Detective Stories Anthology

A group of four teenagers get together every week to watch movies. They love nothing more than a good movie or a good adventure. Being able to combine the two, now that's something they get excited about. Listen to how the gang get into scrapes and adventures, turning detective to uncover all manor of mysteries, legends, and myths, not to say mysteries within their own imaginations. This short story takes you into their world as their adventures begin.

James has found himself at the fashionable resort Kimpton-on-Sea, all due to the persuasion of his girlfriend, Grace, who during the last few months of their courtship has become more difficult to deal with. Among the upper echelons of society, including the Rajah of Maraputna, James feels disgruntled and out of place. Eager to both irritate and win over Grace, James bypasses the queue to the changing rooms and ducks into the private huts on the beach so that he can be the first into the sea. It is only later that he realizes he has accidentally come into possession of a very valuable and sought-after object.

When civilian life proves too dull for Major Wilbrahams, he contacts Parker Pyne to escape his boredom. Pyne's assistant arranges a chance meeting with the beautiful Freda Clegg and the two join forces, but on leaving for Africa they encounter more than they had bargained for.

Every morning at the same hour on the golf course, Jack Hartington hears mysterious cries for help coming from a cottage. He speaks to the resident and learns that she has unsettling dreams of a woman with a blue Chinese vase. Believing that the cries for help are from the late Mrs. Turner, the former resident of the cottage, Jack hires a psychic investigator to spend a night in the house, a night which proves to have startling results.

Maria Packington suspects her husband of having an affair. In an attempt to revitalise her marriage, she responds to an ad from Mr. Parker Pyne - who promises to provide solutions to unhappiness. Maria's life soon undergoes a rapid transformation....

This is a "Nameless Detective" mystery story that starts with the thefts of several exotic animals from San Francisco's Fleishhacker Zoo - and ends with murder.

It is said that when we die we return back to dust from which we came. This is where the story begins. Sir Jacob Edwards was a King and the most evil man you would ever meet in your life. He loved to hear his prisoners bones snap into as they whaled and screamed in agony in his dungeon of horrors. As the saying goes what goes around, comes around. That is exactly what happened to Sir Jacob Edwards.

In Agatha Christie’s short story “The Kidnapped Prime Minister”, Poirot investigates the mysterious disappearance of the British prime minister during wartime. Apparently carjacked on the way to a peace conference, Poirot must overcome subterfuge and misdirection to solve the mystery.

One of the most popular of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, "Silver Blaze" focuses on the disappearance of a famous race horse on the eve of an important race, and on the apparent murder of its trainer.

In "The Invisible Man", a murderer manages to get in and out of a house, even though it is under constant observation. In some ways, the story parallels Poe's "The Purloined Letter" but adds its own unique touches, particularly in the character and methods of priest-sleuth Father Brown.

"The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist" is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was originally published as part of The Return of Sherlock Holmes in 1903.

Professor Van Dusen solves a variety of different mysteries together with his friend, Hutchinson Hatch, a reporter for a fictional newspaper called The Daily New Yorker. The professor is known as the "Thinking Machine", and he solves problems by the remorseless application of logic. In this story, he thinks his way out of a maximum-security prison.

Holmes is brought into the investigation of what appears a simple, obvious case of a son murdering his father shortly after the son was seen by witnesses near, and at, the scene of the man's death.

Holmes is confronted with the disappearance of the bride of a nobleman - just minutes after the ceremony. "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor" is one of the 56 original Sherlock Holmes stories and was first published in Strand Magazine in April 1892. It served as the (loose) basis for The Eligible Bachelor, a film starring Jeremy Brett as Holmes, Edward Hardwicke as Watson, and Simon Williams as Lord St. Simon.

This is a story from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes II collection. In this collection are four of the finest cases of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, narrated by his faithful friend and admirer Dr. Watson. What was the mystery of the engineer's thumb? What was behind the disappearance of the race horse? Why did masked royalty walk up to see Holmes in Baker Street? These and other puzzles are solved in this collection by this bloodhound of a genius.

Watson visits Sherlock Holmes at Christmastime and finds him contemplating a battered old hat, brought to him by the commissionaire Peterson after it and a Christmas goose had been dropped by a man in a scuffle with some street ruffians. Peterson takes the goose home to eat it, but comes back later with a precious carbuncle that his wife found in the bird's crop.

"A Scandal in Bohemia" was the first of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories to be published in The Strand magazine. Doyle ranked "A Scandal in Bohemia" fifth in his list of 12 favorite Holmes stories. It was first published on June 25, 1891, and was later the first of the stories collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in 1892.

A Case of Identity is one of the 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is the third story in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The story revolves around the case of Miss Mary Sutherland, a woman with a large income due to the interest from a fund set up for her. She is engaged to a quiet Londoner who has mysteriously disappeared. Sherlock Holmes's solves the case rather easily, much as it puzzles Watson.

The recently married Alix Martin is obsessed with a recurring dream of her new husband's murder. Each time she can see the murderer clearly, and it's the mild-mannered man she had previously been engaged to, taking his revenge. But, what's worse is that at the end of the dream she thanks the murderer. Perplexed, Alix tries to calm herself by spending time in the garden of her picturesque cottage. But her gardener confuses her further by wishing her well on her trip to London - a trip which Alix knows nothing about. Now Alix is scared: Is the gardener imagining things, or is she?

If you look at any listing of the 10 most important books of detective stories published in the United States, chances are you will find Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries on most of them. It is generally recognized as one of the most important contributions to American detective fiction between Poe and Hammett. In fact, there are some critics who call it the single finest collection of American detective stories ever written. This story is from that famous collection.