Boothbys fifth novel of five about the notorious Doctor Nikola, an occultist anti-hero seeking immortality and world domination. Nikola may be the world's first modern super villain: he is a master of hypnotism and mind control, a telepathic adept, and an astral projectionist. He can cause ordinary men to see images... read more »
It was a model English village, filled with flowers, Tudor cottages, and cobbled streets. Joan Brook loved working there as a companion to Lady d'Arcy, living in the huge mansion with its surrounding park. And small though the village was, it was not too small for Joan to have found a man there whom she could love... read more »
50 Candles starts in a courthouse in Honolulu, moves to China, then to fog-shrouded San Francisco. Many of the elements used in the Charlie Chan series are present: Chinese characters (both sinister and sympathetic), the Honolulu legal system, a shrewd detective (in this case, the lawyer Mark Drew rather than a... read more »
Fire-Tongue is the mystery thriller that English writer Sax Rohmer credited to his friend, Harry Houdini. Rohmer plotted the challenge like a trap set by his best-known creation, the diabolical Dr. Fu Manchu. The prolific author set up the perfect crime with no idea how to solve it, and worked the case himself along... read more »
When the Foreign Secretary, Sir Philip Ramon, receives a threatening, greenish-grey letter; ‘We shall have no other course to pursue but to fulfil our promise. You will die at Eight in the Evening – The Four Just Men’, he remains determined to see his Aliens Extradition Bill made law. A device in the members... read more »
A must-read for fans of Agatha Christie's Poirot and Margery Allingham's Campion Mysteries, Lord Peter Wimsey is the immortal amateur sleuth created by Dorothy L Sayers. When Harriet Vane attends her Oxford reunion, known as the Gaudy, the prim academic setting is haunted by a rash of bizarre pranks: scrawled... read more »
Godfrey Morgan of San Francisco, California will only consent to marry after he is allowed to cruise around the world. His uncle, William Holderkup, gives in to this demand, and he sends Godfrey off with his instructor in deportment, Professor Tartlett. Their ship is wrecked and they are cast away on a remote... read more »
When Harriet Vane finds a dead body on the beach, she and Lord Peter Wimsey must solve a murder when all the evidence has washed out to sea Harriet Vane has gone on vacation to forget her recent murder trial and, more importantly, to forget the man who cleared her name—the dapper, handsome, and maddening Lord... read more »
The greatest detective of them all is back...About to spring out upon my appalled senses, lurked all that was vaguely horrible, all that was monstrous and inconceivably wicked in the universe'. A dense yellow fog descends upon London. Tricksters, thieves and murderers stalk their prey undetected. Lawlessness abounds... read more »
Australian author Guy Boothby put his wanderlust to work as fodder for his fiction. Though his first publication was a non-fiction account of a trip through his native country, he soon turned to fiction as an outlet for his creativity, focusing primarily on action-adventure, mystery, and detection tales. In Strange... read more »
Pining for a gripping tale from the classic early years of detective fiction? Dip into Jack O' Judgment by Edgar Wallace. Though his intentions might be pure, brutally violent vigilante Jack is bent on revenge -- and he'll do whatever it takes to exact his retribution against the criminal kingpin known as Dan... read more »
In the 6th and final book in the mystery series featuring the Chinese-American detective Charlie Chan, we find our hero in Lake Tahoe, California. Chan has been invited as a house guest. He meets a glamorous Out of Printera singer, Ellen Landini, and she is murdered by a gunshot during a party. Her servants and four... read more »
Perhaps the most light-hearted of all Chesterton’s "serious" works, in Manalive we follow the madcap adventure of Innocent Smith. Innocent Smith is a man who keeps the commandments but breaks all the conventions, and while doing so he shows us just how absurd those conventions are. Follow him as he breaks into his... read more »
The memoirs are overshadowed by the event with which they close—the meeting of the great detective and Moriarty, the Napoleon of Crime. Their struggle, seemingly to the death, was to leave many readers desolate at the loss of Holmes, but was also to lead to his immortality as a literary figure. However illogical... read more »
Arthur Raffles is a prominent member of London society, and a national sporting hero. As a cricketer he regularly represents England in Test matches. He uses this as a chance to commit a number of burglaries, primarily stealing valuable jewellery from his hosts. In this, he is assisted by his friend, the younger... read more »
Taking place in that most traditional and confounding of English settings, the public school. Colin Revell, impudent Oxonian and sometime sleuth, returns to his alma mater Oakington to puzzle over a schoolboy's "accidental" death. The accidents multiply in frequency and horror as Colin idly pokes about the Gothic... read more »
Murder in the Gunroom features a detective whose expertise in antique guns makes him the perfect candidate to crack the case of a collector felled by one of his own weapons. The Lane Fleming collection of early pistols and revolvers was one of the best in the country. When Fleming was found dead on the floor of his... read more »
When ad man Victor Dean falls down the stairs in the offices of Pym's Publicity, a respectable London advertising agency, it looks like an accident. Then Lord Peter Wimsey is called in, and he soon discovers there's more to copywriting than meets the eye. A bit of cocaine, a hint of blackmail, and some wanton women... read more »
The biggest mystery of The Mystery of Edwin Drood is how it ends. It began as a serial, as nearly all of Dickens' novels did, but only six instalments were published before the author's death in 1870. What we know about Edwin Drood is this: he is betrothed to a young woman named Rosa Bud; they are fond of each... read more »
No Hero...A woman from his past...A mysterious, sealed letter...A mountain with a deadly reputation...What brings these things together? And will they confirm or deny a man's assertion that he is no hero? The scene is laid in Switzerland, with a background of piquant hotel gossip, the narrative being in the words of... read more »
The plague is spreading across Europe -- a plague as vile and vicious as the plagues of the middle ages. It is a plague more virulent than any childhood disease: everyone will catch it; everyone who catches it will die. But this is no ordinary plague: it is the work of a sorcerer -- a man of exactly the stripe as... read more »
At the Universal Advertising Agency on the Strand, London, a murder is being planned. Three men have been discovered taking bribes and face the grim prospect of the dole queue, unless they can get rid of the person who caught them. Their ringleader, thick-set and vicious Mr Morris, soon discovers that killing is far... read more »
The final complete novel by Raymond Chandler, featuring his iconic creation Philip Marlowe. Betty Mayfield is blond and beautiful and has just been found guilty of murdering her husband. But when the jundge realizes the jury is terrified of her father-in-law--the man who owns everything in this small North Carolina... read more »
The very first collection of superb short stories featuring Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings… First there was the mystery of the film star and the diamond… then came the ‘suicide’ that was murder… the mystery of the absurdly cheap flat… a suspicious death in a locked gun-room… a million dollar bond... read more »
Since his friend and partner in crime, A. J. Raffles, jumped into the Mediterranean, Bunny Manders has scraped along as best he can. At Raffles’s side, he was witness to, and participant in, the most ingenious burglaries the underworld had ever seen. Without him, Bunny is a struggling ex-convict, so down on his... read more »
Rupurt Raleston and his siblings, Richanda and Valerius, return to their ancestral home, Pirate's Haven. It is the only thing they have left and they believe that there are hidden treasures that will save them from destitution. Amongst these treasures is rumoured to include an ancestral sword, The Luck, which will... read more »
J. G. Reeder is a shabby little man with red hair and weak eyes. However, his extraordinary mind is rapier sharp. Red Aces is the fourth and last of Edgar Wallace's JG Reeder books, featuring the diffident sleuth with the furled umbrella in three novelette-length adventures. Here are three thrilling episodes torn... read more »
Charged with the task of engaging with the indigenous peoples of Nigeria during the colonial period, Sanders takes a no-nonsense approach that, though it may offend the sensibilities of current-day readers, is unquestionably effective. Offering readers an action-packed glimpse into a period of history that is often... read more »
Sanders and Co. return to Africa (following the events in Bones in London) to bring the old Kings country under the Union Jack and to try and find what has happened to a missionary and his daughter. It is written in a delightfully humorous style. read more »
A millionaire family is intimidated by first abduction and death, and when their daughter is taken, at the same place, in the mysterious way, they are willing ransom victims. Good mechanics-timing make this an excellent suspense holder. read more »