A Self-Made Thief

Hulbert Footner

A strange and inescapable force lures Frank Heberdon, socially prominent young lawyer, on to life of crime, and he finds his lovely rescuer in a denizen of the underworld where they join forces. The development of Franks criminal career and the way he goes from theft and blackmail to drugs and finally murder makes as thrilling and absorbing a tale as Hulbert Footner ever wrote with a smashing surprise at the very end.

Dangerous Cargo

Hulbert Footner

Richard Austin Freeman, the doyen of the scientific division of detective writing is best known for his character Dr. John Thorndyke. A close and careful investigator and the outstanding medical authority in the field of detective fiction, R. Austin Freeman not only tested the wits of the reader but also inspired many modern detective forensic methods. Shuttlebury Cobb is a completely different sort of book. In it Freeman demonstrates his sense of humor and whimsy as he follows the strange and always comic adventures of the hero of the title who finds himself caught up by chance in the quest for a mysterious treasure. Charting a series of adventures set in many strange scenarios, Mr. Shuttlebury Cobb is led through the dark and twisted streets of London where he meets a highly gifted stranger, enters secret chambers, and finds a magic mirror. Cobb engages with a secret code and a castaway in a delightful collection designed to while away the hours.

Death of a Celebrity

Hulbert Footner

Many guys wanted the playwright, Gavin Dordress, to die. Especially on the night of his party. Gail Garrett and Bea Townley openly quarreled for the main role in the play. The next morning Gavin Dordress was found shot to death, a chessman imprinted on his forehead, and nearby a letter of farewell that sounded suspiciously like one of his stage characters speaking. Then a new and amazing hint hastened the seemingly hopeless hunt.

Easy To Kill

Hulbert Footner

The pioneering creator of the inverted detective story, R. Austin Freeman was a popular Edwardian author of novels and short stories featuring Dr. Thorndyke, a pathologist-detective. Freemans detective and mystery tales offered an innovative approach to the genre, selling thousands of copies on both sides of the Atlantic. Robert Hawke is a man on the run. After returning from business in London, he finds that a sworn enemy, Will Colville, has been shot dead and the murder weapon belongs to Hawke. But Hawke protests his innocence and is persuaded to go on the run until enough evidence is found to prevent his arrest and conviction. So begins an unwilling adventure where Hawke finds himself setting sail with a vibrant cast of men, casting off for unknown waters and strange islands. And as Hawke embarks on his exotic voyage, enemies abound in the most unlikely of places.

Jack Chanty. A Story of Athabasca

Hulbert Footner

In this tightly plotted novel, we follow the bizarre career of a man who loathes criminals. After Humphrey Challoner finds his wife killed by the bullet of a robber in his home, he vows to catch the man. Mr. Challoner is a wealthy savant, and he saved the fingerprints of the robber as well as some of the robbers strange hair which Challoners wife had in her hand. For twenty years Humphrey hunts for the killer, in the process revenging himself on Londons criminals class in a surprising and gruesome fashion. This Freeman work is not a Dr. Thorndyke mystery. Instead, it is the disturbing account of how a man wreaks vengeance on the miscreant who murdered his wife in a bungled robbery attempt. It also poses the question of how a moral society should deal with criminals.

Madame Storey

Hulbert Footner

"When Rogues Fall Out incorporates some wonderful conundrums to hoodwink and hinder the cleverest of crime readers. This book contains three interconnected stories. In the first, a respectable collector of antiques falls victim to temptation. In the second a police inspector is found dead in suspicious circumstances in a railway tunnel. This section includes an interesting essay on the early use of fingerprint evidence. The third is a classic locked room mystery where someone has been making use of a sealed room in a remote country house. All three are resolved together in the last few pages. The rogues of the title include three very different men engaged in stealing and fencing high-quality jewelry. One is a working-class robber; one a refined antiques dealer turned fence; and one a mysterious middleman with the appearance of a gentleman.

Madame Storey Intervenes

Hulbert Footner

Author Hulbert Footner (1879-1944) brought the excitement of the 1920s and 1930s to Madame Storey's cosmopolitan adventures, moving away from Edwardian and Victorian flavors of the mystery genre. Beautiful and aloof. Her secretary/narrator/companion is Bella Brickley. Rosika lives near Gramercy Park in NYC and has a pet monkey. She seems to solve cases by use of good guesswork, "practical psychology" and fortuitous prior knowledge of certain facts or people.

Murder Runs in the Family

Hulbert Footner

Lance McCrea lived in a boarding house. There he met a girl he fell in love with. But their relationship is hampered by a powerful person. Lance tries to find out why this powerful man has some kind of hold over her. When he faces the man down, he finds he has been murdered. Of course, he is not the murderer but is a prime suspect anyway.

Orchids to Murder

Hulbert Footner

Amos Lee Mappin is a great detective. A sad man came to him asking him to find his granddaughter, Mary Stannard. The detective soon discovers that she has stood up her wedding party. Mappin found several strands and many clues through which he can find Mary.

Putting Crime Over

Hulbert Footner

A Duet, with an Occasional Chorus is a novel by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, published in 1899. The novel features the story of a happily married couple which is threatened by a previous lover of the husband. Also, the novel tells the adventures of a young couple, starting from their wedding preparation and ending with the birth of their first child. They are funny and cute, love each other, passionate and want always to be together. They make rules for family life, travel, keep the house and just live. The novel, set in Conan Doyles own time, written partly in the epistolary form he sought to revive after a century of disuse and which was also related to the self-conscious textuality of the late-Victorian urban Gothic.

Ramshackle House

Hulbert Footner

Traveling through southern Florida, a New Yorker Don Counsel is being framed by Ernest Riever for a murder he did not commit. Riever is holding the real killer captive on his yacht while detectives are searching for Counsel. Meanwhile a young Pen Broome tries to help Counsel out. Rievers men find Counsel and trap him in a ballast bulkhead, but Pen rescues him. Will Counsel be able to prove his innocence?

Sinfully Rich

Hulbert Footner

We learn from the very beginning that the main character dies. But, of course, readers need to find out who is the killer. There were many people in her entourage: friends, journalists, lawyers, lieutenants, and maids. What do these guys have in common? And how did the main character die?

The Almost Perfect Murder. A Case Book of Madame Storey

Hulbert Footner

Beyond the City explores the relationships between the residents of three adjoining homes. The cast of characters includes a widowed doctor with two daughters, a retired admiral with a wife and son, and a feminist living with her nephew. Destiny brings these three peculiar households together in the placid English countryside. The desire for money and romance drive these Victorians beyond the natural boundaries of their middle-class lives. As the web of lust and deceit draws these accidental neighbors ever closer, a financial scandal befalls one of them. An outside rank pirate is linked somehow to one of the neighbors. Who could it be? In this work, Conan Doyle exhibits the practiced subtlety and complexity for which he has become so well known.

The Casual Murderer and Other Stories

Hulbert Footner

Narrated by the character for whom the title is named and set in the late 1600s, Micah Clarke describes the battle of peasants against the existing king of England in the hopes that they can replace the monarch with his brother who feels he has been unjustly denied the throne. Micah Clarke, a young, innocent peasant joins forces with other peasants, among the Puritans, to fight for this pathetic dukes cause. It was attempt by Conan Doyle to present the story of the Puritans in a more favorable light than generally thought of in England at the time the book was written a historical romance about the Monmouth rebellion and Hanging Judge Jeffries told by a humble adherent of the Duke of Monmouth the whole story of the rising in Somerset, the triumphant advance towards Bristol and Bath, and the tragic rout at Sedgemoor (1685).

The Deaves Affair

Hulbert Footner

The Deaves Affair by Hulbert Footner. A millionnaire family is attacked by a blackmailer. They will be ruined if he always succeeds. A young struggling artist in New York City Evan is engaged to protect the old man from the crowd and from their blunders. But he had to play the role of a detective to help this family to discover the romantically inclined mystery in this affair. Will he succeed?

The Doctor Who Held Hands

Hulbert Footner

As well as penning some of the most popular detective fiction, Conan Doyle also wrote thrilling adventure stories. Rodney Stone is a combination of both. Nelson, Beau Brummell, Fox and King George III himself appear in a tale at the heart of which is, as one character says, a pretty conspiracy a criminal, an actress and a prize-fighter, all playing their parts. The book is narrated by Rodney, in 1851 thinking back over the events 1803, when Rodney was 17 and his best friend, Boy Jim, was 19. This is the year Rodneys uncle comes to introduce the boy to London society. Sir Charles is a dandy, and a friend of Beau Brummell and the Prince of Wales. But Rodneys father has hopes for his son going into the Royal Navy. Boy Jim also has a life decision to make. He has been raised by Champion Harrison as a blacksmith, but after befriending an alcoholic ex-actress, he yearns to see more of the world, at least London.

The Folded Paper Mystery

Hulbert Footner, Hulbert Footner

Nick Peters was a repairer of watches who fond of friendly arguments with Fin Corveth, a free-lance journalist. One day Peters is murdered, and Corveth finds himself involved in a baffling mystery in which a little brass ball plays an important part for the little brass ball conceals an emerald locket, which in turn conceals a blank square of folded paper. It becomes clear that greater events are afoot than simple murder...

The Fur Bringers

Hulbert Footner

The historicity of this story captivated everyone. After all, it gives a feeling of a sense of thinking and adventure of that time. A young free fur trader challenges the practices of the North West Company trader who is cheating the Natives of proper prices and enslaving them with debt for goods. Here, not only sinister characters, rebellion and accusations, but also love stories unfold against the backdrop of all this.

The Handsome Young Men

Hulbert Footner

A historical romance and tale of adventure, set in England during the fourteenth century. Descendent of a noble family, Nigel Loring is the last of his race, and living alone with his aged grand-mother, upon a small remnant of their great estate. In service to King Edward III, Sir Nigel Loring must prove himself worthy of the hand of his the Lady Mary by performing three deeds in her honor. On his way to the altar, Nigel rescues a woman from dishonor, fights a pirate leader, and battles against the Spanish at sea, among other heroic feats. Set against the fourteenth-century war between England and France, Sir Nigel is an action-packed adventure classic, filled to the brim with history, conflict, chivalry, and a dash of romance.

The Huntress

Hulbert Footner

The Huntress written by Hulbert Footner who was a Canadian writer of non-fiction and detective fiction. His first published works were travelogues of canoe trips on the Hudson River and in the Northwest Territory along the Peace River, Hay River and Fraser River. He also wrote a series of northwest adventures during the period 1911 through 1920. Published in 1922, here a frontier love story with a tough, but intriguing heroine and a reluctant, at first weak, but eventually worthy lover.

The Kidnapping of Madame Storey

Hulbert Footner

Love humor writing? Cant get enough of classic adventure tales? First published in 1902, The Adventures of Gerard are the autobiographical reminiscences of an old fictional brigadier soldier who served under Napoleon. He never hesitates to embellish his own bravado, importance, and attractiveness to the ladies, to such an extent that it cant help but be humorous. Etienne Gerard, a hussar of the French Army, is dashing, flamboyant, and unbelievably full of himself. The book is divided into chapters containing different segments of his life as a soldier under the leadership of Napoleon together with his personal exploits and the romance that swept his way in between. These short stories are historically interesting, the action is cleverly done and exciting, and the hero and his comic comportment are very entertaining.

The Obeah Murders

Hulbert Footner

The novel begins with the fact that Phil Nevitt, an employee of an American alcoholic beverage company, goes to Annunziata, the mythical island of Futners creation in the West Indies, to learn everything he can about the Randall Trantora rum. The Obeah Murders show their fantastic roots with so many genre influences (spy, western, adventure, supernatural and detective). In the end, however, the race issue was the most surprising and, ultimately, the most important aspect of the book. More Footner reviews will appear later this summer.

The Owl Taxi

Hulbert Footner

Suppose you were a young and very rich New Yorker, and you suddenly lost all your money. Suppose you met a taxi-driver and for reasons good to both you agreed to exchange identities. Suppose, having started up Fifth Avenue in the old taxi at one a.m., you were about to admit your first fare when you discovered a dead body already occupying the car. Humor, espionage, romance, and adventure make this novel thrilling.

The Richest Widow

Hulbert Footner

After a minimal education in Canada, Footner emigrated to New York in 1898 and worked at a variety of jobs, including an unsuccessful stint as an actor. He turned to journalism and worked for a time as a freelancer, contributing articles to periodicals such as Field and Stream. His first works were primarily travelogues of various river trips in Canada and the U.S., although he did produce some adventure novels. He is also credited with introducing the first American female investigator in Madame Storey. So we are introduced to the fascinating Madame Rosika Storey, fearless and intelligent, who plays cat-and-mouse with killers, goes undercover to break up criminal gangs, and unravels deadly mysteries.