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Crime, Thrillers and Mystery — page 7
333 public-domain crime, thrillers and mystery books, summarised. Page 7 of 7.
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.
The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan, or: the Headless Horror
Unknown
A pregnant young woman vanishes from her Indiana home, only to be found beheaded in a Kentucky orchard, igniting a sensational, coast-to-coast nineteenth-century murder investigation.
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.
Ham Sandwich
James H. Schmitz
This brisk, clever tale follows a police detective infiltrating a fraudulent psychic institute to dismantle a sophisticated confidence scheme. It explores the blurred lines between genuine latent power and the manipulative power of suggestion.
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.
Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870
Various
This seventeenth issue of a late-Victorian satirical weekly captures the frantic, witty, and often biting spirit of Gilded Age New York. It functions as both a literary laboratory and a sharp-eyed mirror held up to the political and social absurdities of 1870.
The House in the Mist
Anna Katharine Green
The mist-choked atmosphere of a secluded, ominous mansion sets the stage for this gripping tale of inheritance, greed, and hidden identities. A young traveler stumbles into a gathering of desperate relatives, only to find himself caught in a web of dark family secrets and a long-deferred reckoning.
Heist Job on Thizar
Randall Garrett
The galaxy’s most daring jewel thieves are not merely interested in wealth; they thrive on the sophisticated, high-stakes game of outsmarting an enemy who believes they are already one step ahead.
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.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 152, February 21, 1917
Various
A singular window into the anxieties, absurdities, and grim endurance of British home life during the deep winter of the Great War.
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 Case of the Registered Letter
Auguste Groner
A disgraced man uses his own suicide to frame a rigid engineering executive for murder, leaving an unassuming Viennese detective to untangle a dark plot of judicial pride and delayed vengeance.
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.
Nor Iron Bars a Cage
Randall Garrett
HOOK A seasoned New York detective manages a secret, borderline-magical psychiatric program to neutralize repeat offenders, only to discover that the "cure" he oversees hides a deeply personal and tragic burden.
Strange Alliance
Bryce Walton
A psychology professor and his student discover they share an ancestral, supernatural inheritance that transcends their academic rationalism. They flee a provincial town, only to face a final confrontation with the superstitions they both loathe and embody.
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.
Jim Hanvey, detective
Octavus Roy Cohen
HOOK A massive, slow-moving detective with fish-like eyes outwits the most sophisticated criminals not through force, but through a patient, disarming, and relentless psychological game.
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.
Oscar the Detective
Old Sleuth
A master of the quick change and the sharp observation, a gentleman detective navigates the seedy underbelly of New York to untangle a web of international theft and hidden lineage.
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.
The haunter of the ring
Robert E. (Robert Ervin) Howard
A lingering curse from a past life threatens a young couple, until a man with a dark history intervenes to confront the occult architect of their misery.
The Mandarin's Fan
Fergus Hume
A crumbling estate, a missing Chinese fan, and a string of suspicious deaths pull a young man into a dangerous game of greed and hidden history.
Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 23, September 3, 1870
Various
This nineteenth-century periodical offers a sharp, satirical window into the post-Civil War American zeitgeist. It blends biting social commentary with irreverent literary parody, capturing a nation obsessed with industrial progress, scandalous news, and moral posturing.
The Great Taxicab Robbery: A True Detective Story
James H. (James Hiram) Collins
In the heart of a bustling, modernizing New York, a brazen daylight robbery of a taxicab leaves the city in a panic and the police under fire. This true account follows the methodical, often psychological, hunt to reclaim $25,000 and restore public faith in the law.
The Lone Wolf Returns
Louis Joseph Vance
A man who has finally traded his life as a notorious jewel thief for the peace of domestic love finds his past forcibly exhumed by a blackmailing criminal syndicate.
The Pink Shop
Fergus Hume
A young woman’s quest for justice following her mother’s murder leads her into a labyrinth of secrets involving her wealthy father, a mysterious shop, and a determined investigator.
Two Wonderful Detectives
Old Sleuth
A retired banker entrusts a stranger’s fortune to a detective, launching a decades-spanning search to identify the rightful heir before the money is lost to time. This mystery unfolds through the keen instincts of Jack Alvarez, a master of disguise and deduction.
Midnight In Beauchamp Row: 1895
Anna Katharine Green
The isolation of a winter storm provides the backdrop for a chilling confrontation between a young bride, a mysterious intruder, and a secret that threatens to destroy everything. A single night of terror unravels the foundations of a marriage, revealing the dark lengths to which one man will go to secure a fortune.
Rayton: A Backwoods Mystery
Theodore Goodridge Roberts
An outsider's playful introduction of low-stakes card games to a wilderness settlement unwittingly sets off a chain of dark superstitious dread, hidden rivalries, and unhinged vengeance.
Zero Data
Charles Saphro
Lonnie Raichi stole the world’s greatest treasures behind an invisible suit, but forgot that light never lies to a cop who understands physics.