A detective story which solves in an exceedingly clever manner the inexplicable death of a prosperous stockbroker and the secret of his life. The reader’s attention is first caught by a mysterious letter, the key to the situation, and is held to the end by a series of ingenious devices. A dying stockbroker accuses one of his sons of his murder. Can Mr. Gryce and Caleb Sweetwater get to the bottom of the mystery. A young lawyer, who witnesses the murder decides to help. A ni...
On the night of his wedding, Sinclair flosses a precious curiosity from his collection: an amethyst box, containing a tiny flask of deadly poison and he feels sure it can only be one of two people, his intended wife, or her cousin, Dorothy. He goes to his friend Mr. Worthington and together they fight against time to find who has the poison and stop them using it. Too late, whoever took it has used it and now there is death in the house, is it suicide or murder? „The Amethy...
„Masterpieces of Mystery” is a scintillating collection of suspenseful stories of murder and mayhem from pioneering American detective-story writer Anna Katharine Green, one of the first female writers of detective fiction. Green’s many thrillers were characterized by logical construction and a knowledge of criminal law. Her stories are full of mystery and written in an elegant manner, true to the time period in which the story is set. This collection includes the classic s...
A wealthy young couple very much in love get married. Then she disappears on their wedding day. He is confused as would be expected, and seeks some help in finding her. She was an only child as her older brother disappeared at sea, and her twin sister was killed at age 5 in a fire at school. Lots of twists and turns, as well as a secret society, all show up during the search. Green, as always, holds attention and carries the reader along. Anna Katharine Green Rohlfs (1846-1...
„That Affair Next Door” focuses on a mysterious murder that has occurred in a quiet neighborhood, incidentally in the house next door to the home of the curious middle-aged amateur sleuth Miss Butterworth. One night around midnight Miss Butterworth sees a man and woman enter the Van Burnam mansion, which is supposed to be empty. The man leaves soon after, but the woman does not. On the following day, Miss Butterworth and a policeman find the body of a woman crushed to death...
After several people apparently vanish into thin air while walking along the same country road, New York aged detective inspector Mr. Gryce calls on the skills of Miss Amelia Butterworth to help him solve this most puzzling crime. In „Lost Man’s Lane” the author Anna Katharine Green shows that she has lost none of her cunning in inventing an intricate and absorbing plot, and in unfolding it carefully bit by bit by the agency of her chosen hero or heroine. This is classic Gr...
A detective story first published in 1911, it is one of the book of Ebenezer Gryce series, „Initials Only” deals with the case of beautiful young heiress Edith Challoner. She is murdered in the writing room of a luxury hotel while nobody is near her, and no shot is heard and no bullet found in the deadly wound. She is seemingly stabbed to death, yet no one was seen near her. How then was she killed? Among Miss Challoner’s personal belongings are found letters signed with in...
A beautiful young woman is interviewed by Coroner Golden and new Deputy sheriff Mr. Hammersmith. Her mother has been found dead in the nearby forest but the woman alleges they both rented rooms in Three Forks Tavern. The landlord Mr. Quimby deny her story. She describes the room her mother was in but a search reveals no room that matches it. But the sheriff believes her and he insists on staying in the tavern overnight while the coroner goes to collect his jury. He has a va...
A classic detective story of murder and punishment by one of America’s finest mystery writers. Widow Clemmens is struck down in her parlor while the town’s legal professionals chat outside the courthouse down the street and there is no sign of the killer. An investigation is made and two equally plausible suspects are quickly unearthed. But who actually committed the crime? And what role does the mysterious Miss Imogene Dare play in this drama? A powerful detective story, c...
In a small town Shelby shrouded in secrets a woman seeks to find the truth behind a terrible injustice in this classic mystery from „the mother of the detective novel”. Deborah attempts to prove that her husband was wrongly convicted of murder and was subsequently executed for a crime which she is sure he did not commit. She wants his name cleared so her daughter can marry the man she loves. Determined to prove her husband’s innocence, Deborah believes the judge who convict...
Originally published between 1894 and 1900, „A Difficult Problem” is a collection of ten short works of mysterious fiction by Anna Katharine Green. These ten short stories include the mystery and crime stories as their basic theme. This whodunit collection brings to you some of Green’s finest crime mysteries to keep you at your toes: „The gray madam”, „The bronze hand”, „Midnight in Beauchamp Row”, „The staircase at the Heart’s Delight” and others. Anna Katharine Green (Nov...
Celebrated as one of the most important early female writers of detective fiction, Anna Katherine Green was lauded for her meticulous plotting and attention to detail. In this classic mystery novel, a universally beloved woman Agatha Webb and a household servant are found dead. Would her husband do it for money matters? Or would it be the rich and well-connected Mr. Fredrick, who ran away into the woods? Detective Caleb Sweetwater works to untangle the plot that involves bl...
If you’re going to launch a series dedicated to the very best science fiction and fantasy writers of the century, it makes sense to start with Stanley G. Weinbaum. „The Planetary Series” includes ten stories set on worlds of Earth’s solar system following several centuries of human exploration and settlement. It features a host of fascinating alien creatures, including birdlike Martians (features in „A Martian Odyssey” and its sequel „Valley of Dreams”) and The Red Peri and...
„The Manderpootz Series” includes the three stories of Stanley G. Weinbaum’s early science fiction trilogy. He is best known for his short story „A Martian Odyssey” which has been influencing Science Fiction since it was first published in 1934. Weinbaum is considered the first writer to contrive an alien who thought as well as a human, but not like a human. In a series of comedies featuring the eccentric scientist Professor Manderpootz – including the Alternate-History sto...
This is a collection of classic Lovecraft stories. What readers like about him is how he can terribly make everything seem, a feeling of fear and foreboding that his thick prose can create. These early works of H.P. Lovecraft were originally published in the first half of the 20th century. „The Dunwich Horror’ and ’The Call of Cthulhu’”, which subsequently brought him a place as one of the most influential authors of the horrors of the 20th century.
„Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road or The Black Rider of the Black Hills” is a fun shoot-’em-up-cowboy book, rather than a serious western but the entertainment value is just as high. They called him Deadwood Dick, the Prince of The Road, the Black Rider of the Black Hills of Dakota. He was as famous for a time as Wild Bill Hickok or Buffalo Bill. It is the story of gold-seekers, settlers and criminals who all come together in a small area of the Black Hills. There’s Fe...
A melodramatic mystery, in which a young lawyer is called to the house of a dying woman to draw up her will. While searching for her legal heirs, meets a beautiful woman with a mysterious scar. The lawyer soon finds that his search for the heirs leads to some very unusual occurrences. Events then take a very sinister turn... As ever, with Anna Katherine Green, this early novel features love-struck young men; high-minded ladies with a propensity to faint, and whose reticence...
This novel was first published in 1920 and is along the lines of a classic whodunnit. Lord Loudwater is brash, short tempered and always bullying people. He was loved by none, feared by many and hated by all. When he is inexplicably found fatality stabbed with a letter opener, the list of suspects seems endless. Unfortunately for Detective Flexen, who is to investigate the case, Lord Loudwater was not a very agreeable sort of fellow and almost every person in his vicinity h...
„Deadwood Dick’s Doom or Calamity Jane’s Last Adventure” is a fast-paced thriller by popular dime-novelist Edward Lytton Wheeler who wrote 33 „Deadwood Dick” novels between 1878 and 1885. His stories are well plotted adventures and his slang and dialect heavy narration is funny as hell. He wrote a lot of tales with female protagonists, maybe influenced by the New Woman of the 1890’s. Deadwood Dick is a fictional character. He was as famous for a time as Wild Bill Hickok or ...
This early work was originally a four-act play written by Maurice Leblanc and Francis de Croisset in 1908, and subsequently novelized by Leblanc and then translated by Edgar Jepson into English and published in 1909. Leblanc’s creation, gentleman thief Arsene Lupin, is everything you would expect from a French aristocrat – witty, charming, brilliant, sly and possibly the greatest thief in the world. In this classic tale, Lupin plans to steal priceless objects of art and jew...
Deadwood Dick is a fictional character who appears in a series of stories, or dime novels, published between 1877 and 1897 by Edward Lytton Wheeler. His stories are well plotted adventures and his slang and dialect heavy narration is funny as hell. Deadwood Dick was an orphan who was adopted, mistreated and then ran away from home to become a notorious outlaw. Originally from New England, he moved to the town of Deadwood, where he became the leader of a gang of highway men,...
Lupin is back after apparently dying in the assault on the hollow needle in the previous novel – but this time, he appears to be a murderer! The mystery, written before the Great War, involves finding a package of letters once written to Bismarck, locating a clock on which the number 813 has significance, as well as causing a reigning emperor to make several journeys incognito. And Lupin, the clever but patriotic French thief, does engage with them and also with the French ...
Another amusing tale from American author Edward Lytton Wheeler (1854-1885), this time from the east coast of America, with another hero and another damsel in need of help. A group of European and American tourists is enjoying its trip in Egypt in the year 1895. They are sailing up the River Nile in a „a turtle-bottomed, round-bowed stern-wheeler”, the Korosko. They intend to travel to Abousir at the southern frontier of Egypt, after which the Dervish country starts. They a...
The Dream Quest is one of his most significant stories. This is the bridge and the key to his two greatest periods and his most revealing personal work. This complex fantasy of a dream, which strangely brought the protagonist closer to the solution. Lovecraft stories are full of nightmares ruled by evil gods.
