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Crime, Thrillers and Mystery — page 5
362 public-domain crime, thrillers and mystery books, summarised. Page 5 of 8.
Havoc
E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
A shadow-world of imperial secrets collides with the cold arithmetic of London high finance.
Elusive Isabel
Jacques Futrelle
In the diplomatic shadowland of early twentieth-century Washington, a international conspiracy threatens to reshape the global order, setting a taciturn American agent against a brilliant, mysterious foreign operative.
The Mystery of the Iron Box: A Ken Holt Mystery
Bruce Campbell
When a cold midnight draft inside his home leads high school reporter Ken Holt to suspicious footprints in the snow, a stolen watch repair tag puts him and his friend Sandy Allen on the trail of a massive counterfeiting ring.
Anthony Trent, Master Criminal
Wyndham Martyn
A frustrated writer discovers that committing real burglaries is far easier than inventing fake ones, leading him into a high-stakes life of crime across American high society.
The Amethyst Cross
Fergus Hume
An inheritance bound to a stolen heirloom unravels a tangle of old betrayals, identity fraud, and secret parentage along the Thames.
The Thirteenth Chair: A Play in Three Acts
Bayard Veiller
Ghosts, knives, and dark rooms make for a thrilling parlor game, until a dead man is left sitting in the circle. In The Thirteenth Chair, Bayard Veiller crafts a closed-room mystery where spiritualism meets cold, hard murder.
A Man Obsessed
Alan Edward Nourse
A man pursues his father's alleged killer into the depths of an underground medical facility, only to learn that his murderous compulsion is the telepathic projection of a long-dead madman.
As We Forgive Them
William Le Queux
A dying man’s refusal to reveal the source of his vast fortune leaves his associates in despair, sparking a global hunt for a hidden, ciphered secret. This mystery of inheritance and buried treasure spans the dark streets of London and the historic landscapes of Italy.
Bucholz and the Detectives
Allan Pinkerton
The shadow of a crime looms large over a quiet, unsuspecting community when a wealthy recluse is brutally murdered for his fortune. A desperate struggle for truth ensues, pitting the cold calculation of an assassin against the methodical persistence of those who hunt him.
Hooded Detective, Volume III No. 2, January, 1942
Various
HOOK In a world of shadows, the mysterious vigilante known as the Black Hood battles a criminal mastermind while fighting to clear his own name. This collection of pulp tales captures the frantic, high-stakes energy of 1942.
The Law-Breakers
Ridgwell Cullum
A stalwart officer of the North-West Mounted Police pursues a network of illicit liquor runners across the Canadian prairie, where his path intersects with a fractured family and a burgeoning romance.
Jason: A Romance
Justus Miles Forman
A man finds himself entangled in a dangerous web of deceit while attempting to rescue a missing youth from a sinister plot in Paris. Beneath the surface of a desperate search lies a transcendent, transformative romance.
Against Odds: A Detective Story
Lawrence L. Lynch
The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 provides a grand, glittering backdrop for a dark web of disappearances, counterfeiting, and high-stakes confidence games. Amidst the marvels of the White City, a detective hunts for the truth behind a series of vanishing men.
The Three Eyes
Maurice Leblanc
A scientist’s desperate breakthrough inadvertently unmasks a cosmic secret, pulling his family into a lethal struggle against opportunistic predators. This speculative mystery blends early twentieth-century science fiction with a tense, high-stakes hunt for a world-altering formula.
Locked Doors
Mary Roberts Rinehart
This mystery unfolds within the confines of a single, terrified household, where a nurse finds herself locked in with a family driven to the brink of madness. It is a chilling, atmospheric study of how fear spreads when the source remains hidden.
Revenge!
Robert Barr
In these cold, sharp stories of obsession and ruin, the quest for retribution rarely ends in justice, but almost always in a total accounting.
The Hospital Murders
Means Davis
The halls of the Elijah Wilson Hospital hide a killer whose weapon is a syringe and whose targets are helpless patients. A desperate staff must root out a murderer before the institution’s reputation is destroyed forever.
The Law of Hemlock Mountain
Hugh Lundsford
A disgraced officer flees the rigidity of army life for the Kentucky mountains, only to find that his quest for redemption and love is complicated by the very secrets he tried to leave behind.
The Lone Wolf: A Melodrama
Louis Joseph Vance
The master thief known as the "Lone Wolf" finds his carefully constructed anonymity shattered, forcing him into a desperate, high-stakes game against the criminal underworld and his own past.
The Sundial
Fred M. (Fred Merrick) White
A portrait painter’s tragic domestic life unravels when a mysterious death at his garden sundial sparks a high-stakes hunt for stolen jewels and lethal scientific secrets.
The Place of Dragons: A Mystery
William Le Queux
A sudden, inexplicable murder in a quiet seaside town triggers a high-stakes hunt for a master criminal and his elusive, stolen treasure. The investigation spans from the cliffs of Norfolk to the dark streets of London and the sun-drenched coast of France.
A Nest of Spies
Pierre Souvestre
A master criminal infiltrates the highest levels of government, forcing a brilliant detective into a desperate game of espionage where the cost of failure is national ruin.
The Solitary Farm
Fergus Hume
A young woman struggles to clear her lover’s name after a brutal murder at an isolated estate leaves her inheritance, her romance, and her own safety in jeopardy.
"Persons Unknown"
Virginia Tracy
An atmospheric, theatrical mystery following a young man drawn into a web of murder and deception surrounding a captivating, enigmatic actress.
The Haunted House: A True Ghost Story: Being an account of the mysterious manifestations that have taken place in the presence of Esther Cox, the young girl who is possessed of devils, and has become known throughout the entire dominion as the great Amherst mystery
Walter Hubbell
The "Great Amherst Mystery" follows the harrowing, inexplicable experiences of a young woman plagued by invisible forces. It offers a firsthand, detailed account of supernatural disturbances that confounded observers in 1870s Nova Scotia.
The Mystery of the Hidden Room
Marion Harvey
A rich man lies dead in a locked Manhattan study, his wife holds the smoking gun, and the only man who can unspool the conspiracy is an eccentric private investigator with a penchant for secret panels.
The Passenger from Calais
Arthur Griffiths
An empty train car bound for Switzerland becomes the staging ground for a high-stakes game of deception, where chivalry is tested against the law and no traveler is quite who they appear to be.
The Man Who Fell Through the Earth
Carolyn Wells
A shot rang out in a quiet office suite, and a wealthy bank president vanished into thin air.
J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
A chilling collection of ghostly tales that will haunt your imagination long after reading.
The Case of the Pocket Diary Found in the Snow
Auguste Groner
A trail of blood and broken glass in the snow leads an unassuming Austrian detective to a desperate message from a trapped heiress.
The Spiritualists and the Detectives
Allan Pinkerton
A predatory clergyman seduces a young girl, while an ambitious spiritualist medium blackmails a wealthy elderly patron, triggering a wide-ranging investigation that pits nineteenth-century detective work against religious hypocrisy and occult charlatanism.
Recalled to Life
Grant Allen
A terrifying flash of light, a dead body, and total amnesia start this Victorian mystery of identity, deep trauma, and hidden domestic secrets.
The Mystery of the Downs
John R. (John Reay) Watson
A sudden coastal storm forces a lone rider to seek shelter at an isolated farm, where he discovers a body and a web of wartime secrets.
He Walked Around the Horses
H. Beam Piper
The disappearance of a British diplomat in 1809 triggers a bureaucratic nightmare when a man claiming to be the same individual appears in a Prussian inn, carrying documents from a history that never happened.
The Impossibles
Randall Garrett
FBI agent Kenneth J. Malone faces a baffling crime spree: luxury cars are vanishing, and the culprits seem to defy the laws of physics. This lighthearted, fast-paced science fiction novel blends a classic police procedural with the unexpected chaos of psionic phenomena. It endures as a charming, self-aware artifact…
The Red Symbol
John Ironside
A journalist’s search for a missing woman leads him deep into the violent, shadow-drenched world of Russian revolutionary politics.
A Modern Wizard
Rodrigues Ottolengui
A brilliant, cold-blooded physician commands the forces of human will and chemical science, only to discover that the most dangerous experiments are those performed upon oneself.
Mars Confidential
Howard Browne
When the mob discovers a secret space-faring route to our sister planet, the red dust of Mars is quickly paved over with the neon, graft, and grift of the American underworld.
The Argosy, Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891
Various
This nineteenth-century miscellany offers a panoramic view of Victorian literary life, blending serialized mystery, travelogues, and reflections on everything from the nuances of etiquette to the haunting unpredictability of ghost stories.
Lord John in New York
C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson
A wounded veteran finds himself entangled in a sinister conspiracy of high-stakes kidnapping, ancient family curses, and a relentless criminal mastermind known as Dr. Rameses.
The Last Stroke: A Detective Story
Lawrence L. Lynch
This classic mystery follows an astute investigator as he unravels the murder of a village schoolmaster, uncovering a trail of deception that stretches from a quiet lakeside town to the bustling streets of London.
One of My Sons
Anna Katharine Green
A chance encounter on a city street pulls a stranger into the heart of a wealthy family’s darkest tragedy, where poison hides in plain sight and silence carries the weight of guilt.
The Wire Devils
Frank L. (Frank Lucius) Packard
A master thief, known only as "The Hawk," plays a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse with a sophisticated criminal syndicate and the frustrated lawmen who cannot tell whose side he is really on.
The Yellow Holly
Fergus Hume
A young man tracks down his family’s hidden history, only to find himself entangled in a boardinghouse murder and a web of long-buried secrets.
Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3
Unknown
This collection gathers a series of atmospheric suspense stories where scientific ingenuity, high-stakes investigation, and quiet, chilling revelations collide. It offers a window into the golden age of mystery, capturing the tension between modern intellect and ancient, human darkness.
The Mysteries of Paris, illustrated with etchings, Vol. 5
Eugène Sue
Hidden in the shadows of 19th-century Paris, a disguised nobleman maneuvers through a labyrinth of crime and corruption to protect the vulnerable from the predations of the powerful.
Devil's Dice
William Le Queux
A young man is thrust into a waking nightmare when he finds himself unwittingly married to a woman who dies before his eyes, triggering a frantic search for the truth. This atmospheric mystery unravels a labyrinthine plot of mistaken identities, international intrigue, and secret societies.
The de Bercy Affair
Louis Tracy
A high-stakes murder mystery unfolds in London, where an innocent man is framed for a brutal killing while a grieving detective seeks justice in the shadows.