Showing results by narrator "Susan Iannucci" in All Categories

On the eve of the end of the world, 20 December 2012, five friends meet in Spanish Gardens, the cafe where they had celebrated their college graduation 20 years before. Over Irish coffees, they reminisce—and reveal long-held and disturbing secrets. Each friend in turn is given a curious set of instructions by an enigmatic bartender named Ariel: "Your life is filled with crossroads, and you are free to choose one road or another at any time. Stepping through this door takes away all choices except two—the choice to live a different life, or return to this one."

Down and out John Stratton, recently robbed by two elderly gentlemen on the train to Adelaide, has one shilling left for his next meal. He is loitering near the post office when a large, sleek car pulls up with a beautiful girl and older man. The man goes into the post office, returns, and departs. There is a wallet in the street right where the man entered the car and John realizes the man dropped it. Looking down the street he can see that traffic is stopped and, if he runs, he can catch the car and return the wallet. With this one good deed, the trajectory of his life is changed.

Newly married Mrs. Jeffrey is found in the library of the old family mansion dead with a pistol tied to her wrist, and everyone is suspect. The library in the family mansion has a reputation for harboring dead men, and no one knows how or why this is so. First published in 1903, Green delivers a well-written mystery again. Who is innocent and who is not?

When Mr. Burton Crane leases a house in the country, he expects it to be fully staffed. Except—it isn’t. Mr. Crane enlists the help of his friend, Mrs. Falkener, to interview his prospective cook, butler, housemaid, and general helper. She, however, doesn’t like them—but Mr. Crane is especially drawn to the cook and overrules his friend. But was Mrs. Falkener right to be suspicious? Who are these servants, really? Soon the helper, the housemaid, and the butler are dismissed, leaving only the cook—a most improper scenario!

Anna Katharine Green (1846-1935) was one of the first crime novelists and paved the way for later female writers of detective novels, like Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh. Among her prolific output are twelve novels featuring her main character, detective Ebenezer Gryce of the New York Metropolitan Police Force. This collection contains the third group of three novels in the series: Initials Only (1911), One of My Sons (1901), and The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow (1917).

European tourists travel languidly along the Nile River to Abousir, at the southern frontier of Egypt, aboard “a turtle-bottomed, round-bowed stern-wheeler,” the Korosko. But Dervish warriors threaten danger and then attack and kidnap the tourists. In this novel, Doyle explores themes of British Imperialism and a defensive European perspective on North Africa; racial paternalism; and debates on interference with other countries’ politics and religions. This wonderful novel was first published in 1898, long before Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile.

Freckles and A Girl of the Limberlost are two of Gene Stratton Porter's most famous novels. Set primarily in the Limberlost Swamp of Indiana, USA, Freckles follows the story of Freckles, a lame orphan whose innate character rises above his circumstances. A Girl of the Limberlost is the story of Elnora, blamed for her father's death by her mother, who nevertheless meets every challenge that comes her way with admirable resilience.

Deception, mystery, romance, inheritance—this novel has it all! Written by Anna Katharine Green and published in 1923, it is one of her best. Wealthy Edgar Quenton Bartholomew has a beautiful daughter, a great estate, and vast business holdings. It is his final wish that the man who marries his daughter will inherit it all. When he dies it is thought to be of natural causes until a young woman viewing the casket cries out that he appears to be poisoned ... and the investigation begins! Where is his final will? Who poisoned him?