Set in Chicago, and written in 1931 by Edgar Wallace, „On the Spot” truly reflects the horror of gang life in Prohibition Chicago. Tony Perelli, the gang boss, recruits men for his gang and women for his bed with the same ruthlessness – and rapidly arranges for their disposal when they become a nuisance. But Minn Lee, the half-Chinese widow, is a little too much for him, and as she gradually learns the extent of his treachery, she plans a revenge... The constant threat of d...
„Mr. Justice Maxell” follows the story of two business partners, Maxell and Cartwright, one of whom becomes a judge and sentences the other to prison, the woman they both marry, and their respective cousins whom they take on as their own wards. Spanning roughly a decade, the plot hinges on multiple coincidences involving mutual acquaintances meeting one another at critical points on different continents, and maintains much of its suspense by instilling most of its main char...
„Major Haynes of the Secret Service” is a fine series of Wallace stories about wartime espionage. During the First World War Edgar Wallace wrote a number of morale-boosting tales about the skill and derring-do of the British military and intelligence services, mostly in the form of series published under such titles as „Tam o’ the Scoots,” „Companions of the Ace High,” and „Clarence-Private”. Several series were published in the form of dramatic pseudo-documentary accounts ...
During and after the First World War, Edgar Wallace wrote several story and article series for the Glasgow Sunday Post, a weekly newspaper founded in 1915 by the Scottish shipping and media magnate David Couper Thomson. Some of these series were published under Wallace’s own name, others – including the present work – under the house-author name of „John Anstruther”. The story „The Elusive Dud” is fast-paced with some surprising twists, well written and great to read. Walla...
One of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century, Edgar Wallace was an immensely popular author, who created exciting thrillers spiced with tales of treacherous crooks and hard-boiled detectives. „The Double” is a story about a man who encounters his unknown double and the trouble that arises. When Dick Staines joined the police force the big case of the day had been the Staines murder. The only clue was an unknown thumb-print, the case was never solved. Ten years ...
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 from his casebook: „Red Aces” about a man who gambles high and lives in fear; „Kennedy the Con Man”, reveals the impeccable mask stripped from a fiend, and final...
As a prophecy of modern warfare, this book, written before the Great War, is distinctly remarkable, as well as having the genuine Edgar Wallace sense of thrilling narrative. The centre of the plot is the invasion of Britain in 1909. It could be a crime story, as it opens in the mean streets of working class Deptford in the opening years of the 20th century, and includes criminals petty and not so petty. It is also a war story, and includes a balloon air raid over London; an...
Chicago während der Prohibition. Tony Perelli ist der Schmugglerkönig, doch geht er mit Erpressung, Schießereien und der Liquidierung unbequemer Leute zu weit? Er bekam Besuch in seinem Dachgarten hoch über den Lichtern von Chicago. Einer seiner Leute beschwerte sich darüber, dass man seinen Freund liquidiert hat. Die Folge: eine Hinrichtung – ein Polizeieinsatz – Maschinengewehrsalven am Stadtrand und mindestens ein Toter mehr als geplant...
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. Jane, newly married to this man she does not love, is plunged into a nightmare of murder and madness. What is the secret of her husband’s immense fortune? Is he „The Clever One” who has baffled the police, the banks and the world wit...
„The Undisclosed Client” is a collection of short stories published between 1904 and 1929 from the British Mysteries’ master Edgar Wallace, directly from the Golden Era of the genre. Edgar Wallace was an English novelist, journalist and playwright, who was an enormously popular writer of detective, suspense stories, and practically invented the modern „thriller”. His popularity at the time was comparable to that of Charles Dickens. The stories are fast-paced, with good twis...
Edgar Wallace’s „The Twister”, published in 1928, is a tale of murder, high finance, and intrigue. Lord Frensham knows exactly who’s swindling him in the stock market – Anthony „Tony” Braid, who many call The Twister. And he’s not about to believe Braid’s crazy notion that his own nephew, his flesh and blood, is behind the embezzlement... Then Frensham is found dead in his office, but Inspector Elk of the Scotland Yard knows it’s not suicide, no matter the elaborate scheme ...
If you like a villain to be a proper villain then Oberzhon is the genuine article. What a villain! What an adventure! There are crimes for which no punishment is adequate, offences that the written law cannot efface. When conventional justice fails The Three Just Men employ their great intellect and cunning. They use their own methods, carry out their own verdicts which the police were unable or unwilling to carry out. There can be no compromise. Each of the ten chapters in...
„The Squeaker” is a piece of early crime writing by author Edgar Wallace, first published in 1927. This novel is a traditional mystery, featuring some crooks and some policemen, a mysterious villain, a lovely girl and a plot with many twists. It is the thrilling story of a group of London jewel thieves and the company they keep. The title character is an omnipotent „fence” who has cornered the diamond-smuggling racket. The fence travels in polite society under the guise of ...
Best remembered for penning the screenplay for the classic film „King Kong”, author Edgar Wallace was an astoundingly popular luminary in the action-adventure genre in the early twentieth century. „The Big Four” is a story packed with intrigue, treachery, assassinations, and machinations, and it highlights Wallace’s unmatched skill in setting a pulse-pounding pace. Wallace was an extremely prolific writer who wrote over 175 novels, plus numerous plays, essays and journalist...
1931 Edgar Wallace novel. The story begins with following the Arranway family and various people that touch their life. Sketchley, where the Coat of Arms roadhouse stands, is a place of strange happenings. A complicated trail of theft, arson and blackmail culminates in murder at the Coat of Arms roadhouse and T. B. Collett, the crack Scotland Yard detective, must cope with a cast of stock company suspects and an incompetent local detective. Little by little you can see that...
The story begins with the murder of Horace Tom Tickler, burglar, who is „taken for a ride” in the best Chicago fashion and then delivered to Scotland Yard in a stolen cab – and all of England will be turned topsy-turvy until the clue of the silver key unmasks the ruthless murderer! Some intriguing twists, and the murderer’s identity is quite well hidden. With a wide range of suspects – miserly rich uncle, heiress-actress, impecunious inventor, theatrical „angel”, inveterate...
A collection of 7 short mystery/romance stories by the great story-teller Wallace which contains the following works: „The Cat Burglar”, „The Pick-Up”, „Discovering Rex”, „The Clue Of Monday’s Settling”, „Establishing Charles Bullivant”, „Sentimental Simpson”, „White Stocking”. „The Cat Burglar” takes place in the British capital. Here we can see family jealousies, intrigues and double games, all because of a mysteriously disappeared emerald. „Sentimental Simpson” is the st...
„The Brigand” (1927) is a collection of a dozen fast-paced, frothy crime capers set in a Britain still reeling from 1926’s General Strike. An excellent collection of connected short stories all about likeable conman Anthony Newton. Newton returning from the Great War and unable to find employment decides start redistributing wealth in his own way. Deprived of a legal source of income and faced with homelessness and hunger he decides to become a brigand – a sort of modern-da...
Po ulicach spowitego mgłą Londynu grasuje mordercza szajka czcicieli Upierzonego Węża. Ich ofiarą padają eleganckie damy obwieszone kosztowną biżuterią. A to dopiero początek wielkiej afery kryminalnej. W kolejnych dniach coraz więcej osób dostaje bileciki z pogróżkami, zdobione stemplem w kształcie znanego z azteckich legend węża o ptasich piórach... Czy londyński dziennikarz, Piotr Dewin zdoła wyjaśnić, kim jest tajne stowarzyszenie Upierzonego Węża i wpadnie na trop jego b...
Są przestępstwa, za które żadna kara nie jest adekwatna, przestępstwa, których pisane prawo nie może zatrzeć. Tak swoje działania uzasadnia Rada Sprawiedliwych – spotkanie wielkich i beznamiętnych intelektów, ludzi obojętnych na światową opinię. Wykorzystując swój spryt i przebiegłość nieustannie walczą oni przeciwko potężnym organizacjom podziemia, przeciwko dawnym mistrzom nikczemności i równie przebiegłym umysłom. Dla tych, którzy łamią ich niepisane prawa wyrok jest tylko...
Młody oficer Richard Hallowell służący w gwardii Tower zamierza oświadczyć się swojej ukochanej, Hope Joyce, ale na przeszkodzie staje tajemnicza przeszłość kobiety. Młoda i urocza Hope nie zna bowiem ani swojego pochodzenia, ani też rodziców, co automatycznie wyklucza ją z pełnienia funkcji żony szanowanego brytyjskiego oficera. Sprawy komplikuje jeszcze brat Richarda, Graham, który zaraz po opuszczeniu więzienia, podejmuje zlecenie kradzieży z Tower klejnotów królewskich od...
Johnny Gray całe dwa lata czekał na ten właśnie dzień - jego wyrok dobiegł końca i może opuścić więzienie. Nowe życie rozpoczyna od wizyty u swojego przyjaciela Piotra Kane'a. Liczy, że spotka jego córkę Marney, w której mocno się podkochuje. Spotyka go jednak ogromne rozczarowanie - przybywa tuż po ceremonii zaślubin dziewczyny z niejakim Floydem. Gray rozpoznaje w panu młodym syna największego wroga Piotra Kane'a. Czy małżeństwo jest elementem wyrafinowanej zemsty Emanuela ...
