Showing results by narrator "David Ian Davies" in All Categories

Death at the Excelsior is the first, and only, PI mystery P.G. Wodehouse wrote. This comprehensive story from Wodehouse is a perfect introduction to his unique style.

A story about Lord Emsworth, keen that his fat pig, the Empress of Blandings, should win the 87th annual Shropshire Agricultural Show contest. Yet how he regains the appetite of his sow is truly worth listening to.

Mac's Restaurant - nobody calls it MacFarland's - is a mystery. It is off the beaten track. It is not smart. It does not advertise. It provides nothing nearer to an orchestra than a solitary piano, yet, with all these things against it, it is a success. In theatrical circles especially it holds a position which might turn the white lights of many a supper-palace green with envy.

In desperation, Holmes is asked to rescue the kidnapped only son of the Duke of Holdernesse. Motivated by greed and jealousy, the criminal in this classic Sherlock Holmes mystery causes a far greater tragedy than mere kidnapping.

A call comes for Holmes' assistance from Inspector Hopkins. The facts behind the murder of Sir Eustace Brackenstall during an invasion robbery seem simple enough, until a possible lie by his wife, and inconsistencies in the evidence, suggest her accounts of the crime may be disguising the truth for personal reasons.

Sherlock Holmes investigates when a young woman's twin sister is mysteriously murdered in her locked bedroom, leaving in her dying words the only clue with which to begin: "band" and "speckled".

At Oxford they jokingly called themselves The Seven Sinners. Now, 30 years later, they are being murdered - each in the manner of his particular 'sin'. Who is doing it and what is the connection with the twin serpents, the mysterious Emerald Lady and the holy Book of Kor? Holmes and Watson -with the aid of their new friend, Professor Challenger - must race against time and the killer...before one of the victims becomes his brother, Mycroft.

"This agency stands flat-footed upon the ground, and there it must remain. The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply." So says Sherlock Holmes at the opening of The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire. Holmes investigates what appears to be a case of vampirism in an upper class home.

The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham opens with the following preface to Edward George Eden's account of the progressively unbelievable incidents leading to his death: "I set this story down, not expecting it will be believed, but, if possible, to prepare a way of escape for the next victim. He, perhaps, may profit by my misfortune. My own case, I know, is hopeless, and I am now in some measure prepared to meet my fate."

Hilton Cubitt, from Derbyshire, consults Holmes about a series of dancing men picture-messages his wife is receiving. On their wedding-day, she had made Cubitt promise he would ask her nothing about her past, but she now seems to be terrified. Holmes has to decipher the code of the matchstick men and get to the bottom of the dreadful murder that lies behind it.

Charles and Mary Lamb took what most agree is a romance and the story of a king's jealousy, anger, mistaken sense of betrayal by his wife and the consequences of his retaliation upon his friends and family, and successfully transformed it into a children's version which ends happily when he learns how wrong he has been about almost everything.

Whose is the face at the upstairs window, "livid, deadly yellow, and with something set and rigid about it, which was shockingly unnatural?"

A Case of Identity - Miss Mary Sutherland, angry and beside herself with feelings of loss, asks Sherlock Holmes to solve the sudden, mysterious disappearance of a shy and attentive man she has grown to love upon the very day they were to be married.

Dr. Watson's account of the strange death of Captain Peter Carey begins one morning with Holmes returning to Baker Street with a "huge barbed-headed spear tucked like an umbrella under his arm." The instrument, the facts unfold, duplicates the weapon which has been driven so violently through the victim's body that it has been discovered pinned to the wall like an insect.

This lovely narrative tells the story of the soul of a quiet man who never hurt another human being, never complained even when he was hurt or humiliated by others, as it enters the Heavenly Court of Judgment. He has lived his entire life unnoticed, without heirs of possessions, and has been buried with no one to mourn his loss. But Heaven sees him much differently.

Holmes must recover a stolen document, prevent a diplomatic crisis between England and Italy, and save the career of a young and rising diplomat.

The Great Detective, by prominent Sherlock Holmes Society of London member Roger Johnson, offers the Holmesian another perspective on the beloved Canon. From a surrealist perspective, we find here a different and refreshing approach. We are transported to another time through the warmth of an English public house and immediately transfixed by the fascinating voices of those who contributed to the name Sherlock Holmes. This is a must listen for all those worshipers of the great detective.

In The Tangled Skein, author David Stuart Davies accomplishes a creative coup by arranging the fateful meeting of two of literature's most resilient characters: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Bram Stoker's Count Dracula.

You know how stuffy those English men's clubs are: "right sort of chap, and all that rot." Now imagine that the very worst sort of interloper forced his way into the exclusive club - a ghost who refuses to leave. And even worse, a ghost who was a failure in life and a failure in his haunting. David Ian Davies offers an enchanting one-man performance of this otherworldly tale.

Edgar Allan Poe's tale of Hop-Frog, the practical-joke-loving king's crippled dwarf servant, draws upon Poe's affinity for tales of vengeance and the horrific. The fat king and his seven ministers treat Hop-Frog and his female friend Trippetta, who is also a dwarf but beautifully proportioned, with disrespect whenever the king loses his temper. As long as the king and the likewise raucous seven are about their merriment and Hop-Frog joins them in their 'play', all is well. But beneath this lightness, the King has a dark and violent nature.