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Crime, Thrillers and Mystery — page 6
514 public-domain crime, thrillers and mystery books, summarised. Page 6 of 11.
Somewhere in France
Richard Harding Davis
A collection of tales defined by the shadow of the Great War, these stories capture the desperate intrigue, sudden transformations, and moral ambiguities of a world caught in the act of tearing itself apart.
The Great Prince Shan
E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
HOOK A sophisticated political thriller set in post-war London, where a noble lord must navigate a web of foreign intrigue and the magnetic, mysterious presence of an Eastern prince.
The Case of Summerfield
W. H. (William Henry) Rhodes
A man claims he can ignite the world’s oceans with a single vial of chemicals, forcing a desperate race to secure his lethal secret before humanity is consumed by fire.
The Indian Drum
William MacHarg
Across the stormy, ice-bound waters of Lake Michigan, an unseen drum marks every life lost to the waves, keeping count of a dark tally that one ambitious man will do anything to hide.
Under Three Flags: A Story of Mystery
Bert Leston Taylor
A small-town murder launches a globe-trotting chase, pulling a restless reporter and an ambitious detective into the dangerous currents of the Cuban War of Independence.
Master tales of mystery, Volume 1 (of 3)
Unknown
In high-stakes games of deception and mystery, the truth hides in unexpected corners and the most innocent observers often hold the master key.
Tracked by Wireless
William Le Queux
A young radio engineer uses his revolutionary listening apparatus to unmask a globe-trotting criminal syndicate step by step across interwar Europe.
The Arrow of Fire: A Mystery Story for Boys
Roy J. (Roy Judson) Snell
A dark night over Lake Michigan delivers a hardened young wanderer into his home city's underworld, where street crime and gunfire test his courage.
Guy Deverell, v. 2 of 2
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
A long-buried crime in an English manor house comes to light through the calculated moves of a vengeful guest and the unwitting return of an orphaned heir.
The Million Dollar Mystery: Novelized from the Scenario of F. Lonergan
Harold MacGrath
A secret society pursues a missing fortune while a missing heiress tries to stay alive.
That Mainwaring Affair
A. Maynard (Anna Maynard) Barbour
A wealthy stockbroker dies by bullet, his will vanishes overnight, and two distinct families claim his vast American estate.
The Gray Mask
Wadsworth Camp
The Gray Mask is a taut, atmospheric thriller set in the underbelly of early twentieth-century New York. It follows a young detective and his inspector’s daughter as they navigate a dangerous web of organized crime and industrial sabotage.
The Double Life
Gaston Leroux
A quiet, unremarkable citizen finds his life invaded by the violent, centuries-old consciousness of a notorious criminal. This haunting tale explores the terrifying fragility of the human soul when faced with the persistence of memory.
The House of Strange Secrets: A Detective Story
A. Eric Bayly
The tranquil English countryside becomes a trap for a young man who finds himself stalked by a shadowy, vengeful force from his father’s hidden past.
The man from the river
G. D. H. (George Douglas Howard) Cole
HOOK A quiet riverside town turns into a labyrinth of secrets when a man is found drowned, prompting a high-stakes investigation that uncovers layers of local resentment and hidden motives.
The Exploits of Juve: Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantômas" Detective Tales
Pierre Souvestre
A relentless detective and a daring journalist hunt a shapeshifting mastermind through the gaslit streets of Paris, where every identity is a lie and every shadow hides a trap.
Rattle of bones
Robert E. (Robert Ervin) Howard
A grim traveler, driven by a rigid moral code, finds himself trapped in a tavern where the line between natural evil and supernatural retribution dissolves into a night of terror.
The Wooden Hand: A Detective Story
Fergus Hume
A young woman discovers her father’s body in the desolate Red Deeps, triggering a dark investigation into a hidden past. This intricate mystery weaves together lost inheritances, stolen diamonds, and the long shadows of a family legacy.
The Mystery of Orcival
Emile Gaboriau
In a quiet village, two poachers stumble upon a grisly riverside murder, igniting a complex hunt for a killer hiding in plain sight behind a mask of aristocratic charm.
Time out for redheads
Miriam Allen De Ford
HOOK A lonely ticket-seller for a time-travel agency accidentally flees to the past after witnessing a gruesome murder, only to discover that the terrifying crime was not what it seemed.
A Creature of the Night: An Italian Enigma
Fergus Hume
A nameless Englishman visiting Verona finds himself drawn into a lethal web of ancient poisons, haunted palaces, and a woman who moves through the darkness as if it were her own element.
A Diplomatic Woman
Huan Mee
A woman of wit and cold, calculated poise navigates the treacherous, shifting alliances of European high society to outmaneuver the most dangerous spies in Paris.
A Thousand Francs Reward
Emile Gaboriau
The mystery of a missing merchant gives way to a sprawling portrait of the French military, captured in the mid-nineteenth century.
£19,000
Burford Delannoy
A desperate lawyer, a stolen fortune, and a cross-continental chase collide in this fast-paced Victorian mystery. Secrets, disguises, and a trap set beneath the floorboards drive the high-stakes hunt for nineteen thousand pounds.
Monsieur Lecoq, v. 2
Emile Gaboriau
Driven by political fury, secret shame, and relentless jealousy, two noble families and an army of conspirators tear themselves apart in post-Napoleonic France.
Kastle Krags: A Story of Mystery
Absalom Martin
A lonely manor on the Florida coast guards a secret far darker than its inhabitants realize. What begins as a retreat for wealthy sportsmen descends into a nightmare of disappearances and unexplained violence.
The Blue Lights: A Detective Story
Frederic Arnold Kummer
A seasoned detective and his intrepid wife are drawn into a high-stakes investigation when a wealthy banker’s son is abducted in Paris. The ensuing search hinges on a series of cryptic signals and a web of hidden identities.
The Red Lady
Katharine Newlin Burt
The haunting of a secluded North Carolina estate is not the work of spirits, but of a desperate, golden-red-haired woman who discovers that her own doppelgänger is pulling the strings of a deadly scheme.
Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870
Various
A weekly chronicle of 1870s New York, this periodical captures the pulse of the Gilded Age through a kaleidoscopic lens of biting satire, absurd fiction, and the relentless, colorful commerce of a city in full, noisy stride.
Stories of Tragedy
Unknown
*Stories of Tragedy* gathers classic tales that explore the thin, often invisible line between order and catastrophe. It is a collection that finds the profound within the terrifying, the mechanical, and the deeply human.
The Homicidal Diary
Earl Peirce
A brilliant criminologist finds his life unraveling when he discovers an ancient, cursed diary that compels him to reenact the gruesome murders of a long-dead predecessor.
The rat trap
William Le Queux
A restless, cosmopolitan traveler finds his elegant lifestyle at European resorts shadowed by a web of deception involving a beautiful woman, an eccentric older husband, and a series of high-stakes financial swindles.
The unseen ear
Natalie Sumner Lincoln
The quiet, domestic life of a young bride is shattered when a murder occurs within her own home, revealing that her seemingly peaceful household is a web of secrets, stolen bonds, and hidden identities.
The Disappearing Eye
Fergus Hume
A gentleman driver stumbles into a rural shop for petrol, finds a dead woman missing her glass eye, and finds himself accused of her murder.
Allworth Abbey
Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
A young woman accused of a heinous crime finds her life saved when a courageous friend risks everything to break her out of prison.
The Lost Parchment: A Detective Story
Fergus Hume
A quiet English village becomes a tangled web of greed and suspicion when a hidden parchment threatens a wealthy young squire’s fortune, leading directly to a midnight murder.
'Farewell, Nikola'
Guy Boothby
The shadows of Venice stretch long and deep in this tale, where a charismatic, dangerous occultist commands the fates of those foolish enough to cross his path. Secrets of the past collide with the anxieties of the present in a city built on water and hidden horrors.
Ashton-Kirk, Secret Agent
John T. (John Thomas) McIntyre
A brilliant, unconventional private investigator navigates a web of international espionage and murder to recover a missing state secret hidden in a plain, domestic setting.
The 'Phone Booth Mystery
John Ironside
A young secretary’s wedding eve is shattered by the murder of his employer’s wife and the theft of state documents, casting him into a web of circumstantial evidence that threatens his freedom and his future.
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.
Number Seventeen
Louis Tracy
A rainy night in London sparks a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse between a young journalist and a shadow organization of criminal fanatics.
The silver blade: The true chronicle of a double mystery
Charles Edmonds Walk
When a Mexican national is stabbed to death with a physician’s paper-knife in a locked suite of offices, a quiet Southern family finds itself ensnared in a web of murder, missing papers, and long-buried greed.
The hellflower
George O. (George Oliver) Smith
HOOK A disgraced pilot takes on a dangerous mission to infiltrate a clandestine drug ring, only to discover that the enemy’s reach extends far beyond human borders.
The Mysteries of Paris, illustrated with etchings, Vol. 6
Eugène Sue
Beneath the glittering facade of nineteenth-century Paris lies a desperate, hidden world of misery, where a powerful prince descends into the shadows to serve as an unseen hand of justice and redemption.
At War with Society
James M'Levy
The shadows of mid-nineteenth-century Edinburgh hold more than just grime; they contain a relentless, unspoken war between a seasoned detective and the criminal class he observes with both grit and surprising empathy.
Dead Men's Money
J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
The quiet life of a clerk in Berwick-upon-Tweed is shattered when a series of mysterious strangers and a brutal murder pull him into a lethal, international web of deception and greed.
The Babbington case
Nicholas (House name) Carter
The master detective faces his most elusive adversary yet, unmasking a conspiracy of impersonation, murder, and sudden, desperate transformations of heart. In this high-stakes game of shadows, the truth proves as treacherous as the villains.
The clue of the silver key
Edgar Wallace
A master of disguise and a relentless detective clash in a high-stakes hunt through the fog-drenched streets of 1930s London. This is a classic cat-and-mouse mystery defined by rapid pacing and a series of lethal surprises.