The Mystery of a Hansom Cab

One of the defining novels of crime fiction, this book is credited with inspiring Arthur Conan Doyle to write A Study In Scarlet, which initiated the character Sherlock Holmes

 

When a man is found murdered inside a Melbourne hansom cab at the end of his journey, the police quickly find out who he was and ascertain that he has been robbed of a certain piece of paper—but what did the document contain, and who was prepared to kill him for it? First published in Australia in 1886, and described by John Sutherland as the 19th century’s "most sensationally popular crime and detective novel," this book sold out in three weeks and went on to sell more than half a million copies worldwide. With "more twists and turns than a python swallowing a corkscrew" (Anthony Gardner, from the foreword), and considerably ahead of its time in both format and content, this tale remains, more than a century later, as thrilling as the very best of Sherlock Holmes.