Gumshoe Books - your independent mystery and crime fiction specialist

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Serendipity!

Serendipity = to find that which you were not looking for

Is every book here to be boxed into a category of "cosy", "police procedural" or "historical mystery"? 

Here, there are different classifications to discover. Browse these pages for inspiration, as you would walk along the display tables in your bookshop.

See how many of these books you have read, and discover new authors, countries, tropes, puzzles to whisk you away from the every-day into unexplored lands. Follow the trail where it may lead, and may you find the next book or two to add to your future journey.

CWA 2025 Daggers shortlists

Travel by book

Gumshoe Books' collection of country pages now includes France (both translated, and used as setting), Iceland, Australia (Outback noir!) and Japan (classic detective fiction as an art form)

Anthologies

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Book reviews and Podcasts

The Gumshoe catalogue is enriched and informed by professional book reviewers - instead of drowning in endless vacuous social media feeds, we spend quality time reading real reviews and listening to the best crime podcasts.

Here are some of our favourites:

Give them a try! If you like them, let them know you found them on Gumshoe Books.

Book of the Month - June 2025

Knave of Diamonds

By Laurie R King

Published on
Allison & Busby, 352 pages.
ISBN: 9780749032876

When Mary Russell was a child, she adored her Uncle Jake, the black sheep of the family. But she hasn't heard from him in many years, until he presents himself at her door with an abundance of problems for his clever niece to deal with. Not the least of which is the reason the family rejected him in the first place: his involvement in the infamous disappearance of the Irish Crown Jewels from Dublin Castle.

It was a theft that shook a government, enraged a King and threatened the establishment. Juggling conflicting loyalties and international secrets, Russell is entangled in the web of a case that not even the great Sherlock Holmes could solve.

Click here to go to the book page
Hardcover
£22.00 GBP

Puzzle Books

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Crime Fiction Imprints

Specialist imprints range from the re-issuing of classic titles (British Library Publishing, Galileo Publishing, Collins Crime Club and Penguin Modern Classics - Crime and Espionage) to publishing international titles in translation or original (Bitter Lemon Press, Pushkin Vertigo), and to historical mysteries (Allison & Busby).