Henry Courtenay’s steadily declining health, his death comes as a shock to those around him. It was murder, Courtenay’s prim manservant exclaims, and he implores Dr. Ralph Boyd to find the culprit. The list of suspects appears to be short: Only someone who lives in Courtenay’s suburban London home could have gone into his room unnoticed. Could the murderer be one of the servants? Or perhaps Courtenay’s young wife—or her beautiful sister, with whom Boyd has fallen in love? Boyd is beginning to realize that in the Courtenay home, secrets abound at every turn and, as with all great mysteries, nothing is as simple as it seems.   This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

    Even though he is an expert in his trade, Latham is astonished by the stone’s perfection and cannot begin to fathom its value. The package containing this extraordinary gem did not include a message, instructions, or a return address—and Latham soon discovers that 4 other American jewelers received diamonds identical to it. In fact, even the most skilled among the recipients cannot discern a difference between the stones. Where did these diamonds come from? Who might have sent them? And to what end?   This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

    Aylmore, M.P., in the witness-box. And Spargo knew and felt that it was that appearance for which the crowded court was waiting. Thanks to his own vivid and realistic specials in the Watchman, everybody there had already become well and thoroughly acquainted with the mass of evidence represented by the nine witnesses who had been in the box before Mr. Aylmore entered it. They were familiar, too, with the facts which Mr. Aylmore had permitted Spargo to print after the interview at the club, which Ronald Breton arranged. Why, then, the extraordinary interest which the Member of Parliament's appearance aroused?

    From her countless suitors, she makes a peculiar choice, agreeing to marry a stuffy man who loves someone else. On the eve of the wedding, Madeleine shuts herself away in a locked room to think about what she is about to do—and in the morning, she is found gruesomely murdered. Every member of the household is a suspect, but no one understands how the killer could have slipped through the locked doors of Madeleine’s bedroom. As the town whirls into a tailspin of suspicion and fear, it falls to the brilliant detective Fleming Stone to pick out the person who stabbed Madeleine to death—a baffling mystery that hinges on the discovery of a single, all-important clue. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

    His land too barren for farming, Doomdorf builds a still and grows rich selling high-proof moonshine to anyone with a bit of change in his pocket. As drunkenness and debauchery run rampant across the countryside, the locals turn against him. They are preparing to exact frontier justice when the bootlegger is found dead, shot through the heart in a room locked from the inside. At the scene is Uncle Abner, a folksy sleuth who uses a keen eye and steadfast beliefs to solve the mysteries of Appalachia. In this landmark story collection, Abner contends with hunchbacks and drunkards, killers and thieves. In a time and a place beyond the rule of law, justice belongs to the Lord—and Uncle Abner is His instrument. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

    Morris.The chance discovery of a young man’s body floating in a Sussex stream provides the first clue to the mysterious disappearance of Sir James Lyttleton, who sent his daughter a curt wire announcing his departure for America before completely vanishing. But this is no ordinary missing persons inquiry – when Sir James’s body turns up inside another man’s coffin, journalist James Dawson and Chief Inspector Candlish of Scotland Yard find themselves on the trail of a particularly ruthless and ingenious murderer.This Detective Story Club classic is introduced by author and editor Douglas A. Anderson, whose authoritative books on Kenneth Morris led to the discovery of R.A.V. Morris’s true identity.

    These are the elements of the Hampstead Mystery that Detective Inspector Chippenfield of Scotland Yard must unravel with the assistance of the ambitious Detective Rolfe. But will he be able to sort out the tangled threads of this case and arrest the culprit before he is upstaged by the celebrated gentleman detective Crewe. Follow the details of this amazing case at it plays out across Hampstead, London and Scotland until it reaches a stunning conclusion in the courts of the Old Bailey.

    A secret society whose members are drawn from the rich and the poor, the Grill is blind to politics, ideology, and wealth. The only demands made of its members are secrecy and an open mind.   On a foggy night in 1897, an American diplomat tells three other club members of a recent night when he was lost in the London fog and heard a distant scream. Following the sound, he entered a strange house, where he discovered a man lying dead on a princess’s divan. The crime baffled Scotland Yard, but the men of the Grill Club will get to the bottom of it—no matter how long it takes.   This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

    Hilditch seems destined for the gallows, but he is saved by brilliant defense attorney Francis Ledsam, who uses every legal trick he knows to free his client. It is a defense to be proud of, but Ledsam’s joy vanishes when Hilditch’s wife informs him that her husband is guilty of crimes far more monstrous than murder.   His faith in his career shaken, Ledsam vows never again to defend a guilty man. But when his newfound principles run up against the harsh reality of real-world justice, he finds himself trapped between his love for a beautiful woman and a powerful desire to do the right thing—no matter the cost.   This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

    He ensures that the worst villains get what’s coming to them while the honorable ones stay out on the street—where, like Blackie, they do more good than harm. In this classic collection of adventures, with his dependable wife and getaway driver, Mary, by his side, Blackie gets into and out of a dizzying array of tight spots. He escapes from prison, saves a friend from the gallows, and pulls off the gold bullion heist of a lifetime. Later adapted into serials, movies, and TV shows, Boston Blackie’s exploits are some of the most thrilling in all of crime fiction. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

    With the help of his roommate and partner in detection, newspaper reporter Walter Jameson, Kennedy uses his mastery of technology to solve the most puzzling of mysteries. In “The Deadly Tube,” he investigates a case of murder by X-ray, and in “The Terror in the Air,” he applies the scientific method to a rash of airplane accidents blamed on gyroscopes.First appearing in the pages of Cosmopolitan magazine, Craig Kennedy was one of the most popular detectives of the early twentieth century, and Arthur B. Reeve’s stories featuring the scientific sleuth were the first mysteries by an American author to gain wide readership in Great Britain.This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

    "THE FIRST AND BEST BLIND DETECTIVE!" That-s how the Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection hails the adventures of Max Carrados.  Ellery Queen calls this first volume of his adventures, "One of the ten best volumes of detective shorts ever written!" Blinded in an accident, Carrados developed remarkable abilities.  He can read newspaper headlines with a touch of his fingers, recognize a friend he has not seen in twenty-five years by his voice, and detect a man wearing a false moustache because "he carries a five-yard aura of spirit gum."  Nor did his loss of sight affect his sense of humor, his compassion, or a sense of justice which forces him to skirt the law to see the innocent is protected and the guilty punished.  As the author puts it, Carrados' blindness "-but so far from crippling his interests in life or his energies, it has merely impelled him to develop those senses which in most of us lie dormant and practically unused.  Thus you will understand that while he may be at a disadvantage while you are at an advantage, he is at an advantage while you are at a disadvantage."  Working with his old friend, Louis Carlyle, a private investigator, the wealthy Carrados pursues his talent for detection whenever he pleases without accepting a fee.  The exchanges between the humorless Carlyle, eager for Carrados help but unwilling to admit his bafflement, and the gentle malice of the perceptive Carrados are among the high spots of the stories.

    And the one woman who appears to hold the key to the mystery is dying from injuries sustained in a plane crash.Meanwhile, in a Casablanca hotel room, Hilary Craven prepares to take her own life. But her suicide attempt is about to be interrupted by a man who will offer her an altogether more thrilling way to die. . . .

    Chesterton's endearing amateur sleuth has entertained countless generations of readers. For, as his admirers know, Father Brown's cherubic face and unworldly simplicity, his glasses and his huge umbrella, disguise a quite uncanny understanding of the criminal mind at work.This Penguin omnibus edition contains* The Innocence of Father Brown* The Wisdom of Father Brown* The Incredulity of Father Brown* The Secret of Father Brown* The Scandal of Father Brown

    A young doctor with a sluggish work ethic and a passion for sweets, Fortune is at his happiest when tending to an old man’s illness or curing a poor boy’s broken leg. When a call comes in alerting Fortune that the archduke has been found unconscious in the road, he hurries no more than he would for a regular patient. But as he discovers when he inspects the lord, this is a most irregular case. The archduke lives—but another man has been murdered in his name. This collection of six puzzling stories introduced the world to Reggie Fortune, a remarkable detective whose rotund frame conceals a razor-sharp mind and a fighting spirit. A true champion of the oppressed, Fortune will never let a murderer escape justice—whether his victim was royalty or the lowest of the low. Ths ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.