Forged notes have started to appear everywhere. Mr. Cheyne Wells of Harley Street has been given one. So has Porter. Peter Clifton is rich, but no one is quite certain how he acquired his money - not even his new wife, the beautiful Jane Leith. One night someone puts a ladder to Jane's window and enters her room. It... read more »
In The Four Pools Mystery the tyrannical plantation owner is deemed responsible for his own murder because of his mistreatment of the former slaves who continued in his employment after the war. A mystery involving 'haints' and suspicious characters, set in the South Virginia during Victorian times. read more »
Robert Blair was about to knock off from a slow day at his law firm when the phone rang. It was Marion Sharpe on the line, a local woman of quiet disposition who lived with her mother at their decrepit country house, The Franchise. It appeared that she was in some serious trouble: Miss Sharpe and her mother were... read more »
Hanaud at his best he sets out to solve one of the cleverest cases in his typical diligent fashion. A mystery drawing heavily on Mason’s knowledge of and affection for cats, the feline protagonist was in fact based on one of Mason's actual pets. read more »
In this sequel to The Yellow Claw, Sax Rohmer's famous detectives Gaston Max and Inspector Dunbar investigate an international gang of assassins that is mysteriously linked to the elimination of the greatest scientific minds of the world. What could be the motivation behind this insidious scheme? Will the love of an... read more »
Captain Patrice Belval falls in love with Little Mother Coralie, a nurse who attended to his war injuries, completely unaware of the past and the future involving them. His success at foiling an attempt to kidnap her only begins the dangerous events that follow and the unraveling of past secrets. But each new... read more »
The zany plot follows nitwit Gracie Allen trying to help master sleuth Philo Vance solve a murder. Allen's uncle fixes her up with Bill at a company picnic. When the two go out to a nightclub that night, Gracie inadvertently links Bill to the murder of a thug after finding the dead body and Bill's cigarette case at... read more »
Philo Vance takes a hand when, in an evening, one daughter of the Greene family is shot to death and another one is wounded. The family comprises two sons and three daughters (the youngest, Ada, is adopted) under the rule of their mother, a bedridden invalid who spends her days feeling sorry for herself and cursing... read more »
Psychic investigator Dr. Damar Greefe is strolling home. It's been a tough day, assisting the police. During this stroll, he feels someone or something watching him -- but when he turns to see who it is, he faces only emptiness. Then he sees a cat staring at him, eyes as green as jade. But when he goes to... read more »
A brilliant but maniacal scientist is determined to unleash a virulent plague that threatens to drive humankind to the brink of extinction. The evil doctor matches wits with two top-notch detectives, one of whom happens to be a young woman. Fans of classic thrillers will relish every minute of The Green Rust. read more »
For many, Haynes, known as "Gunner", is not an outlaw but a gentleman of unorthodox methods. For Scotland Yard, he is one of the most skilled thieves in the world. The Gunner and Luke Maddison belong to completely different worlds; Luke is a respectable banker with a charming girlfriend, Margaret Leferre. But Luke... read more »
Sir Gregory Hale returns to London from Mongolia with a mysterious Tulun-Nur chest that holds the 'key to India', a vital secret of the Fu Manchu's notorious Si-Fan organization. Unfortunately Hale is murdered before he is able to disclose the secret to Nayland Smith. The Burmese police commissioner and Dr. Petrie... read more »
This is a unique collection of strange stories from the cunning pen of Wilkie Collins, author of The Woman in White and The Moonstone. The star attraction is the novella The Haunted Hotel, a clever combination of detective and ghost story set in Venice, a city of grim waterways, dark shadows and death. The action... read more »
Include the short stories; The Haunting of Low Fennel, The Valley of the Just, The Blue Monkey, The Riddle of Ragstaff, The Master of Hollow Grange, The Curse of a Thousand Kisses, and The Turquoise Necklace. read more »
Philip Marlowe's client, a dried-up husk of a woman, wants him to recover a rare gold coin called a Brasher Doubloon, missing from her late husband's collection. Easy. Probably too easy. Unfortunately, each time the Doubloon pops up, so does a murder. That's unlucky for a private investigator, because leaving a... read more »
Perhaps the most popular of all Sherlock Holmes stories, The Hound of the Baskervilles combines the traditional detective tale with elements of horror. When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead on the wild Devon moorland with the footprints of a giant hound nearby, the blame is placed on a family curse-and it is up... read more »
Enter Bryan Devisher, over the side of the ketch in which Mordaunt was taking Mr. Julius Ricardo home to London on the summons of his old friend, Inspector Hanaud of the Paris Surete and the English 'idioms.' Exit, Devisher and Mordaunt. Enter Daniel Horbury. Exit Daniel Horbury-violently, with his throat slit in... read more »
The House of the Arrow is a detective novel that has inspired movies in French in English, featuring the fictional French detective Inspector Hanaud. When Jeanne-Marie Harlowe is poisoned and her adopted daughter is accused of murder, Inspector Hanaud is called in to investigate. read more »
In this classic novel, Charlie Chan makes his debut as Inspector of the Honolulu Police Department. Earl Derr Biggers brings Honolulu to life with deft descriptions of the landscape and of its hybrid ethnic communities. With the creation of Detective Chan, Biggers also shatters stereotypes and was ahead of its time... read more »
In The Incredulity of Father Brown, G.K. Chesterton treats us to another set of bizarre crimes that only his 'stumpy' Roman Catholic prelate has the wisdom and mindset to solve. As usual, Chesterton loves playing with early twentieth-century class distinctions, 'common-sense' assumptions, and the often anti-Catholic... read more »
The first book of G.K. Chesterton’s ingenious, thoughtful, and lyrically written mystery stories featuring the unassuming little priest who solves crimes by imagining himself inside the mind and soul of criminals, thus understanding their motives. The stories are full of paradox, spiritual insight, and... read more »
The first in the popular Fu-Manchu mystery series introduces English sleuth Denis Nayland Smith and his companion, Dr. Petrie, to the satanic Dr. Fu-Manchu, a cunning Chinese criminal mastermind who means to rule the world. The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu is the first title in the famous series of Yellow Peril novels... read more »
There are crimes for which no punishment is adequate, offences that the written law cannot redress. The three friends, Pioccart, Manfred and Gonsalez, may be enjoying the exotic, Spanish city of Cordova with its heat and Moorish influences, but they are still committed to employing their intellect and cunning to... read more »
It was exactly three months after the startling termination of the Scarab murder case* that Philo Vance was drawn into the subtlest and the most perplexing of all the criminal problems that came his way during the four years of John F.-X. Markham's incumbency as District Attorney of New York County. read more »
This new Van Dine kidnap-murder case deals with two of the most unusual crimes in the whole record of Philo Vance's criminological researches. Kasper Kenting, a playboy and ne'er-do-well, disappears from his ancestral home, the 'Purple House,' in West 86th Street, with all the indications pointing to a kidnapping... read more »
Derace Kingsley's wife ran away to Mexico to get a quickie divorce and marry a Casanova-wannabe named Chris Lavery. Or so the note she left her husband insisted. Trouble is, when Philip Marlowe asks Lavery about it he denies everything and sends the private investigator packing with a flea lodged firmly in his ear... read more »
Valeria Woodville's first act as a married woman is to sign her name in the marriage register incorrectly, and this slip is followed by the gradual disclosure of a series of secrets about her husband's earlier life, each of which leads on to another set of questions and enigmas. Her discoveries prompt her to defy... read more »
'Grace,' he said, 'I am going to apply the methods of the Four to this devil Stedland.' But the judge finds Jeffrey Storr guilty, not Stedland. As Storr's wife Grace leaves the court a foreign-looking gentleman introduces himself. He and his companion are friends of her husband. Justice has failed and THE FOUR JUST... read more »
Philip Marlowe heads to Hollywood exploring the underworld of glitter capital, trying to find a sweet young thing's missing brother; a movie starlet with a gangster boyfriend and a pair of siblings with a shared secret. Her name is Orfamay Quest and she's come all the way from Manhattan, Kansas, to find her missing... read more »
When Philip Marlowe befriends down-on-his-luck veteran Terry Lennox he gets more than he bargained for. With Lennox’s wife dead and Lennox himself on the lam, Marlowe becomes the target for the local cops and a crazy gangster, while getting mixed up with alcoholic writer Roger Wade and his wife Eileen. Nothing is... read more »