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Crime, Thrillers and Mystery — page 12
550 public-domain crime, thrillers and mystery books, summarised. Page 12 of 12.

Space-Trap at Banya Tor
W. J. (William J.) Matthews
A daring, disgraced Martian hero is sent to bait a trap for a legendary space pirate, only to discover that the most dangerous outlaws are those who hold the highest offices in the government.

The barge of haunted lives
J. Aubrey (John Aubrey) Tyson
A mysterious host gathers a group of haunted individuals on a secluded barge, where each must recount their connection to a cursed Indian treasure to reveal the truth of their intertwined lives.

I, gardener
Allen Kim Lang
The story follows a television producer who travels to a Boston hilltop to recruit a prolific, eccentric scientist for his program. He soon discovers that the scientist’s life, and his garden, are governed by a devastating, hidden truth.

Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches
George Paul Goff
A collection of Victorian-era sketches, this work blends cautionary moral tales with atmospheric travel writing and regional folklore, offering a window into the sentimental and rugged spirit of late 19th-century American life.

Hot Music
Vic (Victor Sargent) Whitman
The mystery of two high-stakes jewelry thefts unravels during the golden age of radio, as a police broadcaster steps away from his microphone to prove his investigative worth. Driven by the hope of settling down with his sweetheart, an unconventional detective tracks a criminal whose motive is as bizarre as his…

Repeat Performance
Rog Phillips
Can a man evade his own death when the future is already written? This tense narrative follows a petty thief who finds himself caught in a recursive trap of murder, time travel, and identity theft.

Peter Merton's private mint
Harlan Ellison
A young executive discovers he can trade mundane historical documents for future-era wealth, but the consequences of playing with time prove far more complicated and chaotic than he ever imagined.

Over the Wire
Eugene Jones
A lonely telegrapher, trapped by a blizzard, battles phantom whispers and a lethal trap as he fights to save the approaching Cumberland Limited from a planned wreck.

Remember the 4th!
Noel M. Loomis
Two struggling private investigators invent a device that reveals the past, but the power to uncover every hidden truth forces them to choose between their own prosperity and the sanctity of human privacy.

The fifteen cells
Stuart Martin
An ingenious prison governor holds a dangerous nocturnal visitor at bay by recounting fourteen intricate criminal histories, proving that every lawbreaker ultimately falls through a fatal, self-created flaw.

The taking of Cloudy McGee
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
HOOK A bungling bank cashier and his scheming lawyer hire a notorious outlaw to fake a robbery, only to find themselves entangled in a web of mistaken identities, false accusations, and a very unexpected oil discovery.

An account of the Death of Philip Jolin: who was executed for the murder of his father, in the Island of Jersey, October 3, 1829
Francis Cunningham
An intoxicated sailor slays his brutal father over a garden pear in Jersey, plunging from a sealed spiritual state into scaffold repentance under a prison chaplain's watchful gaze.

The Long Arm
Franz Nabl
A man returns to his hometown after decades away, only to be trapped in a terrifying conversation with an old acquaintance who confesses to murdering people through a horrific, supernatural reach.

A Husband by Proxy
Jack Steele
A newly arrived criminologist plunges into a web of inheritance fraud, secret marriages, and lethal poison, assuming the dangerous role of a proxy husband to protect an elusive heiress.

The Revealing Pattern
Alvin Heiner
The Reamer mansion has long been whispered to be a place of death, a site where misfortune clings to the floorboards. But is the house truly cursed, or are the fates of those who enter it merely the logical sum of their own previous choices?

The Cuckoo Clock
Wesley Barefoot
The tragedy of a home haunted by loss becomes a chilling encounter with the impossible when a grieving father realizes his surviving foster daughter may not be human.

The Medici Boots
Pearl Norton Swet
A pair of ornate, cursed boots inherited by an unsuspecting young woman transform her into a murderous vessel for a fifteenth-century spirit, threatening to destroy her and all who love her.

Peachmonk
John Eyerman
A society debutante receives a mysterious red lily, setting off an outrageous string of noble secrets, absurd abductions, and high-society intrigue across Edwardian London.

The hollow lens
Henry Leverage
HOOK A master safe-cracker is lured into a high-stakes heist by a mysterious woman, only to find his criminal expertise outmaneuvered by a game of wits he didn’t know he was playing.

A Queen's Error
Henry Curties
A quiet, mysterious meeting in the rain-slicked streets of Bath triggers a globe-spanning race to protect a royal secret from ruthless conspirators.

The Dean's Watch
Erckmann-Chatrian
This atmospheric tale follows two traveling musicians who, upon arriving in Heidelberg during a winter of terror, find themselves at the center of a local murder mystery. It is a compact, suspenseful narrative that blends folklore-style dread with the grit of a police procedural.

The Last Straw
William J. Smith
The final, invisible thread of a disaster is often woven from the smallest, most personal misfortunes.