Mystery Reads

Hilton Cubitt visits Sherlock Holmes to show him a sheet of paper with a weird sequence of drawn figures. When these odd messages began to arrive at Cubitt’s house, fear and panic overwhelmed his wife Elsie. She is afraid her past is catching up with her, but she refuses to reveal anything about it. Holmes is tasked with decipher the messages and find out who is sending them.

B.J. Harrison reads "The Purloined Letter" by Edgar Allan Poe, which is a story of an unusual mystery that needs to be solved. A sensitive letter has been stolen from the queen's boudoir, and the famous amateur detective C. Auguste Dupin has been called to the rescue. The guilty one is the lover himself, Minister D-. What ensues is a match between the detective and the thief, two equally brilliant minds.

Sherlock Holmes is still a student when he receives his very first case. While still in college, he is invited to the house of his good friend, Victor Trevor. There he meets Trevor’s father, who challenges Holmes to analyze him, so that he can test the young detective’s investigative skills. Holmes touches a nerve after mentioning a person with the initials "J.A.". After the shock passes, Trevor’s father tries to hide how terrified he is, but Holmes can still catch the anxiety in his eyes.

Lieutenant-General von Rabbek is a local aristocrat, who invites the officers of the Reserve Artillery Brigade to a cup of tea with brandy. Of all the guests, Ryabovitch is the most unpleasant one. While doing his best to avoid talking to people, Ryabovitch enters a dark room, where he an unknown woman surprises him by kissing him, then running away. The unexpected kiss awakes Ryabovitch's curiosity and passion, and the man spends the rest of the evening searching for the mysterious woman.

A young woman named Mary Sutherland is engaged and about to marry Hosmer Angel, when he unexpectedly disappears. In her despair and anxiety, Mary decides to ask Sherlock Holmes for his help. This seems to be a simple case for the great detective. After a short exchange of letters with Mary’s stepfather, Mr. Windibank, Sherlock finds out what the truth is.

Edith Whittlesey is born in a country district of England, where life flows as per the rule of thumb. She is married to an honest and hardworking miner, who works together with four other men. Usually no unexpected things happen, but one day it all changes. One of the miners bursts into the hut where his partners are sitting together with Edith. The man kills two of them but is stopped and tied up thanks to Whittlesey’s quick reaction.

A man travels through the frozen wasteland bordering the Yukon River, accompanied by his best friend - a large husky dog. The dog tries to dissuade the man from walking farther into the frozen land, but the man pushes on. At some point the man decides to stop and build a fire. Unfortunately, snow falls from one of the trees and extinguishes the fire. This is the moment where the problems truly begin.

Three young men are caught by a storm and are offered shelter by a strange man. Something about him is very disturbing and they are about to find out what it is. Their host claims that he has made a pact with the Devil and can't get himself out of the deal. Is he going crazy or he is telling the truth? If it is the truth, can the three visitors help the poor man? Find out in Leroux’s "In Letters of Fire". B. J. Harrison started his Classic Tales Podcast back in 2007, wanting to breathe new life into classic stories.

"The Squaw" is not your typical horror story but the brutality of it will take by surprise even the biggest horror fiction fan. Bram Stoker introduces us to a couple on a honeymoon and an American tourist whom they meet in Nuremberg, Germany. The story however does not unfold around those three characters, but between the American lady and a kitten ... which she kills. What is the reason for it and what follows after that? Find out in "The Squaw". B. J.

Sherlock Holmes is at the stables of Colonel Ross in Dartmoor. He has an especially important mission to investigate the disappearance of Silver Blaze, titular horse and a famous winner. It is not enough that the champion is gone, but his trainer, John Straker, has apparently been murdered. After carefully examining the crime scene, Holmes follows the horse’s footprints to the neighbor stables, where he tries to get more information from Silas Brown.

Can a man lose his mind because of a braid of hair? Can people come back from the dead? "The Head of Hair" tells the story of one poor man who gets so obsessed with a hairpiece that he comes to believe that the lady it belonged to has returned from the underworld. Nobody believes him and he ends up in an institution for mentally ill but could he have been telling the truth? Did he really get a visitor from the past? B. J. Harrison started his Classic Tales Podcast back in 2007, wanting to breathe new life into classic stories.

A small group of friends decide to attend a seance at a local art studio. While some of them are very sceptical about the whole thing, others believe in the medium’s abilities. The group starts a discussion about a new painting of a mythical creature, when a Frenchman joins and claims that he sees a unicorn in it. Shortly after the seance begins, a strange light fills the room and the medium starts speaking in a different voice. The voice is that of a person no longer within the living.

Joel Hetman Jr. is summoned home because his mother was found dead. The only thing his father saw was an unknown man fleeing their home. The murderer was never found and the crime case turned to a mystery. One night Joel and his father were walking down a moonlit road when suddenly the father saw a pale figure. Was it a ghost or was he going crazy? Joel will finally find out what happened to his mother. "The Moonlit Road" by Ambrose Bierce holds all the answers.

Have you ever wondered what hides inside the big chimney which Santa Claus goes through every Christmas Eve? Jem is about to find out. Inside the chimney, she notices a magnificent white brick, but this brick is special; it lets Jem into a magical world full of toys. Do you want to join Jem’s journey to Santa Claus’ wonderland? Grab "Behind the White Brick" and come along. B. J. Harrison started his Classic Tales Podcast back in 2007, wanting to breathe new life into classic stories.

For Mr and Mrs Thackenbury it seems like there are too many holidays. They start talking about the hypocrisy behind all these holidays, such as Christmas for example. Yet, they love listing some of the people they would like to honor on that day and discuss what they would give to them as a present. After all, they really enjoy having a good time together. If you want to find out what else Mr and Mrs Thackenbury are talking about, read Saki’s short story "The Feast of Nemesis" from 1914. B. J.

From the books that inspired the new Netflix series "Lupin" with Omar Sy. Yvonne d’Origny’s life is full of misery, hatred and fear. She has tried to divorce her malicious husband, but he is willing to go to great lengths to get what he wants - and that’s her. He even uses their son as a pawn. How will Yvonne’s story unfold, and what will Lupin’s role be in it? The second story in Maurice Leblanc’s collection "The Confessions of Arsène Lupin" about gentleman thief and criminal mastermind, Arsene Lupin.

"King" Wallace is a lion-tamer, who has been viciously murdered by a man who hated him. Now everyone wants to know who the murderer is. The "Leopard Man" is a leopard trainer with mysterious scars on his arms. He finds out that the murderer attended every performance of the lion-tamer in hope of seeing the lion tear his trainer apart.

After Olenka Plemyannikova’s father dies, she marries Ivan Kukin - the owner of the local theater. She soon takes over some of his paperwork-related roles and becomes more involved in the business. Unfortunately, Kukin dies in Moscow during one of his work-related travels. Olenka’s grief does not last too long and she soon gets married to a timber yard worker named Vasily Pustovalov. They live a happily and comfortable life together, until one day Pustovalov gets sick and dies a few days later.

One day Krantz comes home to witness his wife being unfaithful to him. In a fit of anger he kills both his wife and her lover, who is also Krantz’s lord. Krantz fears the punishment he will surely receive, so he flees with his three children. His safe haven is the Hartz Mountains. There he meets a beautiful young lady who he marries shortly after. Their marriage however does not go as expected. The bride’s night-outs raise Krantz’s suspicions.

The great detective, Sherlock Holmes, is dying from a highly contagious tropical disease called Tapanuli fever. Dr. Watson is shocked when he hears about his friend’s illness. He travels to examine him, but Holmes refuses his help. Instead, a man called Culverton Smith arrives after being called by Watson. He is not a professional doctor but knows more about the disease than anyone else.