This collection of apocryphal Sherlockiana has a special status: the stories herein are the first "authorised" pastiches that came out after the demise of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The rarest of rare collection og pastiches & parodies, edited by Ellery Queen, had been ruthlessly suppressed by Adria...
John Dickson Carr is one of the grand masters of the locked room and the [apparently] impossible crime. And, of course, The Problem of the Green Capsule is another such specimen. It begins with Dr. Marcus Chesney lecturing his household and associates on the fact that eyewitnesses are unreliable-...
What a book. An very intricate mystery wrapped up in detailed historical fiction with romance and time travel to boot. Oh yeah. And a pact with Satan. Nicholas Fenton, a Cambridge professor of history, makes a deal with Satan to travel back to the Restoration--an era of British history that fasci...
At the edge of the woods by the river stands the tower. Once part of a chateau since burnt down, only the tower remains. The inside is but a shell with a stone staircase climbing spirally up the wall to a flat stone roof with a parapet. One that parapet the body of Howard Brooke lay bleeding. The...
A force, hidden, but malignant stirred silently behind the discreetly drawn curtains at High Chimneys. And each member of the household, frantically concealing guilty indiscretions, unwittingly protected another person. It was not until nightmare murder had been done that the little secrets began...
The bunk’s mattress was soaked wit blood.The old-fashioned razor was folded shut.But it had been recently used. It was smeared with blood. A voice broke the terrible stillness in the stateroom: “The Blind Barber Has Been Here Tonight!”On an Atlantic crossing of the good ship Queen Victoria, a vic...
Hate! Jealousy and humiliation twisted and warped Eve Ferrier. Filled with hate she conceived a plan for revenge - a plan so corroded with evil and malevolence it defied human imagination. Then suddenly brutal murder was done. Only Gideon Fell could unravel the complicated cross-currents of malig...
A terrifying cult of devil-worshippers makes murder part of its evil ritual. An arrogant lawyer cynically defends a woman he's sure is guilty and finds himself helpless to clear one he knows is innocent. Here is a chilling story of horror and brutality told in the heavy atmosphere of marihuana-fi...
Again truth must be told. At this moment she had no intention of going back to Pineham. She was in no mood for work. What she meant to do was: first, go to Bond Street and buy a lot of new clothes as balm for her angry soul; and, second, go to the Café Royal and get herself picked up by the first...
Now it was a frogged smoking-jacket over the pyjamas, in addition to the pepper-and-salt trousers. Melson had a picture of him frequently wondering what to do when his house was invaded; and each time putting in the interval by tramping upstairs to struggle into another garment, if only for an ap...
“Now His ways be praised!” intoned the newcomer, uprolling his eyes. “He shall be pleased to take the crafty in their own net, yet set the feet of the righteous upon paths of godliness and peace.” Mr. Salvation Gaines hurried to the middle of the room. There he stopped, peering at each of the oth...
In September the bombers came to London. Only a few nights ago, first with Coventry and then Birmingham, they began their attack on our provincial cities. Bristol or Plymouth, they say, will be next. And it occurs to me, too, how much life has changed and grown pinched since the time I am writing...
He hadn’t time for a proper look, for old Baxter shouted out to him from the bed: ‘Put it down, you fool! Do you want to look through a dead man’s eyes?’ ” —M. R. JAMES, A View from a Hill XI At seven-thirty next morning, refreshed by a shower and clean clothes, Stevens was coming downstairs ...