Mystery Reads

Nicholas Nickleby is a young boy left without a father. Nicholas has to take care of his mother and sister and is forced by his uncle to work as an assistant to the schoolmaster Wackford Squeers. Squeers’ intentions are however not good and his only goal is to make Nicholas’ life miserable. At the same time Squeers’ wife convinces herself that Nicholas loves her and this gets the young boy in even greater trouble. Nicholas’ uncle is colluding with the schoolmaster and it seems like everybody is against him.

David Balfour is a young Scottish man whose parents have recently died. The seventeen-year-old orphan decides that the time has come for him to seek his fortune. Right before Balfour departs for Edinburgh, he meets with his guardian Mr Campbell. Campbell tells the young boy that he has a wealthy uncle living in Cramond.

Victor Frankenstein is a young scientist who artificially creates a human being. His expectations are however far from reality as is Creation is so monstrous that it cannot fit into human society. This leads to dreadful consequences as the monster decides to take it revenge his creator. Will Frankenstein manage to control his creature or will he loose everything? "Frankenstein" is Mary Shelley’s best-selling work and is a vivid combination of genres with gothic, philosophical and early science-fiction elements. B. J.

B. J. Harrison does not tire of the adventurous and mysterious settings in his choice of narratives. This time, the horror element is a bit subdued, though Edgar Allan Poe makes up for the lost thrills with his haunting poems "The Raven", "Annabel Lee", and "The Sleeper". P. G. Wodehouse appears with four works, scoring points for his humor.

Apart from the ubiquitous presence of the authors who work in the short story tradition, the Second Season introduces poems and novellas. The romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge is here with his haunting and supernatural sea adventure "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", while Rudyard Kipling tests the human condition with his famous poem "If". Perhaps the most potent addition in this second part is Joseph Conrad’s timeless novella "The Heart of Darkness", exploring the darkest recesses of the human soul. B. J.

A kaleidoscope of genres, themes, topics, and motifs await the listener here. From comedy and mystery, to horror and children’s stories, Season Four abounds in fairy tales adventures, challenges to the listener’s imagination, and joyrides through the unknown realms of the psyche. One of the most famous short stories in horror fiction, "The Call of Cthulhu" sits next to the funny characters of "Right Ho, Jeeves" by Wodehouse, while the eponymous sleepyhead from "Rip Van Winkle" is very much awake, facing H. G. Wells’ "The Door in the Wall".

Season Three comes with serious firepower. The genre of adventure, science fiction, fantasy, horror, romance, melodrama, and the psychological are all present, turning the collection into a kaleidoscope of characters, plot twists, emotions, and revelations. Magicians hurl lightnings at each other, talking rabbits and vanishing cats talk to a little girl, while mad scientists try to create life from dead body parts. One of the most prominent names in this season is the American master of horror H. P.

Allan Quatermain is a hunter who lives in South Africa. One day, after he returns home from an unsuccessful elephant hunt, he meets Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good. The two men are looking for Curtis’ brother, who disappeared whilst trying to find King Solomon’s Mines. Quatermain owns a map that show the way to the mines, so he decides to help Curtis and Good. Allan organizes an expedition that will take them to the edge of the desert.

Rachel Innes is a rich lady who has been taking care of her niece and nephew since their father died. The three of them decide to rent a house in the country and although everything seems to be alright in the beginning, strange events soon begin to occur. Her niece disappears then reappears a few days later. There is a murder they are involved in. They hear strange noises. Things fall down the stairs in the middle of the night. Will Rachel solve the mysteries and how will their summer end? Find out in "The Circular Staircase". B. J.

Huck is a young boy who embarks on a long and adventurous journey along the Mississippi River together with the runaway slave Jim. Their trip is marked by many obstacles, the different people they meet from various social classes, and the beautifully idyllic scenary of the riverfront and the surrounding forest. "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" will take you on a journey that will grab your attention and keep you entertained until the very last page. B. J.

Edward Malone is a young journalist at the "Daily Gazette", who is eager to impress his girlfriend Gladys. To do so, he requests a dangerous and complex task. After a few days, he is assigned to an expedition leaded by the notorious Professor Challenger. The the expedition is headed toward what Challenger’s claim is a new and isolated area of the Amazon jungle. He believes that thousands of years ago dinosaurs, pterodactyls and other exotic creatures were inhabitants of the area.

"The Christmas Stories of Charles Dickens" is a precious collection of Christmas tales. Christmas spirit, joy, excitement, cheer and Christmas trees against low classes living in despair and poverty. There are two sides to the story but the holiday and its meaning come from the heart no matter what the social status is. "The Christmas Stories of Charles Dickens" is a collection which makes the reader immerse in a parallel universe, so complex in its nature that it almost seems unreal.

"The Colour Out of Space", "The Call of Cthulhu" and 15 more stories are combined in the collection "The Dunwich Horror and Other Tales". Horror, supernatural occurrences, science fiction and fantasy intertwine in order to give you goosebumps and send shivers up and down your spine. B. J. Harrison started his Classic Tales Podcast back in 2007, wanting to breathe new life into classic stories. He masterfully plays with a wide array of voices and accents and has since then produced over 500 audiobooks.

Mr. John Smith is a British student of Egyptology who travels to Paris. The main purpose of his trip is to visit the Louvre and research some papyri. Unfortunately, tired from going round the museum, Smith falls asleep in one its the many corners. When he wakes up, he sees an Egyptian-looking man performing a ritual on a mummy. Things get even stranger as the Egyptian man unwraps the mummy, uncovers a beautiful woman and hugs her.

DCI Morgan confronts a personal crisis when retirement looms. Meanwhile, crime doesn’t stop. The discovery of a body, found with a fish in his mouth, sparks a murder hunt. In this, the fourth of J. J. Kennard’s short murder mysteries, Morgan feels he should be on the case, but his chief has other ideas.

Detective Inspector Ken "Chunky" Mason finds himself trapped between a rock and a hard place when history and current events conspire against him. A dead body, blackmail, conflicts of interest. He’s almost at the end of his tether, when events take an unexpected twist.

Jim Hawkins is a young boy who lives at his parents’ inn, near Bristol. After Billy Bones, an old sea captain, mysteriously dies at the inn, Hawkins unlocks his sea chest and finds a treasure map. The mysterious treasure map arouses Jim’s curiosity and sparks a wild and adventurous treasure hunt. Before long, Jim has gathered a crew of untrustworthy pirates and sails off to Treasure Island. Long John Silver with his missing leg and his parrot is part of the voyage.

Jason dinAlt is a professional gambler who travels between different worlds in the universe. Right now, he is gambling on the planet Cassylia. One day, he meets the ambassador of Pyrrus the most hostile world in the universe. Kerk, the ambassador, offers dinAlt money to run a stake up for him. After Jason finally wins the needed amount, he tries to escape with the money, but gets captured.

When four unconnected serial killers simultaneously commit identical murders across four different US cities, FBI Special Agent Shannon Wallace faces an unprecedented threat—a cooperative of killers working in unison. Each homicide is witnessed by a survivor, and now these lucky ones need to decide how to tell their stories to the world. Their posts about the horrific murders create a media storm and a new term is soon coined for the killers: The Alliance.

In 1990, within the deceptively peaceful woods of her Sussex neighborhood, Mia witnesses the brutal murder of her mother and wakes up in a shallow grave. A man confesses to the murder and later dies in prison, but Mia never comes to terms with her mother's death. After another brush with tragedy in 2021, Mia and her boyfriend Rich move from London to a small Spanish village where they can begin a new life. At first, Val Verde seems to be everything they could wish for. But when a body is found in the olive grove outside of town, they realize that their would-be safe haven harbors a secret.