Showing results by publisher "Spoken Realms" in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Hours after his lavish wedding in early 20th-century New York, millionaire Roger Ransom discovers his bride, Georgian, missing. The sinister man who crashed their reception seems to be the culprit, but evidence turns up that she left of her own free will. In a journey of surprising revelations, Ransom uncovers a truth more complex and bizarre than he could have imagined.

A young man, Bertram Mandeville, confesses to his wealthy uncle Edward Sylvester his desire to abandon a career as a pianist in order to win the heart of a young woman whose father dislikes musicians. This leads Sylvester to review his own life during which he married for money rather than love. Paula, a poor but virtuous young woman, comes to stay with Sylvester and his wife and arouses long-dormant romantic feelings in him. However, Edward Sylvester has a dark secret that will ruin his life if it comes to light.

Short stories! Big action! Declassified at last! Snow Shorts delve into the adventures of Abraham Snow, his family, and his friends in short, bite-sized action/thriller tales. Volume 1 contains stories featuring Abraham Snow, Big John Salmon, and we’re introduced to Mama Snow herself in what was Laura Snow’s first appearance in print.

Immediately after the death of the aunt who raised her, Joyce Radway's cousins treat her like a servant. They even attempt to block her from taking exams to qualify as a teacher and earn her own living. Angered by their constant demands, she impulsively grabs her hat and purse and runs to her aunt's grave to weep and rest. But she's not alone; thieves are using the cemetery to hide stolen goods, and she's heartsick to discover their leader is a man she once knew and admired.

February, 1944. Washington, DC. With the war entering its most dangerous phase, Louise Pearlie is thrilled to be reassigned to the London office of the OSS. But in order to take up her new post, she must make a perilous crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in the SS Amelia Earhart. Accompanying her on the voyage to Liverpool is an eclectic group of passengers, including the aloof Blanche Bryant, whose husband, Eddie, died in mysterious circumstances on the ship’s voyage out to New York, three months before.

On a bitterly cold night in December, 1943, government girl Louise Pearlie and her friend Joe Prager are enjoying a quiet drink in the Baron Steuben Inn, when a bloodstained body is discovered behind the bar. Although the victim had been a regular customer, no one seems to know anything about him. When it turns out there is a link to Louise’s top-secret work at the OSS, she is ordered to find out as much as possible about the murder while keeping the connection secret from those involved, including the investigating police detective.

The 1940s, Washington, DC. Government girl Louise Pearlie is asked to review the file usage of a missing analyst from the Office of Strategic Services - the United States’ wartime intelligence agency - only to learn he’d drowned in the Tidal Basin days before. The OSS confirms it was an accident, and Louise is sent back to her regular job in the file rooms. Her time spent investigating Paul Hughes at least has one positive outcome, though: Louise meets a young woman in the OSS Reading Room, who asks her to join her “salon".

It’s 1942. Louise Pearlie, a young widow, has come to Washington, DC, to work as a clerk for the legendary OSS, the precursor to the CIA. When, while filing, she discovers a document concerning the husband of a college friend, Rachel Bloch—a young French Jewish woman she is desperately worried about—Louise realizes she may be able to help get Rachel out of Vichy France. But then a colleague whose help Louise has enlisted is murdered, and she realizes she is on her own, unable to trust anyone.

The 1940s, Washington, DC. Government girl Louise Pearlie has a new job inside the OSS - the Office of Strategic Services: recruiting German prisoners of war for a secret mission inside Nazi Germany. It’s a big chance for her, and Louise hopes she can finally escape her filing and typing duties. With the job comes two new colleagues: Alice Osborne, a propaganda expert, and Merle Ellison, a forger from Texas who just happens to speak fluent German. But when the three arrive at Fort Meade to interview the first German POWs to arrive there, their mission is beset by complications.

Young widow Louise Pearlie seizes a chance to escape the typewriters and files of the Office of Strategic Services, the United States’ World War II spy agency, when she’s asked to investigate a puzzling postcard referred to the OSS by the US Censor. She heads off to St. Leonard, Maryland, to talk to the postcard’s recipient, one Leroy Martin. But what seemed like a straightforward mission to Louise soon becomes complicated.

It’s 1942 in Washington, DC. Louise Pearlie is now a chief file clerk at the legendary OSS, the precursor to the CIA, and enjoys being an independent working woman despite wartime privations. But a casual friendship struck up with Alessa di Luca, a secretive war refugee, sucks Louise into a dangerous game of mafia bosses, Nazi spies, banished royalty, and Sicilian aristocracy - placing not only her job but her life in jeopardy.

Whatever you do, don't go on to the beaches at dusk, or the Sand-Walker will come to your window at night. Such is the sinister warning given to the new lodger at the Beach Farm, a lonely house on the North Sea coast of England. But who, or what, is the Sand-Walker?

Overworked locum Dr. Jervis is called to the bedside of a gentleman who refuses to see a doctor except on the condition that the doctor must be told neither his name nor his address. After a strange ride in a closed carriage, Jervis finds his patient apparently suffering the effects of morphine poisoning, and departs with a sense of uneasiness. Anxious to trace the man again, Jervis consults his old friend and colleague, the eminent scientific investigator Dr. John Thorndyke.

In the course of an investigation into a counterfeiting ring, a detective is lured into a mysterious assignment in a secluded mansion where he suspects an act of criminal conspiracy is planned to take place. Conspiracy there may be, but will events play out as the detective expects?

Zane Shaw needs a fresh start. After his fiancé called off their wedding, he left his failed relationship to run the family restaurant back home. And just when he thinks he’s sworn off emotions for good, a former fling residing in Cliffside Bay reignites his broken heart. Honor Sullivan thought she had escaped her abusive background. But the terror returns when she learns the man who hurt her is out of prison. And when a dead bunny appears on her porch, she turns to her old crush Zane for the protection she so desperately desires.

A gripping tale of mystery and suspense, involving murder, forgery, and insurance fraud, from the pen of one of the greatest of all 19th-century English novelists, Charles Dickens. A retired insurance agent relates an episode from his career, a "romance of the real world", in which a cunning criminal is exposed and "hunted down" to face justice.

Dorothy Scarborough was an academic and author who had a particular interest in the supernatural. The following collection, first published in 1921, features stories that have a strong comical or satirical focus.

During the wealth and glitter of the Gilded Age, a six-year-old heiress goes missing from her opulent hilltop estate. Detective Robert Trevitt sets out to find her. Using inside knowledge of her family's secrets, he searches for little Gwendolen where no one else can, and uncovers truths hidden to all eyes but his. The mystery unwinds in a tale of ghostly regrets, desperate deeds of love, and hopes of forgiveness.

As all London is gripped by the horrific series of murders committed on its fog-bound streets by the self-styled "Avenger", respectable retired servants Robert Bunting and his wife Ellen are on the brink of personal disaster, in the ruin of their business. But then - miraculously as it seems - they are saved when the enigmatic Mr. Sleuth turns up at the door of their lodging house looking for rooms...but Ellen soon begins to suspect that Mr. Sleuth may be the very man who holds the capital in terror.

The classic horror story of dual personalities gone too far, this full-cast narration explores the attempts of Utterson, a London lawyer, to investigate the strange occurrences surrounding his friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and the shocking discoveries he makes along the way. The impact of this story has been so strong that "Jekyll and Hyde" has become part of our vernacular, referring to those who are outwardly good but inwardly evil.