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

The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place: Evidence of murder, ransacked ancient mummies, giving away a beloved dog, and a horse race upon which a man's life and future depend are just four of the elements of this Holmes story, making it one of the most memorable (and chilling) cases in the Sherlockian Canon.

So often associated with science fiction and stories of the supernatural, H. G. Wells also had a flair for the comedic and the absurd. His short story "Mr. Brisher's Treasure" delights with a title character given to broad, slapstick behavior and mannerisms that could make one nearly drop their book chuckling. The treasure trove he discovers in the most unlikely of places leads to impromptu plotting to take possession of it right under the noses of others.

In a sleepy, coastal, New England town, three men decide to rob and, if need be, torture a very old sea captain to learn where he keeps his wealth - a man who is so old no one ever remembers him being young; a man who pays for his purchases not with dollars but with ancient gold and silver coins minted over two centuries ago; a man who speaks to spirits in bottles; a man who may not be a man at all.

A doctor hires out to a whaling vessel bound for the Arctic, where the ship becomes icebound. Strange moanings are soon heard on the Polar wind, and ghostly apparitions appear out on the ice. The ship's senior officers are convinced they have something to do with the captain's mysterious past, but who can say for sure, since he appears to be slowly going insane?

The novel tells the story of impoverished, embarrassment-prone Archibald "Archie" Moffam and his difficult relationship with his art-collecting, hotel-owning, millionaire father-in-law, Daniel Brewster, who is the father of Archie's new bride, Lucille. Archie's attempts to ingratiate himself with Brewster only get him further into trouble.

It's a macabre piece, done in the style of the Black Museum, about the life of the infamous killer, Hawley Harvey Crippen

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.

A visitor to Wisteria Lodge awakens one morning to discover everyone else has vanished.

Hydraulic engineer Victor Hatherley arrives at 221-B in a state of hysteria, his thumb grossly amputated from his left hand. The Baker Street duo's foray into the case leads to characters and machinations even stranger and more threatening than the case's grotesque genesis.

A banker accepts a priceless British artifact as collateral for a loan and it is promptly stolen from his home's safe. Circumstances point to the banker's son, who bitterly denies taking it. Holmes allows his investigation to follow the trail of evidence, come what may.

The groom loses his bride 10 minutes after the wedding and Holmes must find her.

The fifth story from Doyle's Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes ( The Strand magazine, 1893) reveals the roots of the detective's foray into criminology and his very first case as a young college student, when the death of his school chum's father unearths a terrible, tragic series of events upon the high seas, of plotting and murder, of betrayal - and the man's long-hidden secrets of another life.

The Red-Headed League - Holmes and Doyle pull out all the stops for this classic Conan Doyle story. Of all the many excellent tales in life of Sherlock Holmes this must rate amongst the most perplexing of them all. Why would a pawnbroker have to copy out in long-hand the complete Encyclopedia Britannica, word for word, and what bearing can the knees of a man's trousers have on the case?

E. F. Benson's ghost story In The Tube is posited as an exposition of a vast metaphysical question that we as human beings cannot understand. Our suppositions of time and space are taken to task. This is fiction with historical significance.

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.

The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is one of eight stories in the cycle collected as His Last Bow, and is the second and final appearance of Mycroft Holmes. Doyle ranked The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans 14th in a list of his 19 favorite Sherlock Holmes stories.

When Pyecroft, an obese man who cannot stop eating, becomes a member at the club H.G. belongs to, his corpulence becomes a disturbance and a distraction. Soon, Pyecroft gets wind of the fact that H.G. has some mystical weight loss remedies given to him by his grandmother, and he begs H.G. to let him have one.

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.

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in Graham's Magazine in 1841. It has been claimed as the first detective story; Poe referred to it as one of his "tales of ratiocination".

While still grieving over his great friend's death, Watson is stunned, relieved and joyful when Holmes suddenly appears and reveals that he has escaped an untimely end in that fatal struggle with his mortal enemy, Moriarty, at Reichenbach Falls. The criminal underworld suspects this, says Holmes, and Watson is drawn anew into Holmes's plot to deceive his enemies and foil a probable attempt upon his life.