit right. And when something smells off, he can’t help but start digging. 
 
With Skeletons in the Closet, Manchette sends his bruised, boozy detective stumbling deeper into the wreckage of modern France – exposing a world where justice is hollow, the missing stay missing, and decency is just another dead end.

Skeletons in the Closet

Natsuo Kirino

In the Tokyo suburbs four women work the graveyard shift at a factory. Burdened with heavy debts, alienated from husbands and children, they all secretly dream of a way out of their dead-end lives. 
 
A young mother among them finally cracks and strangles her philandering, gambling husband. She confesses her crime to her colleagues and unexpectedly, they agree to help. But then the dismembered body parts are discovered, the police start asking questions and more dangerous enemies begin to close in. 
 
OUT is a psychologically taut and unflinching foray into the darkest recesses of the human soul, an unsettling reminder that the desperate desire for freedom can make the most ordinary person do the unimaginable. 
 
 VINTAGE JAPANESE CLASSICS - five masterpieces of Japanese fiction in gorgeous new gift editions.

(Vintage Classics Japanese Series)

Wilkie Collins

'The most popular novel of the nineteenth century, and still one of the best plots in English literature' Sarah Waters 
 
 Marian and her sister Laura live a quiet life under their uncle's guardianship until Laura's marriage to Sir Percival Glyde. Sir Percival is a man of many secrets – is one of them connected to the strange appearances of a young woman dressed all in white? And what does his charismatic friend, Count Fosco, with his pet white mice running in and out of his brightly coloured waistcoat, have to do with it all? Marian and the girls' drawing master, Walter, have to turn detective in order to work out what is going on, and to protect Laura from a fatal plot . . .

The Woman in White

A beautiful deluxe gift edition of Poe's most macabre and irresistible stories with foiled covers, marbled endpapers, sprayed edges, beautiful paper and finished with a silk ribbon. 
 
Edgar Allan Poe's stories uncover the deeply unnerving strangeness lurking within us all. His genius for horror and suspense went on to influence the world, from Freud to Hollywood. This complete collection of his best short stories contains the well-known works 'The Pit and the Pendulum' and 'The Tell-Tale Heart' alongside a wide range of delightfully terrifying tales to unsettle and enthrall. 
 
This hardback is part of VINTAGE COLLECTOR’S CLASSICS, a series of luxurious books especially crafted for collectors and fans of beautiful special editions. Sumptuous design meets the highest quality production. Discover timeless classics beautifully bound for every bookshelf.

The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Stories

A. A. Milne

Classic crime, at its very best. 
 
With a new introduction by Gyles Brandreth. 
 
The Red House is a country residence far removed from the world of the Hundred Acre Wood but its story has much of the same charm and wit. There is, of course, a murder, and when the local police fail to solve the crime, an amateur sleuth readily steps in. What follows is a delightful whodunnit with humour, excitement and a suitably surprising twist at the end. 
 
A. A. Milne loved detective stories and pays homage to Sherlock Holmes in his detective - the clever and charismatic Anthony Gillingham- and his assistant, Bill Beverley. This is classic crime at its very best. 
 
'I love his writing' P.G.Wodehouse

The Red House Mystery

NOW A MAJOR NEW NETFLIX SERIES 
 
Tom Ripley wants money, success, and the good life - and he's willing to kill for it. 
 
Struggling to stay one step ahead of his creditors (and the law), Ripley leaps at the chance to start afresh on a free trip to Europe. But when his new-found happiness is threatened, his response is as swift as it is shocking. 
 
Now a major new Netflix series, The Talented Mr Ripley is the first in Highsmith’s classic series featuring the character of Tom Ripley – fiction’s most terrifying con-man. 
 
'The No.1 Greatest Crime Writer' The Times 
 
'Ripley, amoral, hedonistic and charming, is a genuinely original creation' Daily Telegraph

Ripley

Jo Nesbo

Shakespeare’s Macbeth is transformed into a page-turning Jo Nesbo crime thriller, the story of the ex-addict cop Inspector Macbeth. 
 
He's the best cop they've got. 
When a drug bust turns into a bloodbath it's up to Inspector Macbeth and his team to clean up the mess. 
 
He's also an ex-drug addict with a troubled past. 
He's rewarded for his success. Power. Money. Respect. They're all within reach. 
 
But a man like him won't get to the top. 
Plagued by hallucinations and paranoia, Macbeth starts to unravel. He's convinced he won't get what is rightfully his. 
 
Unless he kills for it. 
 
‘Shakespeare's darkest tale – reimagined by the king of Nordic noir’ Mail on Sunday 
 
'A deliciously oppressive page-turner' Guardian 
 
SHAKESPEARE RETOLD: Time travel. Zombies. Power-hungry media moguls. This is Shakespeare as you’ve never seen him before: nine iconic plays transformed by the best novelists of our time, with covers by Michael Craig-Martin.

Macbeth

‘Shakespeare's darkest tale reimagined by the king of Nordic noir’ Mail on Sunday

'Explosive, absurd...with plenty of oh la la and even more zut alors' The Times 
 
WHEN IT COMES TO REVOLUTION, EVERYONE PAYS 
 
In Paris, the Nada gang – a small cell of left-wing radicals – hatch a plan to kidnap the U.S. ambassador. They’re armed, angry, and almost successful – but totally unprepared for what follows. As the crackdown begins, the group splinters, exposing cowardice, betrayal, and the thin line between radical idealism and outright nihilism. There will be no heroes – only casualties. 
 
Jean-Patrick Manchette skewers both the establishment and its would-be destroyers in this pitch-black political thriller. His most overtly radical work, Nada is a savage, stylish dissection of violence, ideology, and the wreckage left behind. 
 
PRAISE FOR JEAN-PARICK MANCHETTE 
 
 
‘Manchette was Le Homme... We must revere him now and rediscover him this very instant. ’ James Ellroy 
 
'A comedic genius... I read and reread him, stunned, appalled, and laughing out loud' Rachel Kushner 
 
‘Manchette is Camus on overdrive... He deserves much the same attention’ James Sallis 
 
‘Manchette is legend among all of the crime writers I know, and with good reason: his novels never fail to stun and thrill from page one’ Duane Swierczynski

Nada

**AS SEEN ON WRITE AROUND THE WORLD WITH RICHARD E GRANT** 
 
'The No.1 Greatest Crime Writer' The Times 
 
'Ripley, amoral, hedonistic and charming, is a genuinely original creation' Daily Telegraph 
 
'He is using you for what you are worth' 
 
Tom Ripley wants money, success, and the good life - and he's willing to kill for it. Struggling to stay one step ahead of his creditors, and the law, Ripley leaps at the chance to start afresh on a free trip to Europe. But when his new-found happiness is threatened, his response is as swift as it is shocking. 
 
This is the first in Highsmith's classic series featuring the character of Tom Ripley. The Talented Mr Ripley also inspired the Academy Award-winning film starring Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law. 
 
One of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World.

The Talented Mr Ripley

VINTAGE CLASSICS' AMERICAN GOTHIC SERIES 
Spine-tingling, mind-altering and deliciously atmospheric, journey into the dark side of America with nine of its most uncanny classics. 
 
Edgar Allan Poe was a writer of uncommon talent; in The Murders in the Rue Morgue he created the genre of detective fiction while his genius for finding the strangeness lurking within us all has been an influence on everyone from Freud to Hollywood. This complete collection of all his short stories and novellas contains well-known tales 'The Pit and the Pendulum' and 'The Tell-Tale Heart' alongside hidden gems that both unsettle and enthrall the reader.

The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Selected Stories

Raven is a ruthless assassin, a hired killer, whose cold-blooded murder of the Minister for War will have violent repercussions across Europe. As the nation prepares for battle, Raven goes on the run, hunted by the police and in search of the man who paid him in stolen banknotes, eventually unearthing the terrible truth behind his deadly assignment.

A Gun for Sale

Arthur Conan Doyle

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DAVID PEACE 
 
This volume collects together Sherlock Holmes's most memorable and intriguing cases, including adventures with mysterious masked strangers, ingenious heists, murderous plots and hidden jewels, which take the famous detective and his faithful sidekick Dr Watson from the streets of London and the English countryside to a chilling encounter at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland.

Showing results for: ‘Steve Roud’

Filters

Category

Publication Date

Format

Series

Imprint

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter