Showing results by publisher "Spoken Realms" in Traditional Detectives

Anna Katherine Green, the mother of the detective novel, introduces the world to the first "girl detective" in this delightful collection of nine stories published in 1915.

Several girls, all bearing the name "Jenny Rogers", are being killed in the city of New York. In the middle of it, there are two suspects: a famous painter and a visiting stranger, who also happen to bear, in their turn, identical names. Behind it all, the dying wishes of a man and a nefarious plot to lay claim to a matter of millions.

In the pretty little town of Sibley, NY, the court has adjourned for lunch, and Judge Evans and some of the leading lawyers of the district stand outside the courthouse discussing the limitations of the criminal classes. A stranger describes to them just how a man might commit a murder and avoid detection - and only minutes later, the widow Clemmens is discovered struck down in her parlor by an unknown hand in circumstances eerily similar to those described by the stranger.

The brutal murder of the well-known French actress Rose de Bercy has rocked London. But when Chief Inspector Winter investigates, he finds himself facing more complications than expected. It doesn’t take long to discover Mademoiselle de Bercy was not who she had appeared to be, and her past is a mystery, too. Truly knowing who she was would affect solving her murder: was the murderer an anarchist bent on revenge, a rich American who believes he was her fiancé, or, as Winter comes to suspect, someone much closer, namely his own right-hand man, Detective Inspector Furneaux?

The series of detective stories Anna Katherine Green wrote were among the earliest in the 20th century, and depict modern America and the workings of the police departments. These unfold and are full of the details of a new 20th century world. Initials Only is set in New York, and purveys a certain atmosphere unique to that period. It revolves around the workings of the retired Detective Gryce and his young assistant, Mr Sweetwater. A seemingly unsolvable mystery, the death by apparent suicide of an heiress, is investigated by the two detectives and the New York Coroner.

Credited by many as the mother of the detective novel, Anna Katharine Green published her first mystery novel - The Leavenworth Case - in 1878, almost a decade before Sherlock Holmes made his appearance. Green's intrepid Ebenezer Gryce, a seasoned New York detective, takes up the case of a brutally murdered millionaire philanthropist. One of the murdered man's two nieces is set to inherit an immense fortune, and she and her cousin are high on the suspect list.

Beatrice Knight has enough to contend with: A zebra is dead on her lawn, her horse is possessed, and a gentleman has arrived with the temerity to propose to her. To top it off, her dead husband, Gideon, has absconded with an automaton, threatening to return for his wife. The wife in question, however, soon has other issues, for a killer has moved into town with a nasty habit of carving up the victims. As luck should dictate, who should be the next target but Mrs. Knight herself?

Armed with Victorian etiquette, a fully loaded walking stick, and a dead husband, Beatrice Knight arrives in colonial Kenya desperate for a pot of tea and a pinch of cinnamon. But she'll need more than that if she's to unravel the mystery of the Ghosts of Tsavo without being eaten in the process. All this while surviving the machinations of her best friend's dashing godfather and the efforts of her safari guide to feed her to any lion willing to drag her away. What is a ghost-chasing widow to do?

Over a 25-year period, author Maurice Leblanc wrote of the exploits of gentleman thief and master of disguise Arsène Lupin, to the delight of readers on the continent and elsewhere. Often referred to as France's version of Sherlock Holmes, Lupin in this early appearance is wrongfully accused of the death of a prominent German millionaire with nefarious plans. The thief and the mysterious killer find themselves in a race to find an incriminating bundle of letters that, in the wrong hands, could change the political map of the world.

The intrepid private nurse/investigator is charged with the care of two young boys in a home full of conundrums. Both parents are fearful but refuse to leave their home and won't say why. The rugs have been rolled up and the furniture piled into the middle of each room. Their anxiety is catching, as Miss Adams too furtively watches for danger as she searches for clues. Why, she wonders, do they lock every door in the house? And who or what is the menace that terrifies them?

This Father Brown mystery by Chesterton deals with a killer who is invisible. But how is it possible for someone to be invisible? To have people hear your voice and not see you? To walk right past their eyes and yet remain unseen? G. K. Chesterton explores not physics here but human nature, in this intriguing and quirky murder mystery.

When men are plotting to assassinate European leaders, some take justice into their own hands. A train never makes it to its destination, in this short story penned in the 1890's.

A banker who has people's fortunes leaves his wife and son. They receive letters from Paris describing his life and know nothing of what is behind the sealed door.

"The Red-Headed League" is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Conan Doyle ranked "The Red-Headed League" second in his list of his 12 favorite Holmes stories.

Arthur Conan Doyle once remarked that The Adventure of the Speckled Band, first published in 1892, was his best Sherlock Holmes story. In it, a young woman, Helen Stoner, consults Holmes about her ill-tempered stepfather whom she suspects had some part in the death of her twin sister, Julia. She fears her stepfather has the same plans for her: he has forced Helen to move into the mysterious and disturbing room in which her sister died under suspicious circumstances.

"I have two proposals to make, sir, and either is fair. Take your choice. I will give you twenty-five thousand when you deliver the falcon, and another twenty-five thousand as soon as I get to New York; or I will give you one quarter—twenty-five percent—of what I realize on the falcon. There you are, sir: an almost immediate fifty thousand dollars or a vastly greater sum within, say, a couple of months."

A reporter drowses off at his typewriter, to awaken to a very strange presence that has the appearance of a misshapen man. The "creature" appears not to be of this world, but when it begins to speak in a very strange voice it obviously knows George the reporter, and it has a story to tell.

Rick and Scotty go to work on a project at an experimental rocket installation in Nevada at the request of Dr. John Gordon. Someone has been trying to sabotage the rocker launches and leaves pictures of a knight sticking a sword through a rocket. The person calls themselves The Earthman.

This classic murder mystery uses elements that have since become very common in crime literature - an abandoned house, a fugitive figure fleeing from the scene, and a dead body. In the house at Whispering Pines, which is supposed to be closed, the narrator discovers a dead body. On closer inspection, and much to his horror, he discovers that the corpse is that of his fiance. The figure fleeing the scene appears to be that of her sister. Unfortunately, when the police arrive and find the narrator still in the house they suspect that he is the murderer....

Lucy Holmes has been happily married for six months. Her husband is expected home from a business trip to Philadelphia when she receives the following cryptic telegram: "Come at once. Your husband found dead in his room this morning. Doctors say heart disease. Please telegraph." Foul play is suspected, but the search for means and motive is not such a straightforward process.