Detective Anthology

"A coppertop steam engine has disappeared," explains a train boiler inspector as he visits Sherlock Holmes at 221B, "and not by the whim of drunken youths." Something sinister is afoot, and Holmes learns as he takes on the mystery that criminals have designs upon using the locomotive for purposes never imagined by its designers.

This is a story from The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, Volume I collection. These six cases are among the last undertaken by Sherlock Holmes before he retired to the Sussex downs. However, the problems facing the sleuth are as diverse and challenging as ever.

The bride of Lord St. Simon disappears on the day of their marriage. Holmes and Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard are both called to help. Who will be the first to solve this mystery?

Forest Row in the Weald is the scene of a gruesome harpoon murder, and a young police inspector, Stanley Hopkins, asks Holmes, whom he greatly admires as a mentor, for some help. Holmes has already determined that it would take a great deal of strength and skill to run a man through with a harpoon and embed it in the wall behind him besides.

The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone - In this entry from The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, the master detective is on the trail of the stolen crown jewel known as the Mazarin Stone. Knowing his activity on the case makes him a target for murder, Sherlock Holmes is preparing a ruse to smoke out the suspected thief. To his surprise, however, his quarry - a renowned big game hunter - comes directly to him, and as Watson slips away to get the police, an impromptu game of cat and mouse ensues.

An unusual sequence of events in leads the legendary Sherlock Holmes to locate the precious jewel owned by the Countess of Morcar.

An enhanced audiobook, with complete music score and extensive sound effects to add to your listening experience. "The fireman had seen a skeleton, wearing a dress coat, whose head was aflame. I was deeply worried for the missing young woman. If she had been taken by the opera ghost, be he flesh or spirit, how would she fare if she rejected his 'love'? All worries were momentarily forced out of my head when a sudden squawk rang out across the opera house. I cannot believe this! Me; a suspect."

Dr. Watson's introduction to this Holmes case among the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, entitled "The Adventure of Silver Blaze" ( Strand magazine, December 1892) is succinct and impossible to improve upon: "There was but one problem before the public which could challenge his powers of analysis, and that was the singular disappearance of the favourite for the Wessex Cup, and the tragic murder of its trainer."

Holmes' search for Neville St. Clair has lead him to the opium dens of Upper Swandam Lane, where the 'disappearance' of many souls in this vile alley is a sobering fact of life. Not simply those whose lives are consumed and cast into perdition by the drug, but sudden, violent exits from the mortal plane at the hands of others. St. Clair's distraught wife has seen him here in one of the dens, but he has vanished just as suddenly. Police have found his clothes and bloodstains upon an open windowsill.

Very odd happenings cause a hydraulic engineer to lose his thumb - and lead Holmes and Watson to a band of criminals.

Set in 1888, the story revolves around this case of Miss Mary Sutherland, a woman with a substantial income from the interest on a fund set up for her. She is engaged to a quiet Londoner who has recently disappeared. Listen as the great detective unravels a web of assumed identities and intrigue.

Holmes and Watson arrive at Trinity College, summoned by a message that rugby star, Godfrey Staunton, has disappeared. Staunton is the key man on Overton's rugby team, and they will never win the important match if he cannot be found. Holmes admits that sport is a bit outside his ken, but he takes this case as seriously as any other. It proves not all elementary.

When Ebenezer Halliday's daughter's body is found stuffed underneath a train seat, the wealthy American industrialist hires Hercule Poirot to locate the murderer and over $100,000 worth of stolen jewels.

At a séance, Sir Alington, a venerable expert of the mental condition, is pestered by Mrs. Eversleigh about the importance of the sixth sense. Soon, a young man named Dermot is drawn in and tells them both about the sixth sense he experiences, a red signal that spells danger. He is about to tell them of the last time he saw the red signal when he stops himself. The last time he had the signal was earlier that very evening. But how could there be danger at a simple gathering of old friends?

This is a story from the The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes III collection. In this collection are four more individual cases for Mr. Sherlock Holmes, narrated by his faithful friend and admirer Dr. Watson. They dive into the opium dens of London in "The Man with the Twisted Lip," recall the curious history of "The Musgrave Ritual," come face to face with the grisly evidence contained in "The Cardboard Box," and go on a wild-goose chase in "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle." The powers of Sherlock Holmes prevail.

Previously part of a collection, this rare Ellery Queen mystery is available as a standalone audiobook for the first time. In "The Odd Man", Ellery is challenged to solve an imaginary riddle devised by three members of the Puzzle Club. With very little information to go on, he must correctly answer to his confreres which of their three imagined suspects is a secret criminal.

Sherlock Holmes' superb deductive abilities are truly tested in this adventure when a client asks the Great Detective to help him discover what is frightening his new wife. What seems to Watson to be just a child's drawing becomes the key to solving the mystery.

This is a story from the The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes I collection.

This is a story from the The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes I collection.

A tale of mystery, scandal and murder that may have been committed by the Ku Klux Klan in London. A young Sussex gentleman named John Openshaw has a strange story: in 1869 his uncle Elias Openshaw had suddenly come back to England to settle on an estate at Horsham, West Sussex, after living for years in the United States as a Planter in Florida and serving as a Colonel in the Confederate Army....