<div>In their second explosive adventure, the Four Just Men must sacrifice one of their own Her rise through the ranks of the Red Hundred was swift and inexorable. From scraps of conversation overheard in her father&rsquo;s kitchen, she crafted speeches that brought men to tears. When the time came for bloodshed, she did not hesitate&mdash;generals and princes died by her hand. As her beauty grew, so did her influence. Now the Woman of Gratz and the anarchist horde in her thrall are ready to declare war&mdash;on London, whose streets and tube stations they want to sow with fear, and on the Four Just Men, the only organization powerful enough to stop them. Of course, Manfred, Gonsalez, and Poiccart&mdash;aided in this adventure by the mysterious and wealthy Bernard Courtlander&mdash;are still wanted by Scotland Yard for the assassination of the foreign secretary. Recognizing her advantage, the Woman of Gratz pounces&mdash;even though it means betraying her ideals, and her heart. To the gallows goes one of the four, a smile on his face. The second installment in the Four Just Men series established Edgar Wallace as one of the most dedicated and popular thriller writers of the early twentieth century. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. The Council of Justice is the second book in the Four Just Men series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.</div>

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The Council of Justice

<div>The first and greatest sensation novel, a thrilling story of evil thwarted and love reclaimed The night before he leaves London for a temporary engagement in the North of England, drawing instructor Walter Hartright walks home on an empty, moonlit road. Suddenly a hand reaches out of the darkness and touches him on the shoulder. Terrified, he turns to find a woman, dressed all in white, who begs him for help in getting to a friend&rsquo;s place in the city. By a strange coincidence, the woman knows Limmeridge House, the country estate to which Walter is traveling in the morning. Stranger still, she refuses to reveal anything else about herself, including her name. Only after he sees her safely into a cab does Walter learn the truth&mdash;the woman in white has just escaped from an insane asylum. In Limmeridge, Walter falls in love with one of his students, the beautiful and virtuous Laura Fairlie. An orphan in the care of her invalid uncle, Laura is engaged to Sir Percival Glyde, a baronet. She follows through with the marriage despite her feelings for Walter, but soon realizes her mistake. Sir Percival will stop at nothing to gain complete control of Laura&rsquo;s inheritance, and his diabolical plot hinges on her astonishing resemblance to the mysterious woman in white. It is up to Walter and Marian, Laura&rsquo;s devoted half-sister, to rescue fair Laura from a fate worse than death. With its shocking twists and spine-chilling suspense, The Woman in White charted a whole new course for popular fiction. Devilishly entertaining and deadly serious in its indictment of Victorian marriage laws that impoverished women, it is widely recognized as one the nineteenth century&rsquo;s finest novels. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

The Woman in White

<div>The novel that introduced the world to its deadliest villain In the Burmese rainforest, an arrow steeped in the venom of the hamadryad snake, the deadliest reptile of the East, strikes colonial police commissioner Nayland Smith. His only hope is to immediately cauterize the wound using a sharp knife, a match, and a broken cartridge. For three delirious days, he lies on the forest floor, too weak to move. When the fever finally breaks, he walks out of the woods and heads straight to London, hot on the trail of the evil genius who tried to kill him. The most brilliant villain the world has ever seen, Fu-Manchu is an expert polyglot and master chemist, adept in the manipulation of the rarest and deadliest poisons. An agent of a secret society bent on destroying the Western world, his mere gaze is enough to dull the sharpest minds of Great Britain. It is up to Smith and his loyal friend Dr. Petrie to track the devil doctor from the opium dens of the East End to the deserts of Egypt and put an end to his fiendish plans. The first installment in Sax Rohmer&rsquo;s Fu-Manchu series was one of the most popular novels of the early twentieth century. One hundred years later, it is both a fascinating piece of cultural history and a mesmerizing page-turner from start to finish. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

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The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu

<div>The origin story of the Lone Wolf, master criminal with a conscience One rainy winter night, an orphan is abandoned to the care of a shabby Parisian inn called Troyon&rsquo;s. For the next eleven years, the boy is up before dawn to clean and fetch and serve, his only respite the closet to which he retires at night and the books he pilfers from the hotel&rsquo;s guests. A few francs here and there also find their way into his pockets, but not so much that anyone would notice&mdash;anyone, that is, except Bourke, the cultivated Irish thief who regularly hides out at Troyon&rsquo;s. Caught red-handed, the amateur outwits the professional. Turn me over to the innkeepers, he says, and I&rsquo;ll go to the police with everything I know about you. Astonished, Bourke takes the boy under his wing and teaches him how to be a master criminal. The most important lesson? Be friendless. Years later, Michael Lanyard&mdash;known to the authorities only as the Lone Wolf&mdash;is the world&rsquo;s greatest jewel thief. When a ruthless gang of outlaws threatens to expose him unless he joins their &ldquo;pack,&rdquo; Lanyard vows to give up crime rather than violate Bourke&rsquo;s code. Only a beautiful American girl and a sinister German spy stand in his way. Louis Joseph Vance&rsquo;s groundbreaking series introduced a new turn of phrase to the language and gave American literature one of its most iconic characters. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

The Lone Wolf

<div>On the brink of retirement, the Lone Wolf risks everything for love Nearly forty years old, the Lone Wolf is, as his British Secret Service friend Wertheimer puts it, &ldquo;superannuated.&rdquo; His last adventure involved not just the surprise of meeting his grown daughter, but the twin shocks of seeing her fall in love with a secret agent and risk her own death at the hands of murderous Bolsheviks. The excitement has left Lanyard&mdash;or Monsieur Duchemin, as the British government prefers to know him&mdash;feeling slow and cranky. There is nothing to do, suggests Wertheimer, but retire from undercover work and leave England for good. Wertheimer more than suggests this, in fact; he demands it&mdash;for the Russians have made it known that they intend to kill the Lone Wolf and will tear apart London and every other corner of the British Isles to find him. Inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson&rsquo;s Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, Lanyard heads to the South of France. Hiking alone in the mountains, he goes to bed with the birds, rises with the sun, and considers what to do with the rest of his life. Visions of a dusty Parisian antique shop and Sunday afternoons with his grandchildren delight the Lone Wolf, but fate has something altogether different in store. In the eerie rock field of Montpellier-le-Vieux, he rescues a beautiful woman and her traveling party from highway bandits. Then the real danger begins. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

Alias the Lone Wolf

<div>The second installment in the sinister exploits of Dr. Fu-Manchu Two years after the insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu brought Britain to the brink of destruction, the reverend J. D. Eltham anxiously awaits his return. The devil doctor is presumed dead, but Eltham is an old China hand, rumored to have brought about the Boxer uprisings, and he knows that cheating death might just be the least of Fu-Manchu&rsquo;s accomplishments. When the reverend disappears, Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie know that the evil genius has struck again. Once again, Smith and Petrie brave death&mdash;by torture, quicksand, and poisoned cat&mdash;to foil an outrageous plot. The reappearance of the beautiful and mysterious Karamaneh, agent of Fu-Manchu and bewitcher of Petrie&rsquo;s heart, proves that love might just be the most dangerous poison of all. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu

<div>Ten thrilling tales from the secret files of the world&rsquo;s most famous vigilantes An honest workingman tries to intimidate his wife&rsquo;s blackmailer and winds up in prison. Only the organization known as the Four Just Men can save him&mdash;by taking the law into their own hands. A noted professor is found strangled to death in his laboratory, and the prime suspect is his sinister-looking son. When Manfred and Gonsalez realize that the police have not only the wrong man, but the wrong murder method, they set a trap for the real killer. A chance encounter on a golf course reveals a plot to eradicate one of the earth&rsquo;s most innocent and necessary creatures, and Gonsalez vows to stop the mad scientist in charge, whatever it takes. With the assassination of Sir Philip Ramon and the war against the Red Hundred years behind them, Manfred, Gonsalez, and Poiccart have settled into lives of scholarship and leisure. That does not mean, however, that they can let injustice stand. Wherever these three principled men go, they carry with them the memory of the original fourth member of their group, who was gunned down in a Bordeaux caf&eacute; decades ago. In his honor, and in defense of innocence and integrity, they will act&mdash;swiftly and without remorse. In these unforgettable stories, Edgar Wallace demonstrates the enduring appeal of a clever mystery solved&mdash;and vengeance obtained. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. Again the Three Just Men is the sixth book in the Four Just Men series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.</div>

Again the Three Just Men

<div>From beyond the grave, Fu-Manchu reaches out to destroy the world When Dr. Petrie saw a bullet enter the skull of the fiendish mastermind Fu-Manchu, he assumed England had nothing more to fear from the evil genius. But Nayland Smith knows that whatever became of the devil doctor, the sinister organization he served will go on trying to conquer the world. Sir Gregory Hale, erstwhile attach&eacute; to the British Embassy in Peking, might be the key to foiling the Si-Fan. Just back from a six-month expedition to the Gobi Desert, Hale is holed up in a London hotel and refuses to see anyone but Smith. Ten minutes before the Burmese commissioner reaches him, Hale is struck dumb by a deadly poison. In his final seconds, he manages to scratch out a warning: &ldquo;Guard my diary. . . . Tibetan frontier . . . Key of India. Beware man . . . with the limp.&rdquo; Those last words, and the brass box Hale brought back with him from Mongolia, are the only ammunition Smith and Petrie have in their fight against an army more powerful than any the world has ever known. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

The Hand of Fu-Manchu

<div>The second installment in the thrilling adventures of the Lone Wolf A muddy figure inches his way across no man&rsquo;s land, the only living thing in a hellscape of death and misery. Artillery lights up the night sky and he pauses&mdash;as stiff and motionless as the corpses that block his path. Darkness returns, and he sprints to safety, tumbling down a ladder into the British trenches. He is no ordinary soldier returned from a nighttime mission. He is the Lone Wolf, master jewel thief, and he has been hunting his prey for years. When last we saw Michael Lanyard, he had turned his back on crime and was ready to start life anew, the beautiful Lucy Shannon at his side. But the reputation of a world-class thief always precedes him, and Lanyard&rsquo;s young family has been denied a home in America, England, and France. In Belgium, they thought they had found peace&mdash;until the invading German army brought a ruthless villain to their door. Alone again, Lanyard dedicates himself to vengeance, tracking his archnemesis across every battlefield in Europe. Herr Ekstrom is bound for New York, and the Lone Wolf will brave torpedoes, secret agents, and impressionable young women to exact his righteous revenge. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

The False Faces

<div>The thrilling debut of the Four Just Men, the world&rsquo;s most sophisticated vigilantes In a time of turmoil and intrigue, with governments around the world buffeted by the winds of radical change, four men vow to do whatever it takes to ensure that justice prevails. They kill without remorse, their victims powerful men and women guilty of the vilest of crimes: rape, embezzlement, extortion, murder. Now the British foreign secretary finds himself in the crosshairs of Manfred, Gonsalez, Poiccart, and Thery&mdash;the newest member of the four and a man with a very special skill. Sir Philip Ramon&rsquo;s Aliens Political Offences Bill threatens to expel honest revolutionaries from the safety of England and return them to their corrupt native lands, where torture and death await. The Four Just Men publicly ask Ramon to withdraw the bill. When he refuses, they put their ingenious plan into action. Edgar Wallace self-published The Four Just Men and bankrupted himself promoting it. One century later, it stands as one of the most innovative and influential thrillers ever written. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. The Four Just Men is the first book in the Four Just Men series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.</div>

The Four Just Men

<div>The first novel by Mary Roberts Rinehart, America&rsquo;s queen of crime This is the story of how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind, deserted her domestic gods in the city, took a furnished house for the summer out of town, and found herself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep our newspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous. So says Rachel Innes, the spinster in question and one of the most remarkable heroines in American crime fiction. With the irresistible encouragement of her niece Gertrude and nephew Halsey, whom she raised after her brother&rsquo;s death, Rachel ignores her better judgment and rents Sunnyside, a sprawling Elizabethan mansion owned by a bank president, for the summer. The first night passes peacefully. In the morning, the entire staff quits. Late the third night, a sinister figure lurks outside the patio window and Rachel hears a heavy crash on the circular staircase at the east end of the house. The fourth night brings a dead body. From there, things only get worse. The dead man turns out to be Arnold Armstrong, ne&rsquo;er-do-well son of the owner of Sunnyside. Aunt Rachel has never seen him before, but Gertrude and Halsey knew him all too well. When the investigating detective directs his attention to her niece and nephew, Aunt Rachel decides to solve the murder herself&mdash;and walks straight into a web of deceit and treachery so intricate she might never find her way out. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

The Circular Staircase

<div>The second installment in the enthralling exploits of Commissioner Sanders, Great Britain&rsquo;s man in colonial Africa Commissioner Sanders should have known better than to go on vacation. He is just a few days from his offices in British West Africa when he receives word from his second in command that trouble, always at a simmer in this jungle outpost, is about to come to a boil. He rushes home, arriving just in time for a meeting of the chiefs of his territory, who have been misled by an ambitious agitator named Bosambo into thinking that Sanders is dead. Sanders&rsquo;s return staves off rebellion, but Bosambo&rsquo;s power grab is not over yet. To keep the province from erupting into all-out tribal warfare, Sanders must outsmart the most brilliant chieftain in Africa. In these rip-roaring adventures, the heroic commissioner contends with malaria, ju-ju, and the whims of government officials safely ensconced in their London offices. The People of the River is both a good-natured thrill ride and a fascinating historical document. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

The People of the River

<div>Thrilling adventures of colonial Africa from the creator of King Kong In the jungles of West Africa, Commissioner Sanders is the highest representative of the British crown. The health and safety of a quarter-million natives&mdash;who speak countless languages and worship untold gods&mdash;are his responsibility. Whether disciplining a boy king, expelling troublesome missionaries, or fighting to contain outbreaks of sleeping sickness and beri-beri, Sanders and his lieutenants must be quick, decisive, and fair. The fate of the empire&mdash;not to mention their lives&mdash;depends on it. These rollicking escapades, based on Edgar Wallace&rsquo;s travels in Africa, offer an entertaining glimpse into a world&mdash;and a mindset&mdash;long lost but endlessly intriguing. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

Sanders of the River

<div>For the sake of a Russian princess, the Lone Wolf makes an enemy for life&mdash;and discovers a love he never expected While taking in an auction, the dashing jewel thief Michael Lanyard spies something more appealing than the artwork on the dock: the stunning Princess Sofia. There to purchase an impressionist painting, the ravishing Russian &eacute;migr&eacute; becomes locked in a bidding war with her diabolical ex-husband, who drives the price up so high that no one can afford to top him&mdash;except for Lanyard. When he takes the painting home, the Lone Wolf discovers that he has spent 20,000 guineas on a forgery&mdash;and regrets it not one bit. It is his excuse to meet the princess. Sofia&rsquo;s ex-husband is blackmailing her, threatening to tell the world the humiliating truth of their separation, and only Lanyard can save her. But rescuing the beautiful princess makes an enemy of her husband, who years later seeks his revenge&mdash;by targeting a woman the Lone Wolf has never met, but who holds the keys to his heart. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

Red Masquerade

<div>Sophisticated mayhem from a master of crime fiction Since his friend and partner in crime, A. J. Raffles, jumped into the Mediterranean, Bunny Manders has scraped along as best he can. At Raffles&rsquo;s side, he was witness to, and participant in, the most ingenious burglaries the underworld had ever seen. Without him, Bunny is a struggling ex-convict, so down on his luck that he answers an ad seeking a male nurse and companion for a notoriously rude invalid. But when he lights the old man&rsquo;s Sullivan cigarette and sees a perfect smoke ring float into the air, Bunny cries out in delight. Raffles is back, and ready for adventure. In the second installment in E. W. Hornung&rsquo;s crackerjack crime series, England&rsquo;s greatest jewel thief is up to all of his old tricks and many ingenious new ones&mdash;none so spectacular as turning Queen Victoria herself into an accomplice. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

Raffles: Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman

<div>The cracking debut of A. J. Raffles, proper English gentleman and jewel thief extraordinaire Sometimes the greatest of partnerships are born in the direst of moments. For Bunny Manders and A. J. Raffles, such a moment comes when a bad night at the baccarat tables threatens to end in suicide. Hundreds of pounds in the red, Bunny grows so desperate that he asks Raffles, a former classmate who captained their public school&rsquo;s cricket team, for help. When Raffles hesitates, Bunny pulls a gun out of his coat pocket and puts it to his head. &ldquo;I never dreamt you had such stuff in you, Bunny!&rdquo; says Raffles, a gleam in his eye. A few hours later, he and his old school chum break into a jeweler&rsquo;s shop and steal thousands of pounds&rsquo; worth of diamonds and gemstones. Disaster averted, adventures begun. In these thrilling stories, E. W. Hornung introduced the world to a duo as gifted at burglary as Sherlock Holmes and Watson are at detection. Full of sophisticated banter, hair-raising close calls, and nefarious schemes, Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman is a masterwork of crime fiction and irrefutable proof that there truly is honor among thieves. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman

<div>A dozen classic cases featuring the world&rsquo;s greatest detective This first collection of Sherlock Holmes stories includes many of the consulting detective&rsquo;s best known cases. &ldquo;A Scandal in Bohemia&rdquo; finds Holmes matching wits with&mdash;and being outfoxed by&mdash;a beautiful American opera singer named Irene Adler. A struggling shop owner stumbles into a lucrative side job, and a criminal conspiracy, in &ldquo;The Red-Headed League.&rdquo; And in &ldquo;The Adventure of the Speckled Band,&rdquo; which Arthur Conan Doyle named as the best of his Sherlock Holmes stories, our brilliant hero and his loyal friend Dr. Watson pay a visit to a young heiress&rsquo;s bedroom late one night only to stumble across another, far deadlier, visitor. Other beloved tales collected here include &ldquo;The Five Orange Pips,&rdquo; &ldquo;The Boscombe Valley Mystery,&rdquo; and &ldquo;The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.&rdquo; Originally appearing in the Strand Magazine, these twelve stories catapulted Holmes and Watson to international fame and established Doyle as one of the most popular and influential mystery writers of all time. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

<div>Thirteen tales of crime and intrigue, including the remarkable story of Sherlock Holmes&rsquo;s return from the dead It has been three years since Sherlock Holmes, locked in a fierce struggle with his arch-nemesis, Professor Moriarty, disappeared over the edge of the Reichenbach Falls. The world has mourned his loss greatly, no one more so than his good friend and partner in the arts of detection, Dr. Watson. Imagine Watson&rsquo;s shock, then, when an elderly book collector he bumps into on the street turns out to be none other than the master sleuth himself. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Sherlock Holmes did not die in Switzerland&mdash;he vanquished his greatest foe and set a trap for every other would-be mastermind foolish enough to attempt to match wits with the world&rsquo;s greatest detective. From the astonishing revelation in the opening paragraphs of &ldquo;The Adventure of the Empty House&rdquo; to the motiveless murder at the heart of &ldquo;The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez&rdquo; to the kidnapping that sets in motion the plot of &ldquo;The Adventure of the Priory School,&rdquo; these thirteen classic stories are among the most entertaining and endlessly clever entries in the canon of Sherlock Holmes. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

The Return of Sherlock Holmes

<div>The astonishing debut of Sherlock Holmes and his partner in detection, Dr. Watson Shot in the shoulder and brought to death&rsquo;s door by typhoid fever, Dr. John Watson is sent home from the second Afghan war with a small income and nothing to do but recover his health. By his own account, he leads a meaningless existence in London until a chance encounter with an old friend brings news of comfortable lodgings on Baker Street. In a hospital laboratory, Watson meets his potential new roommate for the first time. &ldquo;How are you?&rdquo; asks Mr. Sherlock Holmes. &ldquo;You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.&rdquo; With that remarkable feat of observation, one of literature&rsquo;s greatest partnerships is born. In their first case, Holmes and Watson set off for an abandoned flat in Lauriston Gardens. An American has been found dead, his body unmarked, a mysterious word&mdash;Rache&mdash;spelled out in blood on the wall. Scotland Yard thinks the murderer meant to write the name Rachel, but Holmes knows better. When the dead man&rsquo;s private secretary turns up stabbed through the heart, the same word scrawled nearby, it is up to the world&rsquo;s only consulting detective and his eager companion to find a killer whose lust for revenge has spanned two continents and dozens of years. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

A Study in Scarlet

<div>Holmes and Watson unravel a mystery so exotic it stretches to the very ends of the British Empire After months without a case, the world&rsquo;s greatest detective is aimless, his only stimulation the daily injection of his drug of choice. &ldquo;Which is it to-day?&rdquo; asks a disapproving Watson&mdash;&ldquo;morphine or cocaine?&rdquo; For a mind as finely tuned as Holmes&rsquo;s, the dull routine of existence will not suffice. Thankfully for Holmes&rsquo;s health and Watson&rsquo;s anxiety levels, a beautiful young woman soon calls at 221B Baker Street. Ten years ago, Mary Morstan&rsquo;s father, a captain of the 34th Bombay Infantry, disappeared from a London hotel. Four years thereafter, Mary began to receive large, lustrous pearls in the mail&mdash;one per year, always delivered on May 4. Now, six pearls later, Mary is finally about to meet her anonymous benefactor and asks Holmes and Watson to accompany her for safety&rsquo;s sake. The crime they uncover&mdash;in which a royal treasure, a diabolical double cross, and a man-eating crocodile all play a part&mdash;is one of the most thrilling tales Arthur Conan Doyle ever wrote, and a crucial chapter in the Sherlock Holmes saga. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

The Sign of the Four

<div>In the last of the Sherlock Holmes novels, the origins of his rivalry with Moriarty are revealed In London, there is a professor whose income runs to a modest &pound;700 a year, yet in his office hangs a painting worth no less than &pound;40,000. The author of a rarefied mathematical treatise on the dynamics of asteroids, he has twenty different bank accounts and a priestly manner that belies his vicious nature. His name is Moriarty, and he sits at the center of a vast and invisible web of crime. Years before their fateful meeting on the cliffs of the Reichenbach Falls, Sherlock Holmes vows to put an end to the professor&rsquo;s secret reign of terror. A coded message from an informant on the inside of Moriarty&rsquo;s organization arrives at 221B Baker Street. No sooner than Holmes and Watson have deciphered the message&mdash;a warning that a man named Douglas of Birlstone Manor House is in grave danger&mdash;do they learn that Douglas is dead, his head blown off with an American shotgun. At a moated manor in the South of England, the dead man&rsquo;s widow and best friend hold the keys to a mystery that reaches all the way across the Atlantic and proves just how powerful Moriarty&rsquo;s fiendish influence has grown. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

The Valley of Fear

<div>The origins of literature&rsquo;s finest crime fighters, told by their creators themselves Their names ring out like gunshots in the dark of a back alley, crime fighters of a lost era whose heroic deeds will never be forgotten. They are men like Lew Archer, Pierre Chambrun, Flash Casey, and the Shadow. They are women like Mrs. North and the immortal Nancy Drew. These are detectives, and they are some of the only true heroes the twentieth century ever knew. In this classic volume, Otto Penzler presents essays written by the authors who created these famous characters. We learn how Ed McBain killed&mdash;and resurrected&mdash;the hero of the 87th Precinct, how international agent Quiller wrote his will, and how Dick Tracy first announced that &ldquo;crime does not pay.&rdquo; Some of these heroes may be more famous than others, but there is not one whom you wouldn&rsquo;t like on your side in a courtroom, a shootout, or an old-fashioned barroom brawl.</div>

The Great Detectives

<div>Eight spectacular Sherlock Holmes stories, including his dramatic final adventure Years have passed since he tangled with Irene Adler and Professor Moriarty, since he solved the mysteries of the Red-Headed League and the Hound of the Baskervilles, but even in retirement Sherlock Holmes remains as sharp witted and inimitable as ever. Good thing, because England needs him and his loyal friend Dr. Watson now more than ever. On the eve of World War I, German agents have infiltrated the British military; crucial state secrets are within their grasp. Only Holmes and Watson can foil the Kaiser&rsquo;s spies and rescue the nation from a fate too awful to imagine. In addition to the title story&mdash;one of literature&rsquo;s most thrilling swan songs&mdash;this collection includes &ldquo;The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge,&rdquo; &ldquo;The Adventure of the Cardboard Box,&rdquo; &ldquo;The Adventure of the Devil&rsquo;s Foot,&rdquo; and four other captivating mysteries showcasing Arthur Conan Doyle and his most famous creation at the height of their impressive powers. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. &ldquo;Perfect bite-size treats . . . You&rsquo;ll be hooked inside two pages.&rdquo; &mdash;The Independent &ldquo;Every writer owes something to Holmes.&rdquo; &mdash;T. S. Eliot &ldquo;Sherlock Holmes is the very foundation stone of the edifice that is crime fiction.&rdquo; &mdash;The Times (London)</div>

His Last Bow

<div>The immortal Sherlock Holmes solves eleven unforgettable mysteries These stories, originally published in the Strand Magazine, follow Holmes from the astonishing heights of his deductive powers to the bottom of a treacherous gorge in Switzerland. &ldquo;Silver Blaze,&rdquo; a case that famously hinges on the &ldquo;curious incident of the dog in the night-time,&rdquo; finds the detective employing his singular imagination to locate a missing racehorse. In &ldquo;The Greek Interpreter,&rdquo; Holmes and his brilliant older brother, Mycroft, team up to put an end to a diabolical extortion scheme. And, most notoriously, criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty makes his first appearance in &ldquo;The Final Problem,&rdquo; a story that begins with the discovery of a secret criminal organization overtaking England, and ends on a cliff overlooking the Reichenbach Falls. With a heavy heart, Dr. Watson tells the world what no one wants to hear: Holmes and his archenemy have plunged to their deaths together, locked in mortal combat. This legendary collection, which Arthur Conan Doyle intended to bring a fitting end to the Sherlock Holmes saga, also includes &ldquo;The Musgrave Ritual,&rdquo; &ldquo;The Reigate Puzzle,&rdquo; &ldquo;The Crooked Man,&rdquo; and &ldquo;The Resident Patient.&rdquo; Each of these eleven stories is now recognized as a masterpiece of crime fiction, and a clear indication that the peerless sleuth was not yet ready to leave the stage for good. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

<div>Sherlock Holmes&rsquo;s most famous case: An irresistible blend of Gothic horror and intricately plotted mystery The curse of the Baskervilles dates to the seventeenth century, when the wicked Hugo Baskerville chased a farmer&rsquo;s daughter across the pitch-dark moor of Grimpen with vile intentions. The poor girl died of fright, but Baskerville&rsquo;s fate was worse&mdash;a giant black hound, eyes afire and jaws dripping with blood, tore out his throat and devoured it on the spot. Since then, the specter of that terrible beast has haunted Baskerville Hall, many of whose inhabitants have met violent, mysterious, and tragic ends. News of the latest death is brought to 221B Baker Street by a local doctor who hopes that Sherlock Holmes can solve the riddle of the curse before it claims yet another victim or leaves the hall forever empty. Sir Charles Baskerville perished alone on the edge of the moor, his face twisted in fright, the footprints of a gigantic hound marking the ground twenty yards from where his body was discovered. Has the mythical monster returned? Or does some other villain now inhabit the desolate moorlands? Holmes and Watson will be pushed to the very edge of reason as they seek to discover just who&mdash;or what&mdash;wants to see the Baskervilles destroyed. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

The Hound of the Baskervilles

<div>Criminals beware&mdash;there is no eluding the extraordinary mind of Father Brown Dr. Orion Hood is one of the eminent thinkers of his day, a psychologist whose expert opinion on human nature is sometimes sought by the police. Usually, he is called on to solve only the most spectacular crimes&mdash;a nobleman murdered, a diplomat poisoned&mdash;but today a more ordinary problem presents itself. An amiable little priest named Father Brown asks Dr. Hood to help a young couple whose families do not want them to marry. Suspicions about the would-be groom abound&mdash;dynamite is thought to be his weapon of choice&mdash;but Father Brown hopes that Dr. Hood will be able to put the accusations to rest. In the end, however, it is the humble clergyman who picks through the towering evidence of guilt to ensure that love prevails. In this masterful collection of mysteries, including &ldquo;The Paradise of Thieves,&rdquo; &ldquo;The Mistake of the Machine,&rdquo; and &ldquo;The Man in the Passage,&rdquo; Father Brown employs his amazing intuition, developed over years of listening to men confess their sins, to solve crimes large and small. One of the most beloved heroes in all of detective fiction, this unassuming parish priest is as dedicated to the cause of justice as he is to his faith. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

The Wisdom of Father Brown

<div>The delightful debut of G. K. Chesterton&rsquo;s most famous literary creation In his day, Flambeau was a legend of the underworld. Even now, his old confederates remember with pride the Tyrolean Dairy scheme, in which he built a thriving milk business despite owning not a single cow. But today the master thief finally meets his match. Attempting to steal a priceless cross, Flambeau runs afoul of Father Brown, an ordinary-looking priest with amazing insight into the criminal mind. With grace, logic, and good humor, the stout little clergyman soon reforms one of England&rsquo;s most notorious villains. In thrilling tales such as &ldquo;The Blue Cross,&rdquo; &ldquo;The Secret Garden,&rdquo; and &ldquo;The Hammer of God,&rdquo; G. K. Chesterton&rsquo;s immortal priest-detective applies his extraordinary intuition to the most intricate of mysteries. No corner of the human soul is too dark for Father Brown, no villain too ingenious. The Innocence of Father Brown is a testament to the power of faith and the pleasure of a story well told. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

The Innocence of Father Brown

<div>A mysterious hero&rsquo;s astonishing adventures in revolutionary France The Age of Reason has come to France, bringing with it murder, cruelty, and terror. As the nation&rsquo;s aristocrats are paraded to the guillotine, their children are handed over to revolutionary citizens for reeducation. Once a courtier at Versailles, Madeleine Lannoy now dances in the street, clinging to life so that she may one day visit revenge on Jean Paul Marat, the tyrant who stole her son. Her cause is hopeless until she meets a dashing Englishman named Sir Percy Blakeney, better known by his secret identity&mdash;the Scarlet Pimpernel. In this electrifying installment in the world-famous historical suspense series, Sir Percy outwits bloodthirsty agents of the Terror time and time again. When the rest of Europe has turned its back on the French nobility, the Scarlet Pimpernel does not hesitate to risk his life for what is just. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel

<div>The most wanted man in France returns to the scene of his notorious adventures In the early days of the Revolution, Sir Percy Blakeney&mdash;better known in Paris as the Scarlet Pimpernel&mdash;spirited innocent members of the French nobility to safety in England. The Reign of Terror has now turned on itself, with the demagogue Robespierre leading the purge. But there is one rival whom Robespierre wants to see die more than any other, and he is at his home just outside of London, far beyond the reach of the guillotine. Citizen Chauvelin, ex-ambassador of the Revolutionary Government at the English Court and Robespierre&rsquo;s chief spy catcher, is sent to bring Sir Percy back to France to be executed. With the help of a charming young French actress, Chauvelin gains access to Blakeney Manor and orchestrates a dispute that can only be resolved with a duel&mdash;a form of justice prohibited in England. Crossing the channel on his way back into the madness of the Terror, Sir Percy does not realize the full extent of the plot against him. But the Scarlet Pimpernel has never shied away from danger, and now is no time to start. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

The Elusive Pimpernel

<div>A brilliant study in the art of logical deduction by the author of The Scarlet Pimpernel He sits in the corner of the A.B.C. caf&eacute;, a length of string in his fingers. As the afternoon winds down, he ties and unties intricate knots&mdash;in the string and in his mind. No one in the caf&eacute; knows his name, but the old man in the corner is the most brilliant sleuth in London. No matter how baffling the crime, he need only glance at the newspapers to know the culprit. Skeptical of the old man&rsquo;s powers of ratiocination, journalist Polly Burton tests him. An industrialist blackmailed? A body found rotting in an abandoned barge? A will forged in far-off Dublin? The man in the corner cannot be stumped. As he eagerly informs the mystified Miss Burton, &ldquo;There is no such thing as a mystery in connection with any crime, provided intelligence is brought to bear upon its investigation.&rdquo; This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

The Old Man in the Corner

<div>The breathtaking debut of the one man brave enough to stand up to the Reign of Terror The Revolution has begun, and the streets of Paris run red with blood. Every aristocrat has been declared a traitor; the guillotine awaits them all. At the city&rsquo;s West Gate, the tyrannical Sergeant Bibot toys with desperate families, allowing them to think for a moment that escape is a possibility. It is not. Every last member of the nobility&mdash;man, woman, and child&mdash;will pay the ultimate price. Only one man stands in the way of the ruthless mobs. The Scarlet Pimpernel, his name taken from the flower he leaves as a calling card, has infiltrated Paris to bring as many innocent nobles to safety across the English Channel as he can. Savior of the aristocracy, scourge of the executioner, the Pimpernel is a hero like no other. But who is he? Marguerite Blakeney, whose dandy of a British husband has been nothing but a disappointment, would love to find out. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

The Scarlet Pimpernel

<div>Looking for adventure, an erstwhile medical student joins the crew of a yacht and finds himself adrift in a sea of murder Medical school left Leslie with a diploma, a new dress suit, and an incipient case of typhoid fever. While convalescing, he hatches a plan to postpone embarking on a career as a surgeon by launching instead on an epic voyage of adventure, mystery, and romance on the high seas. When Leslie signs up as a steward aboard the private yacht Ella, he expects to swab decks and polish brass. Instead, he ends up trying to solve a murder case. Everyone onboard is a suspect&mdash;the volatile captain, the beguiling but aloof Miss Elsa Lee, the twitchy Mr. Turner, the second mate who disappears early in the voyage and is assumed lost at sea&mdash;and all are trapped in the middle of the ocean with the real killer. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

The After House

<div>A case of mistaken identity ignites this clever mystery from America&rsquo;s queen of crime A happy bachelor in Washington, DC, Lawrence &ldquo;Lollie&rdquo; Blakeley is just the right age to dance with the grown-up little sisters of the girls he used to know. He is without sentiment&mdash;so he claims&mdash;but is ruled and frequently routed by his elderly housekeeper. All he really wants is to relax with a round of golf and a trip out on the yacht. But when his law partner asks him to deliver important legal documents to a client in Pittsburgh, Lollie finds his cheerful life tremendously disturbed. In the course of one overnight trip, he ends up in the wrong berth, falls in love, and is accused of murder. The Man in Lower Ten was the first detective novel to appear on national bestseller lists and is just as deliciously thrilling today as when it was published more than a century ago. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

The Man in Lower Ten

<div>The series that inspired the Netflix show: Framed for murder, Lupin must clear his name or face the gallows. Millionaire diamond collector Rudolf Kesselbach is in a Paris hotel room, contemplating the stroke of genius that is about to make him one of the wealthiest men in Europe, when a shadow steals into the room&mdash;a shadow with fine clothes, an easy smile, and a revolver pointed at Kesselbach&rsquo;s chest. The intruder&rsquo;s name, he says, is Ars&egrave;ne Lupin. A few hours later, Kesselbach is found dead on the floor, Lupin&rsquo;s calling card pinned to his chest. With the police hot on his trail, the master jewel thief must use every ounce of his genius to escape their traps and find the man responsible for the murder. But as Lupin soon discovers, his freedom is not all that is at stake. The fate of Europe hangs in the balance as well. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. &ldquo;[Ars&egrave;ne Lupin] has taken his place in public estimation with Sherlock Holmes and other universally admired heroes of fictional crime.&rdquo; &mdash;The New York Times</div>

<div>A boy detective takes on the most brilliant thief in Europe, in the classic series that inspired the Netflix show Lupin. In a country manor, a terrible noise awakes the household. Downstairs, the estate&rsquo;s secretary has been murdered. There are signs of a break-in, but everything appears to be in its proper place. What kind of thief would commit murder to steal nothing? The first detective on the case is Isidore Beautrelet, a precocious teenager who wears a fake beard to disguise the fact that he has not yet graduated from high school. Although the other investigators do not take him seriously, Beautrelet is the one to pick up the trail of Ars&egrave;ne Lupin, the gentleman thief. Lupin, it is soon discovered, is chasing the most valuable object he has ever had the opportunity to steal: the Hollow Needle. Passed down for generations by the kings of France, it holds a secret that could undo the republic. No one has ever managed to foil one of Lupin&rsquo;s fiendish plans, but Beautrelet is counting on beginner&rsquo;s luck. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

The Hollow Needle

<div>The world-famous locked-room mystery from a master of detective fiction A frightful act of malice committed in Paris: the dastardly attempted assassination of the daughter of a famed scientist who was working late in his laboratory with an assistant when the attack took place in the adjacent room. A locked chamber, windows barred, no one hiding inside. The poor young lady unconscious, covered with blood, violent marks on her throat and a wound at her temple. The scientist&rsquo;s revolver removed from its cabinet and sealed in the room with her. The only trace of her assailant is a large, bloody handprint on the wall. At a loss, the chief of the S&ucirc;ret&eacute; telegraphs for the famous detective Fr&eacute;d&eacute;ric Larsan to be assigned to the seemingly unsolvable case. A genre-defining novel, The Mystery of the Yellow Room follows the investigation step by step, with thorough descriptions of the crime scene to allow the reader access to the same opaque clues to the crime that the detectives have. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

The Mystery of the Yellow Room

<div>The classic series that inspired the hit show Lupin: On a transatlantic voyage, Europe&rsquo;s greatest criminal plots a daring caper . . . Also published under the title Ars&egrave;ne Lupin, Gentleman Burglar The ship is several days out to sea when the telegram comes through with a warning: Among the passengers is a disguised criminal: the fearsome Ars&egrave;ne Lupin. For months, Paris society has quaked at the name of the gentleman thief, whose manners are kind, whose tastes are exquisite, and who steals only from the best. When Lupin is spotted aboard the boat, his scandalous career appears to be finished. But in truth, it is just beginning. The moment he steps ashore, Lupin is captured by his nemesis, the detective Ganimard, and taken to France&rsquo;s infamous Prison de la Sant&eacute;, where Ganimard plans to lock him up and throw away the key. But no jail in the world can hold the world&rsquo;s most ingenious thief for long; he has only to slip his shackles before beginning the adventure of a lifetime, recounted in this witty collection of stories. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. &ldquo;[Ars&egrave;ne Lupin] has taken his place in public estimation with Sherlock Holmes and other universally admired heroes of fictional crime.&rdquo; &mdash;The New York Times</div>

The Exploits of Arsene Lupin

<div>The classic Gothic novel that inspired the blockbuster musical There is a ghost in the Paris Opera House. Singers, dancers, and stagehands have all seen him lurking in the shadows of the set, and each describes his face differently. Some say it is on fire, others that it is bare bone, and a terrified few say that he has no face at all. Outsiders dismiss the stories as theatrical superstition, but soon the phantom will reveal himself&mdash;and the Opera will never be the same. A crew member is found hanged, and every denizen of the theater is quick to blame the phantom. More deaths follow, until the phantom is forced to make himself known in the most spectacular manner possible. But when the mysterious ghost begins to admire a beautiful singer, it is the beginning of something magnificent: a love story as heartfelt and tragic as any opera ever staged. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. &ldquo;The wildest and most fantastic of tales.&rdquo; &mdash;The New York Times Book Review </div>

The Phantom of the Opera

<div>With wit and daring, a master thief battles cops, crooks, and killers&mdash;in the classic series that inspired the Netflix show Lupin. In Paris, six women have vanished, only to be found a week later, emaciated and disfigured, their skulls split open. What little evidence the police have suggests that the murderer is a woman and that she is preparing to strike again. When Prince R&eacute;nine&rsquo;s lover disappears on a cold night in October, he fears that she is about to become the latest victim. Most noblemen would be helpless to rescue her before the hatchet falls, but R&eacute;nine is an alias of Ars&egrave;ne Lupin, the world&rsquo;s greatest thief, and he will stop at nothing to catch the killer. Fearsome creatures may lurk in the back alleys of Paris, but none is as dangerous, or as brilliant, as Ars&egrave;ne Lupin. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

The Eight Strokes of the Clock

<div>The world&rsquo;s premier thief&mdash;inspiration for the hit show Lupin&mdash;looks back on a lifetime of adventure in these tales of his outrageous exploits. It has been a fortnight since the baroness Repstein disappeared from Paris, taking with her a fortune in jewels stolen from her husband. French detectives have chased her all over Europe, following the trail of gemstones like so many precious breadcrumbs, but she has eluded their efforts. When Ars&egrave;ne Lupin finds her, she will not escape so easily. The most brilliant criminal mind in all of Europe, Lupin is not above performing the occasional good deed&mdash;especially when there is reward money at stake. In these thrilling stories, the gentleman thief outwits both policemen and criminals time and time again, always making sure to pocket something for himself. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

The Confessions of Arsene Lupin

<div>Ars&egrave;ne Lupin duels with a world-famous English detective in the series that inspired the hit Netflix show. A mathematics professor is combing through the artifacts in a Parisian secondhand shop when a writing desk catches his eye. He buys it for his daughter in celebration of her impending marriage, but just three days later it has disappeared&mdash;stolen by the master thief Ars&egrave;ne Lupin. It would be nothing but an inconvenience for the professor, save for one fact: the desk contained his daughter&rsquo;s dowry in the form of a winning lottery ticket worth one million francs. To retrieve his ticket, the professor engages with Lupin in a delicate game of cat and mouse. The desk is but the start of the master thief&rsquo;s greatest adventure: the affair of the Blonde Lady, which will require the intervention of a world-famous English detective who is nearly as brilliant as Lupin himself. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

Arsene Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes

<div>The clever and thrilling debut of literature&rsquo;s first forensic detective In all of London, there are few who know more about science than Dr. John Thorndyke, and fewer still who know more about crime. A &ldquo;medical jurispractitioner&rdquo; equally at home in the lab or the courtroom, he has made his name confronting the deadliest criminals in England with irrefutable proof of their guilt. In the case of the red thumb mark, however, Thorndyke must set his singular mind to saving an innocent man. A cache of diamonds has been stolen out of a shipping firm&rsquo;s safe, and the only evidence is a perfect thumbprint left in a pool of blood. The print is a match to Reuben Hornby, nephew of the firm&rsquo;s owner. Hornby insists that he had nothing to do with the theft, however, and asks Dr. Thorndyke to find the real culprit. With all the evidence pointing in one direction, only he is brilliant enough to look the other way. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

The Red Thumb Mark

<div>&ldquo;It would be difficult to find anywhere more nearly perfect stories of scientific deduction than the Dr. Thorndyke tales of R. Austin Freeman.&rdquo; &mdash;The New York Times Visiting a lonely hamlet perched on a cliff above the English coast, forensic detective Dr. John Thorndyke goes for a walk on the long, deserted beach. In the sand he finds two sets of footprints, made some hours apart. They lead to a crime scene. A man has been found stabbed through the heart, his body thrown from the cliffs above. The local police are on the hunt for clues, but Thorndyke is certain the killer&rsquo;s identity can be determined from the footprints in the sand. With the tide coming in, he has only a few hours to catch his man. Packed with clever tales of crime and science, John Thorndyke&rsquo;s Cases is an indispensible entry in one of the mystery genre&rsquo;s most popular and influential series. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

John Thorndyke's Cases

<div>A shadowy figure controls a cabal of criminals that could bring London to its knees In the black of night, a gang of workmen gather in the forest of France to assemble a guillotine. They open a few bottles of wine as they work, and one hammers a nail into the wrong spot. At dawn, the nail blocks the blade, and a prisoner survives to escape his fate. Many years later, that nail will doom more than a dozen men. In London, a ruined financier stands on the verge of committing suicide. He is contemplating a fatal dram of poison when he hears a voice behind him offering money enough to clear his debts in exchange for complete and total obedience. Thus a new member is initiated into the sprawling criminal organization known as the Crimson Circle. Its members don&rsquo;t know one another, and none knows their ruler&rsquo;s face&mdash;but he knows them, and he will use his power to shake Britain to its very core. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

The Crimson Circle

<div>When organized crime comes to England, two brothers face off At eighty years old, Professor Tillizini is Italy&rsquo;s foremost authority on the nefarious practices of the underworld. His life&rsquo;s work has been to root out the secret society known as the Red Hand, a blackmailing outfit that has terrorized the country for centuries, and he has finally pinpointed its source. When Tillizini goes to arrest Count Festini, the cagey old criminal sends his two sons into the other room, where they hear the gunshot with which their father ends his own life of crime. One son vows to take up his father&rsquo;s mantle and give himself over to the Red Hand. The other will dedicate his life to stopping him. When the Red Hand surfaces in England, its schemes threaten to tear the country apart. Here two brothers will have their final showdown, and the Festini legacy will be settled, for good or evil. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

The Fourth Plague

<div>To keep the peace in the coal mines, the Pinkerton agency goes to war The Civil War is over, and the Union is rebuilding using the power of coal&mdash;black rock dug from deep beneath the Pennsylvania earth by men from all over the globe who are seeking their fortune in America. In the 1870s, the miners are unionizing to fight for better working conditions, but within their ranks lurks a secret society whose aim is not so pure. It calls itself the Mollie Maguires, and its adherents are ready to kill to get what they want. Fearing a bloodbath, the head of one of the coal-mining firms reaches out to Allan Pinkerton, founder of the famous detective agency, and begs him to break up the sinister ring. Pinkerton sends James McParlan undercover among the miners, the first soldier in a three-year battle against the radicals that will change the face of American labor forever. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

The Molly Maguires and the Detectives

<div>Stranded on a French highway, a wine merchant discovers a conspiracy Twenty-six kilometers from Bordeaux, Seymour Merriman&rsquo;s motorcycle runs low on gas. He is waiting for a passing motorist to come to his rescue when he notices a lorry turn down a nearby country road. Following it leads him to a mill, where an English firm manufactures pit-props for coal mines. They give him two liters of petrol and send him on his way, but not before he sees something odd. The lorry he saw on the road was marked No. 4, but it has been changed to No. 3&mdash;a peculiar incident that will lead Merriman into the greatest danger he has ever known. With the help of a customs officer, Merriman looks into the mill&rsquo;s business, and discovers that nothing about the little English firm is as it seems. All he wanted was a few liters of petrol, but he has stumbled across the century&rsquo;s most fiendish crime. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

The Pit-Prop Syndicate

<div>Pinkerton sends an agent to catch a thief on the Southern railway In the build-up to the Civil War, Montgomery is a thriving town&mdash;a local capital grown rich on cotton and the railroad. When $10,000 disappears from the railroad, suspicion falls on a clerk named Maroney, an upstanding citizen whose only vice is a love of horseracing. The railroad hires the South&rsquo;s best detectives to tail Maroney, looking for a clue as to where the money has gone, but they find nothing. So they turn to the only man who can help: Allan Pinkerton. The head of the nation&rsquo;s first modern detective agency, Pinkerton invented undercover detective work, and he sends his finest agent, Mr. Porter, to infiltrate the high society of the old South. Whether Maroney is the culprit or merely a scapegoat, Porter will get to the truth. Allan Pinkerton never rests until justice is served. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

The Expressman and the Detective

<div>To find a missing archaeologist, Dr. Thorndyke digs for a body After the great success of his latest expedition, the brilliant archaeologist John Bellingham returns from the sandy tombs of Egypt with enough ancient treasures to fill a wing at the British Museum. He visits a friend for dinner and is told to wait in the study. When the friend arrives, he finds the study empty; Bellingham has vanished into thin air. When Bellingham does not reappear, the police assume he has met with some fatal accident. Because his will cannot be discharged until the time and place of his death are known, Bellingham&rsquo;s family calls on the eminent Dr. Thorndyke, whose mastery of the medical arts is second only to his brilliance for crime solving. As he searches for the true reason for Bellingham&rsquo;s disappearance, Thorndyke discovers a mystery as deep as any pharaoh&rsquo;s tomb. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

The Eye of Osiris

<div>In Spain, the Just Men stalk a mysterious English doctor The beggar limps toward the outdoor caf&eacute; looking for a familiar face. He finds Manfred sitting alone and tells the gentleman to follow. Only when the beggar leans close and speaks in his true voice does Manfred recognize him as Gonsalez, master of disguise and an ally in the fight against crime. When they are joined by the rakish Poiccart, the Three Just Men are together at last. Feared throughout Europe for their willingness to kill those criminals whom the law cannot touch, they have come to Cordova in search of an English doctor&mdash;but they will soon discover that it is he who hunts them. The doctor is in the employ of Colonel Black, a financier and would-be Napoleon who seeks a particular Cordovan poison that cannot be detected by modern science. The fate of Europe hinges on a single vial of the lethal liquid, and the Just Men will be waiting when it falls. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. The Just Men of Cordova is the third book in the Four Just Men series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.</div>

The Just Men of Cordova

<div>A remarkable collection of mysteries starring the brilliant Dr. Thorndyke Silas has diamonds in the heel of his shoe. He is a thief, but until the night he meets Oscar Brodski on the footpath near his house, he has never considered murder. A diamond dealer, Brodski&rsquo;s pockets bulge with more precious stones than Silas has ever dreamed of, and they will be his with one swift, violent act. Silas does the deed and arranges the diamond dealer&rsquo;s body to make the death look accidental. He has provided for every contingency&mdash;except for the arrival of a doctor named Thorndyke. In this collection of stories, the reader knows the killer&rsquo;s identity long before the ingenious medical detective enters the scene. These are brilliant early examples of open mysteries, in which the question is not whodunit&mdash;but how will he get caught? This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

The Singing Bone

<div>A strange container is found on the London docks, and its contents point to murder The cask from Paris is bigger than the rest, its sides reinforced to hold the extraordinary weight within. As the longshoremen are bringing it onto the London docks, the cask slips, cracks, and spills some of its treasure: a wealth of gold sovereigns. As the workmen cram the spilled gold into their pockets, an official digs through the opened box, which is supposed to contain a statue. Beneath the gold he finds a woman&rsquo;s hand&mdash;as cold as marble, but made of flesh. He reports the body to his superiors, but when he returns, the cask has vanished. The case is given to Inspector Burnley, a methodical detective of Scotland Yard, who will confront a baffling array of clues and red herrings, alibis and outright lies as he attempts to identify the woman in the cask&mdash;and catch the man who killed her. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

The Cask

<div>To save herself from debtor&rsquo;s prison, a girl agrees to marry a convicted killer When her father died, Lydia lost her closest friend in the world and inherited a mountain of debt. Though she works tirelessly, she doubts she will ever be able to pay it all off. She is near despair when a lawyer comes to her with a most unusual proposal that could save her finances&mdash;and cost her life. The lawyer&rsquo;s client is James Meredith, a wealthy young man who has been sentenced to a lifetime of hard labor for a murder he did not commit. The witness who put him away was his fianc&eacute;e, Miss Briggerland, whose icy beauty conceals a heart that burns with rage. The lawyer asks Lydia to marry James in order to keep the psychotic woman away from his fortune, but Miss Briggerland is not one to be crossed lightly. She will take her revenge on Lydia, and she will take it in blood. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

The Angel of Terror

<div>A trio of elderly bachelors plays Cupid in this ingeniously crafted novel by one of the 19th-century&rsquo;s finest storytellers A widowed lawyer named Griffith has been appointed legal guardian of Jessie, a lively young woman. In order for Jessie to claim her inheritance, her late father&rsquo;s will stipulates that she must spend 6 weeks with Griffith each year. Consequently, Jessie travels to a remote part of Wales to the castle where the lawyer and his 2 brothers reside. To everyone&rsquo;s surprise and delight, Jessie and the 3 men get along splendidly. Hoping that she will stay to meet Griffith&rsquo;s son, who is on his way home from the Crimean War, the brothers devise a plan &agrave; la Scheherezade: Each night they will tell Jessie a new thrilling story that will enchant her into staying. This ebook features a new introduction from Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

The Queen of Hearts

<div>A tragic tale of family and misfortune from the author of The Woman in White When their beloved parents die in quick succession, Magdalen and Norah Vanstone find that their world has been torn asunder. Through a legal technicality, their father&rsquo;s will renders them without a legitimate claim to their inheritance. All of their family&rsquo;s money goes to their uncle, and the orphaned girls are left reeling. Reduced to utter poverty, Norah takes a job as a governess. But Magdalen is determined to win back what is rightfully theirs. In this deft and moving story, Wilkie Collins weaves a powerful narrative of justice and familial bonds. This ebook features a new introduction from Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

No Name

<div>A groundbreaking detective story by the celebrated author of The Moonstone When Valeria Brinton marries Eustace Woodville, both families object strongly. Before long, Valeria realizes that they may have been right to voice their concerns. Eustace, it seems, is living under an assumed name. This alone would be enough to rouse his new bride&rsquo;s suspicions, but worse still, she discovers that he stood trial for the murder of his 1st wife! Although Eustace was not found guilty, the court was unable to find sufficient evidence to exonerate him. Determined to clear her husband&rsquo;s name and prove&mdash;to herself and everyone else&mdash;that he is innocent, Valeria takes the sleuthing into her own hands. Widely considered to be the 1st story featuring a female detective, The Law and the Lady is an intricate and classic tale. This ebook features a new introduction from Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

The Law and the Lady

<div>Two brothers will do whatever it takes to hide a body and inherit a fortune in this laugh-out-loud crime caper Elderly Joseph and Masterman Finsbury are the last survivors of a tontine established in their youth. Their nephews, Morris and John, have one simple goal: Keep Uncle Joseph alive longer than Uncle Masterman. If they succeed, the brothers will be set for life. If they fail, the fortune goes to cousin Michael&mdash;and poverty will be their fate. When the siblings regain consciousness after a train wreck, they discover that Joseph&mdash;or a man dressed exactly like him&mdash;died in the crash. Not to worry; Morris has a plan. Instead of burying the body where anyone might dig it up, they&rsquo;ll ship it around the world until Uncle Masterman dies. It seems foolproof, until the incorrect package arrives at the first destination and Morris and John have to find poor, dead Uncle Joseph before somebody opens the wrong box. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

The Wrong Box

<div>An uncanny thriller from the acclaimed author of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Medical school students Fettes and Macfarlane are charged with the unenviable task of receiving and paying for the institution&rsquo;s research cadavers. When Fettes recognizes the dead body of a woman he saw alive and well just the day before, he suspects murder. Macfarlane, however, insists that the authorities would never believe they had nothing to do with her death. Reluctantly, Fettes agrees to keep quiet, but soon regrets his decision when another familiar corpse turns up&mdash;and takes on a life of its own. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

The Body Snatcher

<div>The suspenseful sequel to the genre-defining The Mystery of the Yellow Room Set in a medieval castle on the C&ocirc;te d&rsquo;Azur, this classic locked room mystery reunites journalist-turned-detective Joseph Rouletabille; Mathilde Stangerson, daughter of a famed French-American scientist; and master of disguise Fr&eacute;d&eacute;ric Larsan. Stangerson and her sweetheart Robert Darzac have just married and taken up residence in the Square Tower of the Fort of Hercules when Larsan strikes again. The attack leaves Stangerson frightened and confused, not only because she thought her nemesis dead, but also because she cannot figure out how he entered and escaped her room without notice. Only one man is capable of matching wits with Larsan, but when Rouletabille arrives in the South of France to investigate, he finds himself drawn deeper into his own past and his memories of a mysterious woman in black. Best known as the creator of The Phantom of the Opera, author Gaston Leroux takes the locked room mystery to terrifying new heights in The Perfume of the Lady in Black. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

The Perfume of the Lady in Black

<div>America&rsquo;s wisest and kindliest lawyer tackles a series of impossible cases&mdash;and wins Ephraim Tutt, Esq., never met a hard luck story he didn&rsquo;t like. The rare lawyer happy to forego his fee, Tutt specializes in defending the downtrodden against the powerful and the corrupt. In Manhattan and his hometown of Pottsville, New York, he argues cases involving murder, forgery, and theft, always finding some arcane legal point to save the day&mdash;much to the chagrin of the prosecution. In this delightful collection, Tutt brings his sharp mind and genial wit to bear on the cases of the &ldquo;Mock Hen and Mock Turtle,&rdquo; the &ldquo;Hepplewhite Tramp,&rdquo; the &ldquo;Lallapaloosa Limited,&rdquo; and many others. Based on author Arthur Train&rsquo;s experiences working in the offices of the New York District Attorney, Tutt and Mr. Tutt is a must-read for fans of legal mysteries. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. </div>

Tutt and Mr. Tutt

<div>An intrepid young journalist investigates the murder of an unknown man in this spellbinding mystery from the Golden Age of detective fiction On his way home after a long night&rsquo;s work, newspaper editor Frank Spargo stumbles across a crime scene on Middle Temple Lane in the heart of London&rsquo;s legal district. An elderly man lies dead in an entryway, his nose bloodied. He wears an expensive suit and a fashionable gray cap, but the police find nothing of value in his pockets, and no identifying documents of any kind. Unable to sleep, Spargo pays a visit to the mortuary in the early hours of the morning and learns that a crumpled piece of paper has been recovered from a hole in the dead man&rsquo;s waistcoat. Strangely, the name and address it bears are familiar to Spargo. Succumbing to his reporter&rsquo;s instincts, he vows to get the story and help Scotland Yard uncover the identities of both victim and killer. President Woodrow Wilson greatly admired The Middle Temple Murder, and his public praise of the novel helped to popularize J. S. Fletcher&rsquo;s books in the United States. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.</div>

The Middle Temple Murder

<div>Hit the jackpot with stories from Michael Connelly, Laura Lippman, Walter Mosley, Alexander McCall Smith, and more superstars of mystery. In &ldquo;One Dollar Jackpot,&rdquo; Michael Connelly&rsquo;s curmudgeonly Harry Bosch finds himself going toe-to-toe with a professional poker player. Jeffery Deaver offers up &ldquo;Bump,&rdquo; a tale of a has-been actor trying to make it big by hustling cards. &ldquo;Hardly Knew Her&rdquo; by Laura Lippmann showcases a young woman learning about bluffing the hard way, while &ldquo;In the Eyes of Children&rdquo; by Alexander McCall Smith features a scam at a poker table on the high seas. With these, and more offerings from mystery greats such as Joyce Carol Oates, John Lescroart, Walter Mosley, Peter Robinson, and Eric Van Lustbader, Dead Man&rsquo;s Hand is a suspenseful anthology that&rsquo;s a big winner for any fan of crime fiction.</div>

Dead Man's Hand

<div>A notorious assassin returns to London to avenge the death of his sister in this classic crime thriller.Word had come from Australia that the Ringer was dead. The body of the legendary killer had been pulled from Sydney Harbor&mdash;or so it was thought.In reality, it is the Ringer&rsquo;s sister whose fate is a watery grave. Left in the care of Maurice Meister, a London lawyer for whom she worked as a secretary, she has turned up dead in the Thames&mdash;and now the Ringer is on a mission of vengeance.The vigilante walks the streets of the city again, and if the past is any indication, Inspector Wembury of Scotland Yard won&rsquo;t have an easy time tracking him down. To complicate matters further, Meister is currently employed by the socially prominent family of the woman Wembury loves . . . The basis for no less than five European films, this suspenseful British novel comes from one the early twentieth century&rsquo;s most popular writers of crime fiction.</div>

The Ringer

<div>An elusive gang leader and his minions frighten London and frustrate Scotland Yard in this classic crime thriller.The secret organization whose members were known only as &ldquo;the Frogs&rdquo; was the subject of rumors and jokes&mdash;until serious crimes began to occur, one after another. The perpetrators, once caught, were found to bear tattooed frogs on their wrists and kept their mouths firmly shut, and the populace grew terrified of them.The police were frustrated by their fruitless efforts to track down the leader of this strange gang. Then an officer who was working undercover and had finally managed to come face-to-face with the frightening figure was killed.Now it&rsquo;s time for Detective Sergeant Elk of Scotland Yard to get involved. Fortunately, despite his shabby clothes, glum demeanor, and utter inability to get himself promoted, he&rsquo;s a sharper sleuth than he appears to be . . . From Edgar Wallace, an enormously popular figure in early twentieth-century crime fiction, this is an intriguing tale of a nameless threat and a cop determined to track him down.</div>

The Fellowship of the Frog

<div>The first book in the mystery series that served as the basis for the classic films&mdash;inspired by a real-life Chinese-Hawaiian police detective. A young man has traveled from Boston all the way to Hawaii to try to convince his aunt to return to their wealthy New England family. Instead, he too finds himself seduced by the islands. But when his aunt is murdered, a shadow falls over the sunny Pacific paradise. Set against the fascinating backdrop of 1920s Waikiki, this novel introduced readers to Asian sleuth Charlie Chan, who was modeled on a real-life Chinese detective in the Honolulu Police Department and would become one of the most famous crime solvers of twentieth-century popular culture. &ldquo;Charlie Chan&rsquo;s appeal, which depends on his self-effacing charm and trademark aphorisms, remains constant from one case to the next.&rdquo; &mdash;Kirkus Reviews</div>

The House Without a Key

<div>Stories that pay tribute to Rex Stout&rsquo;s legendary private detective by Lawrence Block, Loren D. Estleman, John Lescroart, Robert Goldsborough, and more. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin have been widely flattered almost from the moment Rex Stout first wrote about them in 1934. The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe collects two dozen literary tributes to one of crime fiction&rsquo;s best-loved private detectives and his Man Friday. Included are: <ul><li>A 1947 pastiche by award-winning crime writer Thomas Narcejac</li><li>Rollicking new stories written especially for this collection by Michael Bracken and Robert Lopresti</li><li>Stories by bestselling authors including Lawrence Block and Loren D. Estleman</li><li>Chapters from Robert Goldsborough&rsquo;s authorized continuation of the Wolfe series; Marion Mainwaring&rsquo;s 1955 tour de force Murder in Pastiche; and John Lescroart&rsquo;s Rasputin&rsquo;s Revenge, which reimagines a young Wolfe as the son of Sherlock Holmes</li></ul> Also featuring a reminiscence from Rex Stout&rsquo;s daughter, this is a treasury of witty and suspenseful crime writing for every fan of the portly private detective. </div>

The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe

<div>This &ldquo;impressive crime anthology&rdquo; presents a century of American greed, crime and comeuppance by some of the genre&rsquo;s greatest authors (Publishers Weekly, starred review). James Ellroy, the author of such noir classics as The Black Dahlia and L.A. Confidential, joins forces with award-winning editor Otto Penzler to present this treasure trove of stories. Ranging from the 1920s to the present day, this collection represents noir at its best across a century of literary evolution. From the genre&rsquo;s infancy come gems like James M. Cain&rsquo;s &ldquo;Pastorale,&rdquo; while its postwar heyday boasts giants like Mickey Spillane and Evan Hunter. Packing an undeniable punch, diverse contemporary incarnations include Elmore Leonard, Patricia Highsmith, Joyce Carol Oates, Dennis Lehane, and William Gay, with many page-turners appearing from the 21st century.</div>

The Best American Noir of the Century

<div>Twenty great whodunnits from the first decade of this series, edited by the award-winning editor and founder of the Mysterious Press. This anthology collects the top twenty stories from the first decade (1997&ndash;2006) of The Best American Mystery Stories, selected and introduced by Otto Penzler. Contributors include Russell Banks, Jeffrey Deaver, Louise Erdrich, Brendan DuBois, Dennis Lehane, Elmore Leonard, Lou Manfredo, Ed McBain, Joyce Carol Oates, Scott Turow, and many others.</div>

The Best of the Best American Mystery Stories

<div>As wounded veterans face new dangers and old grudges, it will take a gentleman thief to save the day, in this mystery set in WWI Paris.Capt. Patrice Beval knows very little about Coralie, the volunteer nurse who saved his life. All he knows is that he loves her&mdash;and that her life is in danger. With the help of his fellow injured veterans, he vows to keep her safe. But who will protect him from men who will stop at nothing to get what they want? And what has happened to the great Gentleman Burglar, Ars&egrave;ne Lupin?Making his triumphant return, Lupin is called upon to solve the disappearance of three hundred million Francs in gold and the murder of a Moroccan man. As his investigation leads him to Captain Beval and Coralie, Lupin concocts an audacious plan to protect the innocent, catch the culprit&mdash;and find the loot!</div>

The Golden Triangle

<div>Perry Mason risks his freedom to prove the innocence of an unidentified client: &ldquo;Fast-paced . . . the question of whodunit, as always, gets an unexpected answer.&rdquo; &mdash;Publishers Weekly The bait is half of a $10,000 bill, delivered to Perry Mason by a man who promises the second half of the note should his companion, a silent masked woman, ever require the lawyer&rsquo;s services. When a dead body is discovered soon after, Mason feels the hook&#8213;but how can one prove the innocence of a person whose identity is unknown? Suspecting he&rsquo;s been set up, but curious nonetheless, Perry sets out to solve the mystery from the ground up, beginning with the face behind the veil. The more he learns, the more complex his investigation becomes. Uncovering a convoluted case of stock fraud, divorce, and inheritance, Mason&rsquo;s nearly left reeling&#8213;that is until, with the help of Della Street and Paul Drake, he pulls off one of his most daring gambits ever to finally cast light on the killer. Filled with memorable characters, a multitude of motives, and just a few red herrings, The Case of the Baited Hook is classic Perry Mason, showcasing the character&rsquo;s brilliance and pizazz with a plot that pushes his powers into overdrive. As puzzling as it is entertaining, the book exemplifies the style that made Edgar Award winner Erle Stanley Gardner one of the most popular authors of the twentieth century and inspired the hit HBO series. &ldquo;A good Perry Mason yarn . . . Perry moves fast to outmaneuver his opponents.&rdquo; &mdash;Kirkus Reviews (starred review) &ldquo;[The] Mason books remain tantalizing on every page and brilliant.&rdquo; &mdash;Scott Turow, #1 New York Times&ndash;bestselling author of The Last Trial &quot;A good starting point for those new to Gardner&rsquo;s celebrated attorney.&rdquo;&#8213; Publishers Weekly</div>

The Case of the Baited Hook

<div>The lawyer who inspired the HBO series unravels a mystery surrounding a back-from-the-dead banker in &ldquo;one of the best of the Perry Mason tales&rdquo; (The New York Times). Helen Kendal&rsquo;s woes begin when she receives a phone call from her vanished uncle Franklin, long presumed dead, who urges her to contact criminal defense attorney Perry Mason; soon after, she finds herself the main suspect in the murder of an unfamiliar man. Her kitten has just survived a poisoning attempt, as has her aunt Matilda, the woman who always maintained that Franklin was alive. Lucky that Helen took her uncle&rsquo;s advice&#8213;Mason immediately takes her as a client. But while it&rsquo;s clear that the occurrences are connected, and that their connection will prove her innocence, the links are too obscure to be recognized even by the attorney&rsquo;s brilliantly deductive mind. Risking disbarment for his unorthodox methods, he endeavors to outwit the police and solve the puzzle himself, enlisting the help of his secretary Della Street, his private eye Paul Drake, and the unlikely but invaluable aid of a careless but very clever kitten in the process. The Case of the Careless Kitten is one of the most acclaimed cases in the iconic Perry Mason series, which need not be read in any particular order, from Edgar Award winner Erle Stanley Gardner. &ldquo;This vintage case shows America&rsquo;s lawyer taking on a delightfully unexpected role. There&rsquo;s strong supporting work by the eponymous kitten, to boot.&rdquo; &mdash;Kirkus Reviews &ldquo;Races along at breakneck speed . . . eccentric characters, complex motives, and&mdash;as always&mdash;a delicately nuanced presentation of the special relationship between Perry and his faithful secretary.&rdquo; &mdash;Publishers Weekly</div>

The Case of the Careless Kitten

<div>A blind private detective and his dogs star in this thrilling World War II mystery with &ldquo;enough action and surprises to keep the pages turning&rdquo; (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Meet Captain Duncan Maclain. Blinded during his service in the first World War, Maclain made up for his lack of vision by sharpening his other senses, achieving a mastery of the subtle unseen clues often missed by those who see only with their eyes. Aided by his dogs Schnucke and Driest, the Captain puts the intelligence-gathering techniques he learned in the Army to work, making a name for himself as New York City&rsquo;s most sought-after private detective. Now it&rsquo;s 1940, there&rsquo;s a second World War breaking out, and Maclain is pulled into a case unlike any he&rsquo;s investigated before. The murder of an actor in his Greenwich Village apartment would cause a stir no matter the circumstances but, when the actor happens to possess secret government plans, and when those plans go missing along with the young woman with whom he was last seen, it&rsquo;s sensational enough to interest not only the local police, but the American government as well. Maclain suspects a German spy plot at work and, in a world where treasonous men and patriots are indistinguishable to the naked eye, it will take his special skills to sniff out the solution. Reissued for the first time in over a half-century, Odor of Violets is the most well-known installment in the long-running Duncan Maclain series, which featured one of crime fiction&rsquo;s earliest disabled detectives. The novel, filmed in 1942 as Eyes in the Night, is a classic hybrid of mystery and espionage fiction. </div>

The Odor of Violets

<div>A corpse in a top hat leads Dr. Gideon Fell to a killer with a sick sense of humor in this mystery by the celebrated author of Hag&rsquo;s Nook. At the hand of an outrageous prankster, top hats are going missing all over London, snatched from the heads of some of the city&rsquo;s most powerful people&#8213;but is the hat thief the same as the person responsible for stealing a lost story by Edgar Allan Poe, the manuscript of which has just disappeared from the collection of Sir William Bitton? Unlike the manuscript, the hats don&rsquo;t stay stolen for long, each one reappearing in unexpected and conspicuous places shortly after being taken: on the top of a Trafalgar Square statue, hanging from a Scotland Yard lamppost, and now, in the foggy depths of the Tower of London, on the head of a corpse with a crossbow bolt through the heart. Amateur detective and lexicographer Dr. Gideon Fell is on the case, and when the dead man is identified as the nephew of the collector, he discovers that the connections underlying the bizarre and puzzling crimes may be more intimate than initially expected . . . Reprinted for the first time in thirty years, the second novel in the Dr. Gideon Fell series, which need not be read in any order, finds the iconic character investigating one of the most extraordinary murders of his career. A baffling whodunnit with menace at every turn, The Mad Hatter Mystery proves that Carr is the &ldquo;unexcelled master of creepy erudition, swift-moving excitement and suspense through atmosphere&rdquo; (New York Times). &ldquo;Every sentence gives a thrill of positive pleasure. [The Mad Hatter Mystery] is the most attractive mystery I have read for a long time.&rdquo;&#8213;Dorothy Sayers</div>

Otto Penzler
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Books By Otto Penzler (4 Books)

The Great Detectives

Dead Man's Hand

The Best American Noir of the Century

The Best of the Best American Mystery Stories

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Otto PenzlerFollow this author

Books By Otto Penzler (4 Books)

The Great Detectives

Dead Man's Hand

The Best American Noir of the Century

The Best of the Best American Mystery Stories

RELATED POSTS ABOUT OTTO PENZLER

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More from

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© 2023 OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Otto Penzler
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