A celebrated detective traveling home is detained when a murder is found on the Orient Express after heavy snowfall. Stranded passengers become a finite pool of suspects and the detective must sort through conflicting alibis, motives, and testimony to reconstruct what happened before the train resumes its journey.

A murder occurs within a limited social circle and the central account is delivered in first person by a figure close to the investigation; a famous private detective appears and works from clues and interviews to identify the killer.

A baffling murder in 1920s London brings together an informal club of six armchair detectives who each propose different solutions to the same facts. The novel turns the detective parlor game into its subject, testing how many plausible—but ultimately flawed—explanations can arise from identical evidence.

A San Francisco private detective becomes tangled in a case that hinges on a coveted object and a series of killings. The narrative presents events from an external third-person viewpoint—reporting only actions, dialogue, and appearances—so the mystery and shifting loyalties carry the dramatic weight.

Told from the viewpoint of a returning World War II veteran, the novel follows his arrival in Los Angeles and the tense relationships he forms there while an external string of murders and police investigation encircle him.

A woman linked to an academic community returns to a college where puzzling acts and a climate of fear have erupted; an investigator connected to her seeks to discover who is behind the incidents and why.

An English academic with a penchant for puzzles becomes involved in a London mystery centered on a strange toyshop and a missing person. The setup puts a cerebral, amateur detective into a circle of eccentric characters and cryptic clues that require deduction and local knowledge to sort out.

A professionally curious narrator pursues the life of a shadowy criminal figure across interwar European settings, following clues from travel and chance encounters to reconstruct motive and method.

Set around a criminal investigation, the novel focuses on a case that raises questions about identity and culpability when the accused exhibits signs of multiple personality or severe mental disturbance.