San Antonio College Library

A collection of ten detective, mystery, and thriller plays first produced in the mid-twentieth century, several of which were later adapted into motion pictures.

You're front-row center to murder as a homicidal maniac stalks the snowbound guests of an imposing manor ... as a group of strangers gather on an isolated island -- to the diabolical delight of a secret killer ... as a scheming wife takes the stand against her husband in a startling criminal trial. From The Mousetrap (the longest-running play in history) to Ten Little Indians and Witness for the Prosecution (both made into classic film thrillers),...

A star witness in a controversial court case is murdered, and the police detective assigned to guard him goes after the killers himself.

"The scene: the snow-surrounded suburban estate of a potential angel for a new musical. The setting: a mansion filled to the brim with sliding panels and secret corridors. The time: 1940. The characters: a scatterbrained hostess, a pompous film director with a penchant for name-dropping, a hard-drinking librettist, a sinister German maid, a small-time comedian with an incredible supply of bad jokes, some Nazi saboteurs and a black Irish cop. The result:...

In a love triangle, the husband plots to murder his wife. When things go wrong, the wrong victim falls and there's no escape from the deadly consequences.

The lives of two detectives are interwoven as they hunt for a serial killer in Louisiana over a seventeen-year period.

The story drew from the real-life case of Dennis O'Neill, who died after he and his brother Terence suffered extreme abuse while in the foster care of a Shropshire farmer and his wife in 1945.

Detective Kurt Wallander investigates murders and other crimes in his hometown of Ystad in southern Sweden.