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. Born into poverty as an illegitimate London child, joining the army at 21, he was a war correspondent during the Second Boer War for Reuters and The Daily Mail. This early work by Edgar Wallace was originally published in 1923. „The Books of Bart” is a novel of relationships and d...
Edgar Wallace is continuing to introduce readers to Mr. J. G. Reeder, one of the least glamorous of all fictional detectives. Mr. J. G. Reeder is neither a police detective nor an amateur crime-fighter, nor is he a private detective. In fact he is employed by the Bank of England, and acts as a kind of consultant to Scotland Yard. This is vintage Wallace, with no great depths but a good deal of humor and plenty of engaging goings-on along Wallace’s beloved Thames. Wallace wa...
An excellent crime novel which contains a cunning villain, love, revenge and locked room murder by the master of British thrillers. The hero John Lexman, is a mystery writer, like the author himself, and is married to a lovely woman who hides a secret. The Greek aristocrat, Remington Kara is stunningly handsome and immensely rich and he nurses an unrequited passion for Lexman’s wife. When Lexman gets himself into financial problems with an Albanian moneylender, the plot beg...
In this 1923 mystery by Edgar Wallace, Jesse Trasmere is thrifty and does not trust banks, so he keeps all of his money in his prison-like house. Although his nephew, Rex Lander, receives a generous allowance from his uncle, it is not enough for his extravagant lifestyle. Trasmere breaks with routine and informs his valet, Walters, that he is going out of town for a while to avoid an acquaintance from his past. One day he turns up dead, in a completely locked vault, the onl...
Set in England at the turn of the 20th century, Wallace’s crime novel „The Daffodil Mystery” follows the mysterious circumstances under which shop owner Lyne was found dead in Hyde Park, murdered undoubtedly! The clues were numerous but contradictory... The murdered man is an unsavory character who is called on the carpet by the investigator he tries to hire to frame the girl Odette Rider. Detective Jack Tarling and his trusted Chinese assistant become involved in helping t...
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...
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...
„The Dark Eyes Of London” is a crime novel by the British writer Edgar Wallace which was first published in 1924. Inspector Holt and his valet Sunny are planning a visit to Monte Carlo when an urgent telegram arrives from the Chief Commissioner of Scotland Yard. Mr. Gordon Stuart has been found drowned in suspicious circumstances. An unbalanced doctor and his brother murder a series of wealthy men to benefit from their life insurance policies, using a charity for the blind ...
The mysterious Crimson Circle is a high-level protection society: pay them, or you die. Every wealthy man goes in fear of them if he’s smart, and dies if he isn’t. This is a criminal genius who recruits people in trouble, rescues them with help or cash, and puts them to work on robbery, blackmail and murder. At least one man is dead after refusing to pay L100,000. Will there be more bodies? The Circle has many minions, including the mysterious and beautiful Thalia Drummond,...
„The Duke in the Suburbs” was written in the year 1909 by Edgar Wallace. Rich Texas Cowboy with French noble lineage and knowledge of the manners of a Duke and George Hankey, who discovered silver in Los Madges, have moved to the suburbs of London and created a havoc with the neighbors there, the women, former enemies and friends. Duke de Montvillier has to avoid ambushes, avert sinister plots against him, found newspapers and much more. This book is one of the most popular...
An enjoyable Edgar Wallace horse-racing escapade. 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 setting of this mystery/thriller is the horse-racing world. A wealthy racehorse owner is banned from racing when he is double- crossed by the woman he loves. With the help of his butler – an ex-burglar he succeeds in re...
A really top-notch literary thriller from Edgar Wallace. The story is set in Russia and England around the time of WW1. We follow a 22-year-old man on his first assignment for a Russian-English oil company as he becomes embroiled in intrigue and romance involving a beautiful Grand Duchess, American mobster Cherry Bim, and the influential Israel Kensky and his magical book of „all power”. It is through Hay’s eyes that we see the steady erosion of the existing Russian aristoc...
Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace was born in London, England in 1875. He received his early education at St. Peter’s School and the Board School, but after a frenetic teens involving a rash engagement and frequently changing employment circumstances, Wallace went into the military. He served in the Royal West Kent Regiment in England and then as part of the Medical Staff Corps stationed in South Africa. Over the rest of his life, Wallace produced some 173 books and wrote 17 pl...
Several employees on a nobleman’s estate show up at a former abbey, reputed to be haunted, to search for a hidden treasure. However, a mysterious hooded figure begins killing off those who may have figured out where the treasure is hidden. Who the Black Abbott is, what his purpose is – and how he is connected with the mystery of the treasure – these are the elements of the story. There’s a malevolent ghost, buried treasure, the elixir of life, a crooked lawyer, a tangled ro...
Conventional ideas of beauty are typically associate it with goodness and kindness. However, appearances can be deceptive. A classic mystery crime novel involving the evil deeds of one Jean Briggerland, a woman with all the outward angelic qualities imaginable but possessing an unspeakable evil nature, so lovely that none can see her guilt – even in connection with the most blatant crimes! Jean uses her criminal connection to climb to the heights of wealth and power, but la...
Over a period of time, men disappear, and later their heads are found. Meanwhile a young actress in a small part in a film on location, is disturbed by the actions of the owner of the place where they are filming. A detective comes to investigate, and finds many puzzling things going on. Several of the characters are suspicious, in one way or another, and as the plot unfolds, it grips you. Edgar Wallace’s „The Avenger” is a perfectly fine example of what a page-turning thri...
The hapless Heine is trying very hard to be a good German spy in Great Britain during WWI but luck and circumstance are not with him. Every adventure turns out poorly for our dear spy. This collection of stories of Edgar Wallace about Heine was published during WWI and should be taken lightly by readers – some may see it as a piece of anti-German propaganda, with Heine as a bit of a hopeless idiot. But the stories are also entertaining and should be read as such. Although t...
Carfew was an erratic genius, with a horror of anything that had the appearance of discipline, order, or conventional method. So it was with some luck that there was a train disaster while he was working in the newspaper office of „The Megaphone”. He was dispatched to the scene and came back triumphant: „The Spaniard is a fake! „ shouted Carfew. He had forgotten all about the railway accident. Shortly thereafter, so would his editor. „The Admirable Carfew” is a collection o...
The hero, the discharged Army Captain Reginald Hex, was the prototype for Anthony Newland, whose adventures were related several years later in The Brigand (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1927). The first two Hex stories were revised and published as Anthony Newland stories in that collection under the titles „Buried Treasure” and „A Contribution to Charity”. The stories are adventurous and well written but definitely a product of their time and place. Edgar Wallace was a ...
Colonial adventures in a 6 volume collection set on the „Dark Continent”. 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. „Sandi, the King-maker” among other novels by Edgar Wallace conveys the paternal attitude that England’s officials felt toward the native tribes of Africa. P...
The book is actually a collection of short stories that are loosely tied together by Sanders himself, his steamship and an unlikely African chief called Bosambo. In the jungles of West Africa, Commissioner Sanders is the highest representative of the British crown. The health and safety of a quarter-million natives who speak countless languages and worship untold gods are his responsibility. Whether disciplining a boy king, expelling troublesome missionaries, or fighting to...
The book consists of 10 short stories about Tam a brilliant Scottish pilot, a thriller novel fan, socialist and cigar addict. The stories of Tam the pilot are not mysteries. Tam’s dialogue is written phonetically and he is great fun and saves the rather silly pre-Biggles stories from being too ridiculous to be enjoyable. The characters are broad, the situations light, but the stories are exciting and fun. „Tam” is a real person, and all the adventures set forth have actuall...
