It is the afternoon before a grand society wedding between Juliet Phayre and the Duke of Claremanagh, when Emmy West drops by to visit the bride and to see the famed Tsarina pearls, only ever to be worn by the Duchess... supposedly. When Juliet admits she has never even seen them, Emmy lets slip she has once, even though the last duchess has been dead many years... were they worn by someone else? And who is Lyda Pavoya? And who is the bridegroom really?

Fourteen mysteries from the pages of the Saturday Evening Post, the Metropolitan, Red Book, and Pictorial Review magazines featuring Uncle Abner, who solves crimes in the pre-Civil War West Virginia hill country. His weapons are keen observation, logic, and a fundamentalist’s belief in the victory of good over evil. Post’s historical mysteries have been favorably compared to those of his fellow American Edgar Alan Poe. - Summary by Winston Tharp

Nancy spends the summer with a cousin she hardly knows who has a friend who seems to be a bad influence. Secrets, jealousy and bitterness fill their days until they learn how to believe in themselves and overcome their bitterness when the truth is revealed.

New friends Drew and Jeffrey are drawn into the investigation of the mysterious death of Dr. Marshall. Romance and intrigue abound and you'll be kept guessing up to the end as to who the murderer could be.

Another fascinating book by the author of A Vanished Hand. Rhoda returns home after the death of her employer to find out that her cousin Helen, with whom she was raised, also returned home. Her husband stole 300 pounds and had to run away to Australia and leave her pregnant. Rhoda has to reconcile her shame and learn to cope with the new situation. But nothing is as it seems. More than anything, this book is about breaking stigmas and opening up your mind to understand and love people, despite their faults, usually with the help of God. Perfect for fans of good novels about crimes, stories about childhood, along with lovers of religious fiction. - Summary by Stav Nisser.

It is early in the days of radio, and amateurs are using it more and more, and using it illegally. Enter Curlie Carson, who has the job of tracking down the miscreants. Sounds boring. You wouldn't expect high speed car chases, kidnapping, double dealing, and maybe even murder.

It is an ideal honeymoon of an ideal couple. But somehow, the wife cannot stop dreaming that her husband would be shot and killed. He dismisses her dreams until they come true. Who commited the murder? How would the wife take it? - Summary by Stav Nisser

The story of how Lizzie Borden supposedly murdered her parents has passed into American folklore, partly thanks to the albeit inaccurate playground rhyme, "Lizzie Borden took an axe, and gave her mother 40 whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41." Here we have the 'true' story, as reported by the local police reporter who attended the trial and lived only streets away from the Borden home with his young wife. After the trial, Porter 'disappeared' and it was widely speculated he had either been murdered or bribed to disappear in order to suppress the book...

Clare awakens in the middle of the night with no idea why. Her husband is not in his bed and as she goes in search of him she runs into her cousin Elsie who's heard a terrified shout from Rupert. When Clare returns her husband is burning papers in the grate. Next morning they discover that Uncle John a very shady and disagreeable usurer has been murdered!! Who is the culprit and will the earlier interrupted kiss ever be completed? - Summary by Celine Major

The Library of Romance is a series of books concerning the romance of scientific facts, be it biology, chemistry, history, or politics. This volume is one of history, concerning an account of the known facts of piracy, starting with the Vikings, and arching in history and geography toward an account of piracy in Chinese waters at around the time of publication of this volume . - Summary by Carolin

Fergus Hume was a prolific writer of Victorian murder mysteries and The Clock Struck One is another great example of his inventive plots. Julian Edermont living in near seclusion for the last 20 years fearful of an unknown assailant is beaten to death in his study following an argument with his ward's fiance Dr. Allen Scott. The secret revealed to Allen during this argument is such that he breaks off his engagement to Dora refusing to reveal the cause. Since those around her seem unwilling to share what they know it is up to Dora to discover the truth and unmask the murderer of her guardian. - Summary by Celine Major

A prolific writer of crime and detective stories Fergus Hume is known for his clever plots. The Turnpike House is another wonderful example of his many intriguing mysteries. EXCERPT: "Suddenly there was the cry of a human being in pain. The light was extinguished, and the mists closed thicker round the ruined building; it might be to hide the sight within the room. Could the walls only have spoken they would have shouted "Murder!" with most miraculous voice. But the age of miracles being past, the walls were dumb, and there was no clamour to greet the horror of this deed done in darkness." - Summary by Celine Major

A rich playboy comes home from travels abroad and is bully-ragged by his eccentric aunt into finding meaning for his life. This he does by helping a school chum save his fiancée from the gallows and the playboy falls head over heels in love with the fiancée. A web of deception and lies is revealed and also a long list of who loves who filled with how much each is willing to accept. The colorful cast includes a south sea captain, a fortuneteller, and a colorful doctor who is an authority on the inhabitants and customs of Easter Island. Then, of course, there is the sacred herb!—Enjoy!!

'In Robore Fortuna'. What could these three words mean? Join Dorothy as she works to figure this out while simultaneously parenting orphaned boys. But beware, she may encounter hidden treasures, betrayal, and death along the way. - Summary by Campbell Schelp.

Hitherto unpublished facts connected with some of Mr. Furlong's greatest cases—Other interesting incidents of his long and strenuous career which really began on September 14, 1862, when he was detailed from his company, for special service. - Summary from the Preface

After seven years of silence, Guy Markenmore returns to his family home at Markenmore Court. Knowing his father Sir Anthony to be close to death, he is anxious to reassure his younger siblings that he will not make any claim to the family money even if he can't help inheriting the old man's title. Sir Anthony dies later that evening, but the question of the inheritance becomes academic when Guy is murdered whilst crossing the downs. It is now up to detective Blick to track down the person responsible for Sir Anthony’s death. - summary by Sharon Kilmer

Murder and mayhem turn a quiet English village on its head. Complete with twists and turns that will keep you entertained til the very end. Fergus Hume never fails.

When an old miser dies, he leaves behind valuable gold. Naturally, many people want it. But the miser has not made it easy, hiding the gold with cryptic clues. Saxe, the son of a former music student of the miser, leads the charge to find it along with some old friends before time runs out and the money goes to the miser's blood relatives. But when an evil engineer tries to sneak in and find the gold for himself, Saxe and his crew must try to find the gold while evading the engineer. Who will find the gold first?.

This thrilling novel teems with intrigue and unforgettable characters. It opens during WWI with a few allied soldiers lost at night behind German lines. One of them shoots at another in the darkness. Members of a criminal gang before the war, the men resume their unlawful activities when peacetime returns. The gang’s leader receives a letter that results in his leaving London for a small island off the Florida Keys. He is “as clever a scoundrel and as miserable, inhuman and unscrupulous a one as ever blasphemed the image in which God made him… He is without conscience, ruthless, a fiend who would do honour to hell itself...

Morel explains the history and formation of the Congo Free State, owned by King Leopold II. However, Morel, a humanitarian, focuses on the atrocities commited in the Congo through the enslavement of the native population, leading to the deaths of as much as 50 percent of the population. Writing in the early 20th century, he argues Britain can and should stop these horrific human rights violations. - Summary by Elsie Selwyn

Clara and Robert Hatrell lead an ideal life with their young daughter Daisy in a beautiful old fashioned cottage on the banks of the Thames. When his son Cyril goes away to school their friend and neighbor Ambrose Arden who is a notable scholar offers to tutor Daisy. Some time later Robert carrying a large amount in banknotes is found stabbed to death in a London rooming house supposedly lured there by the mention of someone called Toinette. The murderer is not found and the money trail implicates a Frenchwoman exchanging the notes in Cannes, Nice and Paris...

From the preface: ".....of all the criminal events that have occurred in Scotland, few have excited so deep, widespread, and lasting an interest as those which took place during what have been called the Resurrectionist Times, and notably, the dreadful series of murders perpetrated in the name of anatomical science by Burke and Hare. In the preparation of this work the Author has had a double purpose before him. He has sought not only to record faithfully the lives and crimes of Burke and Hare, and...

''An authentic and thrilling history of the noted outlaws Jesse and Frank James and their bands of highwaymen.compiled from reliable sources and containing the latest facts in regard to these desperate freebooters.'' The James brothers emerged from the Confederate guerrillas to become notorious outlaws of the American west rising to legendary status. J.W. Buel chronicles their path of robbery and murder across the West in short vignettes. - Summary by Larry Wilson

“Quite a number of years ago there was an old rickety building on the rock above Seatown in Polchester, and it was one of a number in an old grass-grown square known as Pontippy Square. In this house at one time or another lived three old ladies,… It was a windy, creaky, rain-bitten dwelling-place for three old ladies….” During the mid 1920s Walpole produced two of his best-known novels in the macabre vein that he drew on from time to time, exploring the fascination of fear and cruelty. The Old Ladies is a study of a timid elderly spinster exploited and eventually frightened to death by a predatory widow.

A mysterious message on a record is found sealed in a cylinder. A heroine straight out of a fairy-tale is kept secluded by a guardian with questionable motives. Add a murder, a gallant and fearless hero to the rescue and you have all the ingredients necessary to make this a very entertaining little mystery by acclaimed British author Fergus Hume! - Summary by Celine Major

Frank Willard is studying in Germany when he receives a letter summoning him home for Christmas and for his brother George's wedding. His bride is to be Daphne, the love of Frank's life, leaving Frank conflicted. He decides to attend, but what has happened to George? - Summary by Lynne Thompson

The Heart of Mystery by L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace was published in 1901 in six installments in the Windsor Magazine, Vol. 14. The stories relate the adventures of a young Englishman summoned to the deathbed of an old friend in Paris who subsequently finds himself embroiled in a web of danger, espionage and intrigue. - Summary by J. M. Smallheer

This 2nd volume of the Marie Antoinette Romances continues the intrigues of "Balsamo, The Magician" and adds to them the schemes of philosophers and the stirrings of revolution. Balsamo carries on his occult tactics to weaponize the state secrets that he gained in the previous volume. A serious romance and illness takes root in the court of King Louis XV, convincing one of the leading philosophic minds of the era, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, that “the breath of heaven will blast an age and a monarchy.” - Summary by jvanstan

Eric Stannard, wealthy artist and portrait painter of international reputation is found dead in his studio, an etching needle protruding from his chest. The lights had gone out momentarily just before he was found by a footman and a long-time friend. Standing beside the victim is Joyce his wife and his model Natalie both seeming to be struck with terror and shock!! At first glance the suspects seem obvious...but what about the artist's son who is in love with Natalie, the neighbor in love with the wife, a burglar? Will a psychic help find the murderer? Or will it fall upon the great detective Alan Ford to solve this one? - Summary by Celine Major

A minor lord is killed and a rich socialite is missing, and they are both tied to the enigmatic Kazmah the Dream Reader, who has also disappeared. New Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Red Kerry scours post-WWI London looking for clues, encountering rich Bohemians, theatre people, landed gentry, sailors, and, stereotypically, sinister Chinese people and sneaky Jews. The story is based on the history of Billie Carleton, a young English actress whose scandalous lifestyle ended with her death from a drug overdose in 1918. - Summary by TriciaG

While trying to escape the heat, a doctor witnesses some strange behavior of his neighbors. Suddenly, everyone and no one become suspects in the killing of an anonymous victim. With all the twists and turns, you will be guessing until the very end. - Summary by Sharon Kilmer

Things look bleak for Lesbia Hales. Her father does not let her marry the man she loves. Her mother is dead. She has to keep secrets in order to promote what she wants for herself. One day, her lover, George Walker, is injured in her home and someone stole the expensive amethyst cross. Who could have done that and why? - Summary by Stav Nisser.

A widely publicized and unsolved murder of five and twenty years is brought to the forefront in a best-selling novel entitled “A Whim of Fate". While Spencer Tait is looking forward to reading it, his best friend Claude Larcher, learns of the tragic death of his father which mirrors every detail of the new book. Not believing it to be a coincidence the two friends resolve to discover what truly happened so many years ago and who committed the vile act. As they delve deeper into the past, the motives, the evidence, and the list of potential suspects becomes so confusing that a solution to the mystery seems impossible...

Paul Pickering is a doctor without a fixed practice, and when an old sea captain asks him to join a voyage around the Mediterranean, that's finally an exciting prospect for him. The journey goes well until they spot a most strange vessel somewhere off the coast of Algeria. It is an old Elizabethan craft that looks to have been submerged for hundreds of years and recently bubbled back up to the surface. The men board it and find that it had been hermetically sealed all these centuries, all contents intact. But it does not, as first hoped, contain gold. The men find barely legible manuscripts and a mysterious old man, who appears to be as old as the vessel itself... - Summary by Carolin

Of course every one has heard of the Motor Pirate. No one indeed could help doing so unless he or she, as the case may be, happened to be in some part of the world where newspapers never penetrate; since for months his doings were the theme of every gossip in the country, and his exploits have filled columns of every newspaper from the moment of his first appearance until the day when the reign of terror he had inaugurated upon the roads ended as suddenly and as sensationally as it had begun. Who...

There's nothing better than curling up with a good mystery and suspense story on a cold, dark night. Here we give you fifteen in the 10th Short Mystery and Suspense collection! Whether you are looking for an intricate and perplexing tale, such as After Midnight or The Sussex Vampire, or a short, head-scratching mystery, like No Way Out, we have it all!

Here's another intriguing mystery by J. S. Fletcher, centering on why a former high-level police official was murdered, and on whether - and if so how - the murder was linked to two glamorous and high-profile sisters, one of whose photo was found in the dead man's pocket. As usual, Fletcher creates a number of different detectives -- a lawyer, his assistant, several policemen, a police spy, and even the dead man's granddaughter -- following various lines of inquiry. These lines converge rapidly in the last few chapters, when the author lets the reader weave them together into a coherent whole: the solution to the mystery. Summary by Kirsten Wever

Published as the third volume in the Modern Criminal Science Series, Cesare Lombroso, renowned Italian criminologist, collected a wealth of information regarding the incidence, classification, and causes of crime. Crime calendars, the geography of crime, unusual events and circumstances leading to more frequent crime, political motivations and associations of criminal enterprise and an assessment of the real value and effectiveness of prisons and reform programs are all included in this three part volume. - Summary by Leon Harvey

From the dedication: "On a train by day, or abed by night, you will read "Money to Burn" and immediately forget it--which is as it should be, for then you can profitably reread it a year hence--but I'm certain it will entertain you while you are reading it. If it gives you the realization of good fights on strange islands in tropic seas, if it stirs you with the sense of its hairbreadth escapes, if its mystery "keeps you guessing" and inveigles you past your proper railroad station, or runs up the house electric light bill by holding you tight until morning, then it is the sort of book that I have planned it to be..." - Summary by Steven Seitel

Unravelled Knots is the third and final installment of the Old Man in the Corner stories by Baroness Orczy. After a break of several years, Polly returns to the ABC Tea Shop to find the Old Man at his usual table with his glass of milk and bit of string. With a just a little encouragement, he is ready to share more unique solutions to the unsolved mysteries that have baffled both the public and the police. Summary by J. M. Smallheer

We present you with our 11th collection of short mystery and suspense stories. Several are taken from the magazine Weird Tales and they are joined by favorite authors G.K. Chesterton and Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. Sit back and enjoy!

William A. Porter, professor of English, inherits a large seaside house from his Uncle Horace. He is not fully satisfied with the explanation of his uncle's death. He moves to the lodge for the following summer with his wife and niece, and rents out the main house. Mysterious and sinister things begin to happen at night in the neighborhood. Local superstitions center around a red lamp in the house which some believe exerts a baleful influence. The professor must try to find out what is going on without himself becoming the center of suspicion.

'He's one of us,' the burglar explained. 'You see, we are men who have pretty well exhausted the pleasures of life. We've all been in the Army or the Navy, all of us are sportsmen, and we are bachelors; so there isn't much excitement left for us. We've started a Burglars' Club to help things on a bit. The entrance fee is a town burglary, the subject to be set by our president, and every other year each member has to keep up his subscription by a provincial line.' Humour, crime and adventure in Victorian London. - Summary by Rapunzelina

An account written by the infamous serial murderer H. H. Holmes in an attempt to exonerate himself while being tried for numerous crimes in Moyamensing Prison, Philadelphia. - Summary by Autumn

One evening as the P. and O.'s vessel "Neptune" steams away from Australia to Britain, Ronald Monteith, a young, wealthy Australian is taken into the confidence of a fellow-passenger Lionel Ventin who relates the story of his rather tragic life. When Ventin is found stabbed to death in his cabin the next morning Monteith vows to find the murderer, thinking it must surely be the vengeful wife of whom he spoke who is responsible. When arriving in London he immediately seeks the help of a barrister and a detective...

Loosely based on a true story, this is the tale of Clyde Griffiths. At a young age, Clyde realizes that money and influence can get him the finer things in life. As a young man, he finds himself torn between the poor but virtuous Roberta, and Sondra the wealthy socialite. Can there be a happy resolution to this love triangle? Follow Clyde throughout his young life as he struggles to figure out whether he can truly have everything he wants. This is volume 1 of 2. - Summary by Tatiana Chichilla

A Pictorial Record of Personal Experiences by Day and Night in the Great Metropolis, with hundreds of thrilling anecdotes and incidents, sketches of life and character, humorous stories, touching home scenes, and tales of tender pathos, drawn from the bright and shady sides of the great under world of New York. By Mrs. Helen Campbell, City Missionary and Philanthropist; Col. Thomas W. Knox, Author and Journalist; and Supt. Thomas Byrnes, Chief of NY Police and Detectives. With highly interesting descriptions of little known phases of New York life; and an account of Detective Byrnes' thirty years' experiences and reminiscences written by himself from his private diary...

The death of a well known San Francisco doctor brings a charge of murder for his wife, but is it murder or suicide, and is she really his wife? The Continental Op is on the case in Dashiell Hammett’s “Zigzags of Treachery,” featured here along with two more novellas from the pages of Black Mask magazine, "The Girl with Silver Eyes" and “The Golden Horseshoe.” - Summary by Winston Tharp

Eight sketches by one of the pioneers of applied psychology, which highlight the mind of the witness on the witness stand, and how one can be an unreliable eyewitness. The last essay, on the prevention of crime, takes another direction. - Summary by TriciaG

The saga of Clyde, Roberta, and Sondra continues in volume 2 of 2. Social-climbing Clyde Griffiths wants nothing more than to marry the wealthy Sondra Finchley and ascend to the highest levels of Upstate New York society. However, there is a glaring obstacle in his way: Roberta's pregnancy. Both had hoped to keep their illicit relationship a secret, but if Clyde can't find a doctor willing to help them, something must be done. Perhaps something drastic . . . The tense and thrilling conclusion to Dreiser's genre-defining novel of love, pain, the law, and the spirit. - Summary by Tatiana Chichilla

Sometime in the month of July, 1812, nearly a hundred years ago now, a well dressed, smooth spoken man, less than thirty years of age, made his appearance at Windsor, Nova Scotia. The story as told in subsequent pages by Sheriff Bates is unique in criminal annals and is worthy of careful perusal. - Summary Adapted from the Preface

Joaquin Murrieta was a famous Californio bandit, known as the "Robin Hood of El Dorado". Joaquin Murrieta was the son of worthy parents, and nothing in his early youth betokened any traits of the monster which he afterwards became. . . . In the following pages every trace of his blood-stained footsteps is closely followed. Some of the facts are furnished by contemporary witnesses; most of them by official documents. He proceeded from step to step, wading deeper and deeper into crime, until quiet citizens were almost afraid to breathe his name aloud...

Who is Nostalgo ? Posters with his unsettlingly grinning face are appearing on scaffolds all over London. A murdered body, horribly disfigured and bearing a striking resemblance to the man on the poster, vanishes from a police-station. Jack Masefield wants to protect his fiancée Claire from her shady guardian Anstruther, and before he knows it, he is in the thick of the mystery, unraveling a tale of greed, deception, revenge and dark deeds. - Summary by Sonia

A thorough treatise on different ways people have tried to defraud life insurance companies, with many entertaining examples. The present . . . volume is . . . commended as a trustworthy record to those for whose use and reference it is primarily intended—life insurance companies and agents, medical examiners, insurance lawyers, and medico-legal experts. . . . [It] is not confined to the exposure of the cunning contrivances and artifices of this class of schemers and plotters; it includes picturesque...

A quest to track down his missing uncle leads investigative journalist Richard Brixey to the mysterious medieval town of Silchester, England. What actually happened in the ruins of the Priory, and why are all the potential witnesses so uncooperative? Who is the mysterious Mrs. Byfield and what is her long-buried connection to Mr. Linthwaite? What is the secret plot that Mr. Linthwaite stumbled into, and so had to be removed? Is he dead or alive? And, will the energetic Brixey fall for the lovely Miss Georgina or not? A fascinating British mystery by a master of the genre.

Seabury Quinn presents in a series of articles within the pages of Weird Tales magazine various macabre and strange crimes perpetrated throughout history. - summary by Ben Tucker

The Benson Murder Case – A Philo Vance Story is the first of a series of twelve popular mysteries set in New York during the Jazz Age. S. S. Van Dine is the nom de plume of prominent art critic, and member of New York’s avant-garde, W. H. Wright. He rapidly became one of the country’s best-selling authors and the series remained immensely popular for decades, as Philo Vance was featured in dozens of movies, plays and radio shows. Van Dine’s novels marked a sharp departure from earlier detective fiction...

Mark Brandon, a writer from Australia is in England to visit an old friend, Sir Quenton Rotherdene. However, while walking across the Downs on his way there, he sees a mysterious woman and then finds a murder victim with a moonflower clasped in his hand. More mysterious happenings, shocks and surprises ensue! - Summary by J M Smallheer

These eight Father Brown mysteries depart from Chesterton’s two earlier Father Brown collections – The Innocence of Father Brown, and The Wisdom of Father Brown – in that most take place in America and/or centrally feature American characters. Father Brown is a nondescript, shy, poorly clad and clumsy Catholic priest – and an exceptionally talented detective. He shines not despite, but because he is a humble, quiet, commonplace, Catholic priest. Because of his personal attributes he is frequently underrated and even ignored by professionals, by those with higher status or less reticent personalities...

It is not the pleasing office of the writer of fiction to unfold for the delectation of his readers the pages and pictures of the volume of life; and none know better than the true novelist that the wildest schemes which his imagination can conceive, the marvellous combinations which a turn of the magic kaleidoscope of eventualities, and what we misname fortune, may produce, are again and again out acted in real life. With this apology the incidents of the following story are committed to the criticism of an indulgent, and the writer trusts, a not too severely critical world...