Kryminał
Anna Katharine Green
That Affair Next Door focuses on a mysterious murder that has occurred in a quiet neighborhood, incidentally in the house next door to the home of the curious middle-aged amateur sleuth Miss Butterworth. One night around midnight Miss Butterworth sees a man and woman enter the Van Burnam mansion, which is supposed to be empty. The man leaves soon after, but the woman does not. On the following day, Miss Butterworth and a policeman find the body of a woman crushed to death under a cabinet in the parlor. There are way too many coincidences to be realistic, but the competitive sleuthing of Miss Butterworth and Detective Gryce keep the story moving along with seemingly definitive evidence pulling the reader to believe one person after another must be the actual murderer.
Edgar Wallace
Carfew was an erratic genius, with a horror of anything that had the appearance of discipline, order, or conventional method. So it was with some luck that there was a train disaster while he was working in the newspaper office of The Megaphone. He was dispatched to the scene and came back triumphant: The Spaniard is a fake! shouted Carfew. He had forgotten all about the railway accident. Shortly thereafter, so would his editor. The Admirable Carfew is a collection of loosely linked short stories. The slowly developing fortunes of a young entrepreneur, trying his hand at various deals, from stock dealing to theatre ownership and just managing to scrap through.
Edgar Wallace
The hero, the discharged Army Captain Reginald Hex, was the prototype for Anthony Newland, whose adventures were related several years later in The Brigand (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1927). The first two Hex stories were revised and published as Anthony Newland stories in that collection under the titles Buried Treasure and A Contribution to Charity. The stories are adventurous and well written but definitely a product of their time and place. Edgar Wallace was a British author who is best known for creating King Kong. Wallace was a very prolific writer despite his sudden death at age 56. In total Wallace is credited with over 170 novels, almost 1,000 short stories, and 18 stage plays. Wallaces works have been turned into well over 100 films.
Edgar Wallace
The hapless Heine is trying very hard to be a good German spy in Great Britain during WWI but luck and circumstance are not with him. Every adventure turns out poorly for our dear spy. This collection of stories of Edgar Wallace about Heine was published during WWI and should be taken lightly by readers some may see it as a piece of anti-German propaganda, with Heine as a bit of a hopeless idiot. But the stories are also entertaining and should be read as such. Although these stories of German spy Heine are all linked and follow on from each other it is still very much a short story collection rather than a novel.
Frank L. Packard
Wealthy millionaire by day, at night Jimmie Dale put on a costume and becomes The Grey Seal, daredevil safe cracker and footpad he never takes a thing, but leaves behind his mark, a grey seal of paper to mark his conquest. He was just doing it for the sheer deviltry of it at first, but when a woman catches him she blackmails him to war on certain crime organizations. Frank Packards Gray Seal character first appeared in print in 1914. In some ways he was inspired by earlier Edwardian adventurers like A.J Raffles, the Scarlet Pimpernel, and Arsene Lupin, but Packard blended those borrowed elements into an entirely new concept. Dales adventures first appeared in Peoples Magazine and then were collected into several novels.
The Adventures of Kirby ODonnell
Robert E. Howard
One of Robert E. Howards lesser known fictional characters, Kirby ODonnell is an American treasure hunter in early-twentieth century Afghanistan disguised as a Kurdish merchant, Ali el Ghazi. Ali el Ghazi is a master of edged weapons, fiercely intelligent, tigerishly quick, and a merciless killer when threatened. Kirby ODonnell is similar to another of Howards characters, El Borak, in many ways. However, ODonnell seeks hidden treasures in all of his stories (Swords of Shahrazar, The Treasures of Tartary, The Curse of the Crimson God) while El Borak is more concerned with his own form of justice and stability in Afghanistan. There are betrayals, vicious swordfights, hot pursuits through brutally harsh Himalayan terrain, a hidden treasure and enough spilled entrails to satisfy the most discerning Howard fan.
The Adventures of Martin Hewitt
Arthur Morrison
Who else could have so quickly connected a partial sheet of music wrapped around a rock and tossed through a sitting room window with an infamous decades-old robbery? Would anyone else have taken seriously the fears of an eccentric old woman who swore thieves were after her most prized possession: a snuffbox fashioned from the actual wood of Noahs Ark? Englands greatest crime-solver Martin Hewitt uses his superior intellect and genial charm to unmask thieves, murderers, and dangerous fanatics. The Adventures of Martin Hewitt stories are well written with the usual detective story tropes a sidekick narrator, baffled police, all the clues within the narrative, the announcement followed by the detective explaining his brilliance.
The Adventures of Mr. Joseph P. Gray
E. Phillips Oppenheim
Joseph P. Cray is an American manufacturer who has just completed a year serving coffee to the troops in France during World War 1. He is motivated by good will, and also to escape his American second wife who is the head of a temperance organization. With sybaritic glee, he returns to London, dons civilian garb, and enjoys his first cocktail. He is soon joined by his daughter, the beautiful Lady Sara Sittingbourne, who lives in London. Together the two seek adventure in the form of crimes foiled, jewels recovered, spies uncovered, and plots smashed. Edward Phillips Oppenheim was an English novelist, in his lifetime a major and successful writer of genre fiction including thrillers.