Kryminał
E. Phillips Oppenheim
The Passionate Quest is the story of Rosina, Philip and Matthew, who work in rural England in the glass factory owned by Rosinas uncle. All three dream of a different life: Rosina wants to be an actress, Philip a poet, and Matthew hopes for a career in high finance. They all go off to London in the passionate quest for their dreams. This 1927 novel by Edward Phillips Oppenheim where problems arise in a family business. Oppenheim inherited a leather company from his father and ran it for 20 years before he became a full time author. The business of leather features in a number of his novels. He was acutely aware of class behavior and distinctions. An enjoyable read!
E. Phillips Oppenheim
E. Phillips Oppenheim was a British writer known for his thriller novels. He is credited with writing over 100 novels including suspense, international intrigue, romance, parables, and comedies. His protagonists are known for their love of luxury, gourmet meals, and their enjoyment of criminal activities. The Pawns Count is a novel during World War I and intrigue. German, Japanese, British and Americans play roles in this novel. A chemist, Sandy Graham, has discovered a new powerful explosive, but he lets it slip in a London restaurant that he has made the discovery. So it should come as no surprise, really, when he goes to the lavatory to clean up and never comes back out. Several highly cultured spies from different governments set out to find him and the formula. Read this rather short book to find the answers.
E. Phillips Oppenheim
If you have a fondness for mystery you should find this novel to be an entertaining read. Lord Alceston, the Earl of Harrowdean, statesman, philanthropist, nobleman, is murdered in his own study on the night of a great ball given at his home. On the same night a mysterious woman is murdered in the slums of East London. The valet disappears. Thus begins a moody and dramatic tale of love, jealousy, and revenge. This is the second published novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim and deals with a rigid Victorian moral code which is hard to comprehend today. Oppenheim dictated many of his later novels, but the careful writing, lengthy descriptions, and close observation of characters are beautifully expressed in this early work.
Edgar Wallace
The setting is Nigeria a century ago, and British District Commissioner R.G. Sanders oversees the tribes. He discovers that Bosambo has been acting as chief without approval, but is so impressed with his skills Sanders allows him to remain in place, but Sanders heads to England to marry and unrest follows. The classic Commissioner Sanders stories about Africa by Edgar Wallace. This is the second collection in the series, following Sanders of the River. Wallace served in Africa and he gets the background right. Both books were written in the same year, when world powers were vying for colonial honor. Great humor, lots left to the readers imagination, but delightful stories about individuals and their interactions with Commissioner Sanders, British authority figure.
Fred M. White
Sebastian Wilde really was a great man. He seemed to be paralysed from his hips downwards, which, indeed, was the case, though his arms were vigorous enough and his affliction had not robbed him of the brightness of his eyes or blunted the edge of his amazing intellect. He had no friends and visitors; he was pleased, in his words, to work quietly on the task of his life and, perhaps, when this is completed, he can go out of his obscurity and again take his place in the great world. However, what could such a noble person hide?
Aidan de Brune
There is always a special thrill of excitement about a mystery story, especially when the main characters cover their tracks successfully. The Phantom Launch is an Australian story through and through, its main setting being Sydney and Melbourne, and the swiftness and sureness with which both the launch people and amateur sleuths act will keep the reader breathless. Wireless plays an important part in this story. We defy any reader to guess the perpetrators of the crimes and the secret of the launch until the colorful and prolific Australian writer Aidan de Brune? reveals them.
Valentine Williams
The novel begins in Paris on the wedding night of Sally and Rex Garrett. A former member of the French Foreign Legion Rex mysteriously disappears on the night of his wedding. At The Pigeon House, a lonely inn, a band of conspirators await the arrival of a deserter from the Foreign Legion, who is their key man in their plan to start an uprising in French Morocco. The conspirators have also driven the bridegrooms closest friend into exile and a shameful death, which means he must hunt them down and destroy them. Williams spy story, The Pigeon Man (1927), presents us with a character whose motivations are as obscure as any in modernist literature. Why is the hero doing what he is doing? Why, for that matter, are the other characters? George Valentine Williams never says explicitly, leaving readers to puzzle this out for themselves.
Arthur B. Reeve
The second collection of 12 of the early Craig Kennedy mysteries, written by Arthur Benjamin Reeve and published in 1912. His Craig Kennedy stories, of which these are early examples, earned their main character the nickname the American Sherlock Holmes, both for his highly rational and analytical detective work as well as for his ever-present Dr. Watson-like companion Walter Jameson. They solve crimes using cutting-edge technology of the early twentieth century with varying degrees of plausibility. This volume includes The Germ of Death, The White Slave, The Confidence King, The Invisible Ray, and eight more. Each story features a fascinating look at life in the early 20th century, and even includes some action along the way.
The Postmaster of Market Deignton
E. Phillips Oppenheim
This early work from the prince of storytellers E. Phillips Oppenheim published as a novel in 1897. Mr. Norman Scott is a young, hardworking, distinguished physician with a busy practice in London. He is called to visit a patient, Mr. Humphrey Deignton, who suffers from gout and who is murdered later. Dr. Scott is suspected. Two years later, we meet Mr. John Martin, postmaster and chemist in Market Deignton. A lonely, bitter, impoverished man. He is living near the home of Lady Deignton, seeking revenge upon the person who killed Lord Deignton, and ruined his name and career. There are lots of unexpected turns and twists to the adventure of poor John and the local color of the setting is extremely charming.
Edgar Wallace
Dr. Beechington knew how difficult it was to live in genteel poverty. He was determined his daughter Mary should marry a wealthy man but Mary wasnt so sure. Should she obey her father or follow her heart? Best remembered for penning the screenplay for the classic film King Kong, author Edgar Wallace was an astoundingly popular luminary in the action-adventure genre in the early twentieth century. The Price a Woman Pays is a story packed with great fun and Wallace keeps the action moving along swiftly, as he always did, and it highlights Wallaces unmatched skill in setting a pulse-pounding pace. Wonderful entertainment and highly entertaining.
Fred M. White
Sir Wilton Oakes was a man of about five and forty years of age, although he looked younger, he didnt feel like it. He had all the attributes of his ancient race the face of a hawk, a short upper lip, and the easy manner of one who was born to be the commander of people. He recently took over the beautiful Elizabethan house that was his legacy. And now the old baronet was dead, and the man sitting at the library table reigned in his stead.
The Prison-Breakers and Other Stories
Edgar Wallace
A collection of short stories from the British Mysteries master Edgar Wallace, directly from the Golden Era of the genre. This includes the following The Prison-Breakers, Findings Are Keepings, The Jewel Box, The Undisclosed Client, Via Madeira, The Complete Criminal, Red Beard, Bulfox Asleep. Have a lot of fun! Edgar Wallace was a British novelist, playwright, and journalist who produced popular detective and suspense stories and was in his time the king of the modern thriller. Wallaces literary output 175 books, 24 plays, and countless articles and review sketches have undermined his reputation as a fresh and original writer. In England, in the 1920s, Wallace was said to be the second biggest seller after the Bible.
E. Phillips Oppenheim
A novel of crime and conscience by Edward Phillips Oppenheim (1866-1946), the self-styled prince of storytellers. The Profiteers was written about the stock market post-World War I and pre-1929 crash. The tale of the Bechtel family dynasty is a classic American business story. It begins with Warren A. Bechtel, who led a consortium that constructed the Hoover Dam. From that auspicious start, the family and its eponymous company would go on to build the world, from the construction of airports in Hong Kong and Doha, to pipelines and tunnels in Alaska and Europe, to mining and energy operations around the globe. Like all stories of empire building, the rise of Bechtel presents a complex and riveting narrative. In The Profiteers, Sally Denton, exposes Bechtels secret world and one of the biggest business and political stories of our time.
Alexandre Dumas
This action-packed novel is a warning. Its main character, the young Frenchman Benedict Thurpin the newly-minted dArtagnan, daredevil, wit, Breter, warrior, painter, palmist, hunter, gallant gentleman, personification of the spirit of France like a volunteer fighting Prussians and performing extraordinary feats.
Aidan de Brune
The Pursuits of Peter Pell is an episodic novel in 12 parts by Aidan de Brune, set in Perth, Australia. Peter Pell is a con man. Thats essentially it. He engages in a lot of humorous adventures and situations. Its told in sequential short story format. As the novel is rather short and quite fast-paced with a lot of scenery-changes and adventures, this nice. Aidan de Brune was a big name in Australian literature but is forgotten today. He was a prolific author who wrote in a variety of genres. In the 1920s and 1930s a number of his novels appeared in Australian newspapers as serials, and he also appears to have written serials specifically for publication in newspapers.
R. Austin Freeman
A gang of jewel thieves has come to the attention of the police. Will Dr. Thorndike be able to find the leader and the jewels? It would seem that the jewel merchant has a strong room with a puzzle lock where there are too many combinations to solve. But can it be done.
Wilkie Collins
A novel about a young woman, Jessie Yelverton (also known as the Queen of Hearts), aged 20, who soon inherits an inheritance from her dead parents. Due to a strange set of circumstances, Jessie is forced to stay at her caregivers house for six weeks until her 21st birthday. The guardians name is Griffith, he is a lawyer and lives with his two older brothers.
Guy Boothby
It was almost night when this melancholy little party appeared at the main station. Dick, with great foresight, sent the food cart several miles to meet them, so my mother was relieved of pain when her husbands body was brought to his horse. Rude and rude, Dick was a thoughtful guy, and I firmly believe that he would go through fire and water to serve my mother, whom he greatly admired.
Joseph Smith Fletcher
Marshall Allerdyke is driving through the night from London to Hull in response to an urgent telegram from his cousin. As he nears Hull, a beautiful woman stops his car to ask for directions to Scotland. Odd time to be traveling so far and in such a hurry, but Allerdykes mind is elsewhere. When he finally arrives in Hull, he finds his cousin dead in his hotel room and a valuable consignment of jewels missing. Allerdykes only clue rests with that woman hurrying off to Scotland. Written in beautifully period English, this mystery has many threads to solve. The main characters work wonderfully with each other to solve the mystery, with the assistance of the British police. There are enough twists and turns and revelations to keep you busy right to the end.
Frank L. Packard
Ewen Stranway answers an advertisement to meet an old gentleman Henri Raoul Charlebois who has told him that he is in debt. At his flat, he removes from his safe a large book bound in red morocco in which it lists his debts. When he was very poor, Stranways father had given him a dime. Now, fabulously wealthy, he desires to pay back all those who helped him as well as those who did not and he recruits Stranway to continue when he is too old to handle it himself. All those who done him well, will be protected and secured, but those who done him wrong will live to regret it... Frank Packard (1877-1942) authored many popular novels, several of which were made into movies, including a series in which he originated the idea of a heroic crime fighter with a secret double identity.
Valentine Williams
On the day of the execution, Voulland saw the tumbrils approaching. Come, said he to those who were at his side, let us go to the high altar and see them celebrate the Red Mass. The Red Mass is a bustling action tale of the French Revolution and of the sulky and wild young British officer who in one day in London manages to insult a French nobleman, get challenged to a duel and throw a glass of wine in the face of the Prince Regent George the Fat. Sent abroad on a secret mission, both he and his French sweetheart come close to the guillotine. But that is not the end far from it. Written in 1925 by English journalist, actor, lecturer and screenwriter Valentine Williams who was the son of G. Douglas Williams, Chief Editor of the Reuters News Agency.
Guy Boothby
The story of the liberation of a Russian prisoner from an island in eastern Siberia. A young English millionaire thinks he is saving the father of his beloved, famous nihilist; but when a person is safe, he discovers that he really shot down the most notorious diamond robber in the world. The story is full of sensations, and people who like such a fantasy will find it vibrant and lively from start to finish.
Arthur Morrison
Fourth and last collection of detective fiction featuring Martin Hewitt, a famous private detective whose methods closely resemble those of Sherlock Holmes. The plot lines of all six linked sensation stories in this collection center on the mystery of the Red Triangle, a group of villains known only from the Red Triangle left stamped on the heads of their victims, and the actions of Martin Hewitt and his narrator, esteemed journalist Mr. Brett, in bringing the members of that group to justice. This work includes the following stories: The affair of Samuels diamonds, The case of Mr. Jacob Mason, The case of the Lever Key, The case of the burnt barn, The case of the Admiralty code and The adventure of Channel Marsh.
Edgar Wallace
In 1919-1920 Edgar Wallace wrote a series of ten short stories featuring the investigative reporter York Symon for publication in the British monthly The Novel Magazine. In 1928 the series was reprinted in Pearsons Weekly. In the following year Edgar Wallace collected nine of the stories in a book entitled The Reporter. The Reporter is a detective story about a police reporter named Wise Symon and his tricks of the trade. A collection presents 9 short stories that include The Writings of Maconochie Hoe, The Crime of Gai Joi, The Safe Deposit at the Social Club, and the two connected stories The Case of Crook Beresford and The Last Throw of Crook Beresford. The stories are fast-paced and well written but definitely a product of their time and place!