Mystery Reads

Sammy expects a carefree summer during her internship at the US Embassy in Vienna. Competing spy rings clash in desperation and threaten her life as every Strauss waltz accompanies a murder. Is the handsome stranger she meets heading for romance or using her as a pawn? Can she figure out who’s playing the tune before the dangerous dance ends badly?

Jabez Wilson, a London pawnbroker with ginger hair, pays a visit to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. He tells them about his young assistant, Vincent Spaulding, who has advised Wilson to respond to an urgent job advertisement in the local newspaper. The very next morning the pawnbroker is interviewed and hired. Everything goes well, until one morning he sees an announcement which says that "The red-headed league is dissolved". Wilson is extremely dissatisfied and goes to meet the landlord but does not receive any help.

"The Yellow Sign" is considered to be Robert Chambers’ horror masterpiece. He introduces us to Mr. Scott, an artist living in New York City. One day, Scott sees an overweight young man, who looks like a lawn grub to him. The artist’s is working on a painting of a girl named Tessie. When the girl falls ill, Scott tries to cure her, so he can finish his work as fast as possible. However, Tessie’s condition gets worse and she starts having very strange dreams.

The Baron d’Etraille witnesses a disturbing scene at a party between his own wife and another young man. D’Etraille decides that they have to separate, so he leaves the baroness and heads out on a long journey. He spends almost six years wandering around from one place to another, not knowing what is happening with his wife. Eventually, he returns to Paris but a month later he catches such a bad cough that he is sent to Nice for the rest of the winter.

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.

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.

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.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are discussing the lack of interesting new cases when a man bursts into the room. The panicked young man is McFarlane and he believes that he will be arrested for the murder of 52-year-old Jonas Oldacre. Oldacre’s burnt remains are found behind McFarlane house, the day after the builder Oldacre came to the lawyer McFarlane to draw up his will and made him his sole beneficiary. McFarlane is arrested as the main suspect. Holmes believes that the young man is not guilty and does his best to prove it.

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.

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.