The Magic Casket – Thorndike solves the mystery of the box in order to locate a jewel stolen from a client and get rid of the dastardly Japanese who are after them in every way.

NARODZIŁ SIĘ, BY WŁADAĆ LUDEM BOŻYM, ALE JAHWE JEST W JEGO CZASACH JEDYNIE MGLISTYM, NIEISTOTNYM WSPOMNIENIEM W PAMIĘCI JEGO NARODU.Hiskiasz urodził się jako drugi syn króla Achaza. Nie powstrzymało to jednak jego ojca przed wcieleniem w życie przewrotnego planu, który miał zaskarbić mu łaski pogańskiego bożka, Molocha. U stóp ołtarza przerażony i bezsilny chłopiec po raz pierwszy spotyka Boga Jedynego i Prawdziwego, Boga swojego królewskiego rodu – Jahwe.Ale jego droga do Św...

Książka Austina Jersilda, profesora Wydziału Historii w Old Dominion University, jest bodaj pierwszą monografią o XIX-wiecznym podboju Kaukazu Północnego przez Rosję. Stanowi przy tym skuteczną odtrutkę na kłamliwą propagandę historyczną, posługującą się twierdzeniami, że „ciągła ekspansja Rosji na południe wynikała z konieczności obrony, ale także ze zwykłego pragmatyzmu”. Dokumentując proces narodzin i zmierzchu „orientalistycznej” narracji Imperium Rosyjskiego na Kau...

Dr. John Thorndike is a fictional detective in a series of novels. He is a medical lawyer – a doctor by origin, he turned to the bar and became one of the first, in modern terms, forensic experts. His decisions were based on his method of collecting all possible data.

R. Austin Freeman’s mysteries are often divided into two parts, the first dealing with events leading up to a murder, followed by Dr. Thorndyke’s investigation. In this case, the first part, about a beautiful woman who poses as a serious artist, then disappears, is delightful. It details the friendship between Thomas Pedley and Loretta Schiller. The second part is written in the first person with Jervis, Thorndyke’s assistant, being the narrator as usual. A peaceful, pleasa...

This novel begins with Robert Englefield, a young Englishman, taking on a job with a vessel sailing for northern Africa. Once there, Englefield is placed in the position of running the store through which the captain sells and trades his goods. As Englefield spends more and more time at this outpost on the African coast, he hears stories a legendary mine in the interior of Africa where the priests capture unwary travelers and blind them to prevent escape. Purely out of curi...

Narrated by Robert Anstey, who is acting as Thorndyke’s counsel as Jervis is away in America. He walks right into a murder scene, attracted by the screams of a beautiful young woman. The dead man is a harmless old bachelor who collects objects of arcane appeal. Several pieces of inscribed jewelry are missing. It’s a strange sort of burglary perpetrated by clumsy amateurs – who nonetheless got clean away. Dr. Thorndyke takes on the case and enlists Anstey as his sidekick. An...

First, there are two seemingly unrelated events: the murder of a constable in pursuit of a diamond thief and the attempt to poison a potter by using arsenic. The connection lies in the presence of Dr. Oldfield, a Dr. Thorndyke’s former student, who happened to find the constable body and served as the consulting physician of the potter. Dr. Oldfield once again found a trace of murder: ashes of cremated human human body in the dustbin at the potter’s studio. The police tries...

„The Penrose Mystery”, fist published in 1936, is definitely up to the high standard of the wonderful Dr. Thorndyke series. Penrose is an eccentric old man in possession of some dazzling gems, which he won’t insure. When Dr. Thorndyke is alerted to a burglary at his house, a scrap of paper is found with the word ‘lobster’ on it along with two Latin words. Meanwhile, Penrose has fled in panic after a car accident. The police believe he’s gone into hiding to avoid a manslaugh...

Pachnące kwiaty zwiastowały wiosnę, ale sad był również pełen tajemnic i złamanych serc… Głębokie pragnienie posiadania domu niegdyś zaprowadziło Elizę do Sadów Wyatta. Teraz jako wdowa z trojgiem dzieci zmaga się z rosnącymi długami i świadomością, że wszystko jest na jej barkach. Nie ma jednak pojęcia, jak samodzielnie zająć się sadem. Gdy u jej drzwi zjawia się nieznajomy, Eliza z początku traktuje go jak pozostałych włóczęgów, którzy szukają pracy w czasach wielkiego kryz...

Życie wygnańców w Babilonie zostaje niespodziewanie zagrożone. Zgodnie z królewskim dekretem na terenie całego imperium ma zostać zgładzona każda osoba pochodzenia żydowskiego, włącznie z kobietami i dziećmi. Wyrok dokona się w czasie krótszym niż rok. Ezdrasz, cichy, ale błyskotliwy uczony, zostaje wezwany do tego, by zostać przywódcą swego ludu. Zostaje zmuszony do zmobilizowania armii. W związku z tym, że całe dotychczasowe życie spędził na studiowaniu Tory, to zadanie zda...

The twins are living in relatively straightened circumstances, as their father has died, and get up to all kinds of mischief, while being governed by their own set of values. The children, however, have little dread of poverty, for when ever they desire a luxury, such as a bicycle, or a fur stole for their mother’s Christmas present, they devise some means to raise the necessary funds, and they stop at nothing from inducing a rich great-aunt to endow a home for cats to poac...

Osiągnął niewiarygodne bogactwo i władzę, jednak w dalszym ciągu nie ma dziedzica.Wspaniałe dziedzictwo stworzone przez jednego z największych królów Judy – Hiskiasza – jest zagrożone. Jego ukochana żona, Chefsiba, jest bezpłodna. W desperackiej próbie uratowania ciągłości rodu królewskiego, Chefsiba decyduje się zawrzeć zakazany pakt z boginią płodności Aszerą. Oburzony bałwochwalczym występkiem Chefsiby, Hiskiasz niszczy doszczętnie miejsce pogańskiego kultu; sam jednak zos...

Osiągnął niewiarygodne bogactwo i władzę, jednak w dalszym ciągu nie ma dziedzica. Wspaniałe dziedzictwo stworzone przez jednego z największych królów Judy – Hiskiasza – jest zagrożone. Jego ukochana żona, Chefsiba, jest bezpłodna. W desperackiej próbie uratowania ciągłości rodu królewskiego, Chefsiba decyduje się zawrzeć zakazany pakt z boginią płodności Aszerą. Oburzony bałwochwalczym występkiem Chefsiby, Hiskiasz niszczy doszczętnie miejsce pogańskiego kultu; sam jednak zo...

In this tightly plotted novel, we follow the bizarre career of a man who loathes criminals. After Humphrey Challoner finds his wife killed by the bullet of a robber in his home, he vows to catch the man. Mr. Challoner is a wealthy savant, and he saved the fingerprints of the robber as well as some of the robber’s strange hair which Challoner’s wife had in her hand. For twenty years Humphrey hunts for the killer, in the process revenging himself on London’s criminals class i...

What would you do if your doppelganger were committing crimes and making the police believe you were the perpetrator? In Danby Croker’s case, he decides to retaliate! But that is only one of the problems besetting him in this set of interlinked stories. Given a job as an antique dealer, can he resist the temptations of earning some easy money through a bit of fencing and counterfeiting? And what on earth is he doing going round London dressed as a suffragette?! R. Austin Fr...

Dr.Thornedyke’s methods of detection are characterised by investigations of apparently irrelevant facts and lengthy explanations of his train of hypothetical reasoning. In this novel, Dr. Thorndyke’s ability to identify fish scales and rope material sets his investigation in motion. The crime is the murder of an aristocrat staged to look like a suicide. There are really two stories alternating, which eventually become one. We watch Dr. Thorndyke follow a thin and improbable...

R. Austin Freeman’s character Dr. Thorndyke is considered the first modern forensic scientist in literature. This is one of the oddities of detective fiction. The first part of this story is an „autobiography” of Thorrndyke’s lab assistant Polton. Polton, Dr. Thorndyke’s lab assistant and a servant has graced every Thorndyke mystery with his mechanical ingenuity, his sumptuous meals and teas, and his crinkly smile. The second part is a mystery tale, which builds on some of ...

John Gillum arrives in London from Australia apparently a wealthy man and then proceeds to cheerfully gamble his entire fortune away. During this period he cultivates the friendship of Mortimer, the bank official after meeting him at the scene of a murder near the bank. He mentions in conversation that he felt suicide was a very understandable option to someone who had lost everything. When Gillum’s body is found, the inquest duly returns a verdict of suicide and blackmail ...

John Osborne is a young gentleman who has left England for some, as of yet, unknown reason. He settles in Adaffia, an ends-of-the-earth type of town on the Gold Coast. Almost immediately he gets into a fight defending the only other white man in town, a drunken trader. And we see that Osborne is a tremendous fighter skilled at ju-jitsu, boxing, wrestling and strategy. These skills will come into play again and again, in a mutiny, a rebellion and other struggles with formida...

Second in the Dr. Thorndyke mystery series set in London around 1900. Thorndyke is a lawyer and medical doctor who reasons out mysteries. This involves a young doctor friend who Thorndyke hires as his assistant whose strange case involving a mysteries man and couple who are caring for him and an inheritance case brought to Thorndyke. A classic English mystery with the detective, Dr. Thorndyke, solving what appears to be two disparate mysteries. One is an apparent suicide wi...

"When Rogues Fall Out” incorporates some wonderful conundrums to hoodwink and hinder the cleverest of crime readers. This book contains three interconnected stories. In the first, a respectable collector of antiques falls victim to temptation. In the second a police inspector is found dead in suspicious circumstances in a railway tunnel. This section includes an interesting „essay” on the early use of fingerprint evidence. The third is a classic locked room mystery where so...