Ursula-Maria Mössner Book order (chronological)

In the coldest winter in history, in a straving city under siege, two prisoners are thrown together on a desperate adventure. Lev, a shy, chess-loving teenager and Kolya, a charismatic chancer. They are given one week to complete an extraordinary mission: to scour the ravaged countryside and find a dozen eggs. Or come back empty-handed, and die.

Truman Capote's bewitching short stories, many of which were set in the Deep South of his youth, are among his finest works. Perceptive, sensitive and eloquent, filled with brooding atmosphere and gorgeous description, these three stories tell of genteel eccentrics, evocative childhood memories and a malevolent nocturnal meeting.

Among the towering red cliffs of Petra, like some monstrous swollen Buddha, sat the corpse of Mrs Boynton. A tiny puncture mark on her wrist was the only sign of the fatal injection that had killed her.With only 24 hours available to solve the mystery, Hercule Poirot recalled a chance remark he’d overheard back in Jerusalem: ‘You see, don’t you, that she’s got to be killed?’ Mrs Boynton was, indeed, the most detestable woman he’d ever met.