Showing results by narrator "Graham Scott" in All Categories

R. Austin Freeman presents eight cases for his ingenious Edwardian "scientific investigator", Dr. John Thorndyke, including: a classic locked-room murder mystery; a race to find a disappeared child; a dead woman discovered on a train; the story of the vengeful ghost of a murdered Chinese mandarin; and the enigmatic Moabite Cypher. As ever, Dr. Thorndyke meticulously collects the evidence of footprints, dust, hairs, and fibres, and even a single blue sequin, to unravel the mystery and see that justice is done.

Eight stories by comic master PG Wodehouse. Four stories feature hapless young clubman Bertie Wooster during a period of exile in New York City, along with his immaculate manservant Jeeves; while the other four concern the equally dim Reggie Pepper as he does his well-meaning but inept best to help pals out of sticky situations…

H. G. Wells examines the origins of the Earth, and the development of life upon the planet, as it was understood in his era, and then explores the history of human civilization from its earliest beginnings, through the various empires of world history, up to the aftermath of the First World War, and the League of Nations.

This star-studded anniversary collection features over 25 unforgettable stories from internationally best-selling authors and literary legends. From the Nordic noir of Jo Nesbø and the lyricism of Tennessee Williams to the timeless imagination of Ray Bradbury and the courtroom wit of John Mortimer, these vivid tales reflect the range and tone that have defined The Strand Magazine for a quarter century.

Nineteen tales of murder and mystery in the first three books to feature H.C. Bailey's golden age detective Mr. Reginald 'Reggie' Fortune: surgeon and general practitioner, a man interested in everything, but not in anything in particular, and with a vast store of eclectic knowledge that makes him the ideal man to advise the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard, and shine a light upon the darkest of deeds.

Seven more tales of mystery for the great forensic investigator Dr. John Thorndyke, involving missing jewels, stolen bullion, a disappeared will, an ancient family tale of piracy and betrayal, the wrong hat, curious white footprints, and a body incinerated in a burning hay rick....

Four more full-length adventures of R. Austen Freeman's great 'scientific investigator', Dr John Thorndyke: First, young Helen Vardon marries a man she detests in order to save her father from imprisonment; but her selfless act only precipitates a still greater disaster, and puts her under suspicion of murder. Then, in The Cat's Eye, Thorndyke unravels both an apparent robbery gone wrong and the still more complex mystery of Miss Blake's family inheritance and the cat's eye pendant.

The immaculate Psmith - newly emancipated from an unwilling participation in the fish business - donates an umbrella (not his own) to a damsel in distress; and to further press his suit, he follows her to Blandings Castle - seat of that amiable and boneheaded peer, Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth - in the guise of an absconded Canadian poet. And, for the best possible motives, Psmith is also embroiled in a plot to steal Lady Constance Keeble's fabulous diamond necklace - an endeavour which brings him into conflict with both professional rivals.

Twelve early stories from the comic master, including the romantic truth behind the odd success of a Soho restaurant; the mysterious ways of a lucky black cat; a tale of three exiled baseball fans; a private detective in love with an actress in a touring company; a policeman in love with a parlor maid in the Battersea Park Road; Mr. Henry Wallace Mills of the two left feet; and the first appearance of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, as Bertie is sent to New York to rescue his cousin from the clutches of a Vaudeville starlet...

Zuleika Dobson, internationally famous prestidigitator visits her grandfather, the Warden of Judas College, Oxford. But Zuleika, "though not strictly beautiful" is a devastatingly attractive young woman, and proves utterly irresistible among the all-male undergraduate body - including the snobbish and trend-setting young Duke of Dorset. Thus begins a chain of events that culminates in a very watery end to the Eights Week boat races...

After his son gives him a pair of "X-ray" glasses as a gift, Martin Blackstone tries them on just for the hell of it - and all they do is give him a headache...until he sees things he can’t possibly be seeing. Glimpses of things on the other side of a wall or beneath someone’s clothing. He wants to believe it’s just his overactive imagination, but the “X-ray” specs actually work.

Two novels inspired by the author’s personal experience in British Intelligence during the First World War: in which Naval Intelligence officer Roger Waterlow, stuck ashore in a sweltering country in South-eastern Europe, and working from scraps of gossip gathered by his ramshackle network of agents, struggles to make a real difference in the war, against the indifference and incompetence of the British authorities.

Young Dr Oldfield is puzzled by the strangely intractable illness of his recently acquired patient, the Modernist potter Peter Gannet, and he calls upon his old teacher, Dr Thorndyke, to consult. Thorndyke quickly identifies the true cause of the illness as arsenic poisoning, and there seems little doubt that the poison has been administered by someone in Gannet's household. After his discharge from the hospital, what will be the result when Gannet returns to his home?

Twenty-two more tales of murder and mystery featuring HC Bailey's golden age detective Mr Reginald 'Reggie' Fortune: surgeon and general practitioner, a man of limitless interests and vast knowledge, and the ideal advisor to the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard. Includes all stories from Mr Fortune, Please (1927), Mr Fortune Speaking (1929), and Mr Fortune Explains (1930).

A second collection of twelve cases for M. McDonnell Bodkin’s insightful but self-deprecating detective Paul Beck, a man who claims no more genius than “a little common sense,” and says of himself that “I just go by the rule of thumb, and muddle and puzzle out my cases as best I can.” Including the disappearance of a millionaire; murders on a golf links and on a train; a fabulous diamond necklace lost in the sea, and the theft of an actress’ rubies; a lucky discovery in a Hansom cab; and a doctor found standing over the dead body of his fiancée’s brother.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), was an English writer, poet, philosopher, dramatist, journalist, orator, lay theologian, biographer, and literary and art critic. Chesterton is best known for his fictional priest-detective Father Brown. In The Club of Queer Trades, narrator 'Cherub' Swinburne and his friends, the eccentric former judge Basil Grant, and Basil's younger brother, private detective Rupert Grant, encounter six curious mysteries, each involving someone who makes a living in an extraordinary and bizarre - in the language of the time a 'queer' - way.

Nine of Wodehouse's funniest stories, as the Oldest Member reminisces about misadventures among the golf-obsessed. Including the eponymous 'goof' Ferdinand Dibble, a man whose non-success at golf has reduced him to such a state of diffidence as to hamper his romantic aspirations; high-stakes betting on the course among America's tainted millionaires; the heroic Rollo Podmarsh, persevering in the best round of his life under sentence of death; and the saga of William Bates, Jane Packard, and self-confessed vers libre poet Rodney Spelvin.

Someone is making very determined attempts to murder inoffensive newly-qualified Doctor Humphrey Jardine. Could this be related to the body which he discovered in Hampstead - and which when he returned with the police had entirely disappeared? Or perhaps the odd circumstances surrounding the death of Septimus Maddock may be the key? Fortunately, celebrated medical jurist Dr. John Thorndyke comes to the aid of his erstwhile student to unravel the mystery....

When irascible clergyman Amos Monkhouse, visiting from the North, finds the condition of his invalid brother Harold so much worse than he had expected, he calls in a specialist. But when Harold then suddenly dies an investigation reveals that he was poisoned with arsenic. The police can make nothing of the conflicting evidence beyond the certainty that only someone in the dead man's immediate domestic circle could be responsible. A childhood friend of Harold's wife, young barrister Rupert Mayfield, convinced that there must be another explanation, enlists the help of Dr John Thorndyke to lift the shadow that hangs over his friends.

A strong, beautiful mother of five, Kate Kerrigan has made do since losing her husband in the bloody Battle of Shiloh. Now, two years after the Civil War, there’s nothing left for them in Tennessee but poverty and bad memories. So Kate decides a better life awaits them in far-off West Texas. Thus begins a 1000-mile trek through some of the harshest and most dangerous territory on the frontier.