The Moonstone

T.S. Eliot described The Moonstone as ‘the first and the greatest English detective novel’. The stone of the title is an enormous diamond plundered from an Indian shrine after the Siege of Seringapatam. Given to Miss Verinder on her eighteenth birthday, it mysteriously disappears that very night. Suspicion falls on three Indian jugglers who have been seen in the neighbourhood.

If you think Victorian literature is quaint, you haven t read anything by Wilkie Collins. Often considered the father of the English detective novel, Collins has thrilled readers with suspenseful gothic tales such as The Woman in White and The Moonstone.