Philip Marlowe, a laconic private detective, is hired by an elderly wealthy client to look into a potentially embarrassing or criminal affair involving her family.

An unnamed young woman marries a wealthy widower and moves to his grand West Country estate, where she finds the household dominated by the presence and legend of his late first wife.

Set in early 20th-century Florida, the novel follows Janie Crawford as she moves from adolescence into adulthood and seeks a life where she can speak and act for herself. The core pressure is Janie's pursuit of emotional autonomy and self-definition within constrained social and gender roles.

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.

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 Room of One's Own argues that women need literal and financial autonomy—a private room and independent income—to write and participate fully in literary culture.

Set in 1920s Harlem, the novel follows two childhood friends whose reunion stirs fascination, rivalry, and moral danger when one woman passes as white. The central pressure comes from competing desires for safety, social standing, and intimacy within racially fraught social circles.

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.

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.