Showing results by narrator "Steve Hendrickson" in All Categories

Steeped in the mystery and history of nineteenth-century St. Paul, these interlocking detective stories feature the characters—and the local character—that have made the Shadwell Rafferty series irresistible. Spellbinding as ever, these stories also afford the curious pleasure of watching Rafferty find his footing on his way to becoming the consummate detective whose exploits have delighted readers again and again.

In the summer of 1994, a workman at the historic mansion of railroad baron James J. Hill in St. Paul, Minnesota, stumbles on a long-hidden wall safe. When experts arrive to open the safe and examine its contents, they make an astonishing discovery. There, inside, is a handwritten manuscript bearing the signature of John H. Watson, MD. The manuscript contains the story of how Sherlock Holmes and Watson traveled to Minnesota to track a murderous arsonist - known only as the Red Demon - who is threatening both Hill and his Great Northern Railway.

Archibald is a risk-averse boy with quirks that earn him plenty of eye-rolls, especially from his older sister, Hailee. Things get worse when his parents move the family from London to his grandmother’s creepy manor in the English countryside. Now he has to deal with hairless dolls in the library, weird stone creatures on the roof, and a spooky forest at the edge of the backyard. But these turn out to be the least of Archibald's problems.

This is a new edition of Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic mystery, The Hound of the Baskervilles. It’s the same story. Mostly. That is, it contains the same characters, the same action, and much of the same dialogue. What’s different? Well, it’s a little shorter, a little leaner, a little less verbose in some sections. But the chief difference is that it’s now narrated by a dog. A greyhound, in fact, named Septimus. In this new edition, he tells his story of how he became “The Greyhound of the Baskervilles.”

The year is 1896, and the magnificent winter carnival is under way in St. Paul, Minnesota, when Holmes and Watson are summoned by the city's most powerful man, railroad magnate James J. Hill. A wealthy young man has disappeared on the eve of his wedding - and his fiancée suspiciously discards her wedding dress. After a grisly discovery in the carnival's ice palace leads to a flurry of clues, Holmes is on the case.

In a world seemingly set up for distraction, life can often feel like it’s dividing you not only from others but also from yourself. Yet even within the cacophony of life, deep down you can intuit your own soul, that part of you that knows you better than you know yourself, and that offers direction and moments of solace, even amid uncertainty.

St. Paul, Minnesota. October 1, 1917. High above the city, a renowned local financier named Artemis Dodge lies facedown on the floor of his armored penthouse sanctuary, a single bullet hole in his head. Thirty stories up, in the city’s tallest building, and not a shred of evidence or sign pointing to anyone having broken into the wealthy man’s fortress. It is - to all appearances - an impossible crime.

Dogged by depression, doubt, and - as a trip to the Mayo Clinic has revealed - emphysema, 66-year-old Sherlock Holmes is preparing to return to England when he receives a shock: a note slipped under his hotel room door, from a vicious murderer he'd nearly captured in Munich in 1892. The murderer, known as the Monster of Munich, announces that he has relocated to Eisendorf, a tiny village near the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

A letter, written in a secret cipher he recognizes all too well, reveals that an old foe of Holmes - a murderer he once captured after an incredible duel of wits - is back, has kidnapped his previous victim’s widow, and is now impersonating Holmes himself. Holmes must once again match wits with a particularly cunning adversary, one whose hatred of Holmes has seemingly become the killer’s single greatest obsession.

Sherlock Holmes is bored between cases at 221B Baker Street. So when King Oskar II of Sweden - who has heard of the discovery of the Kensington Runestone by a farmer in Minnesota - asks to engage his services, Holmes jumps at the chance to decipher the runes and determine whether the find is real or a hoax. With Dr. John H. Watson by his side, faithfully recording every detail, Holmes makes his way to Minnesota for a third time.

As the city of Minneapolis prepares for a visit from President William McKinley, someone else prepares for murder. On the day before the visit, a union activist is found hanged, naked, outside a ruined mansion. A placard around his neck reads "THE SECRET ALLIANCE HAS SPOKEN." Who is the alliance? What does it want? How was the victim involved with the city's corrupt mayor? And why did he possess a photograph of a prominent citizen in a compromising position?

When a copycat serial killer begins recreating Jack the Ripper’s 1888 murder spree, two competing experts are forced to work together to stop him. Despite their well-documented antagonism, famous mystery novelist Barbara Thomas is paired with legendary Ripperologist Henry McHugh as they race against time to try to get one step ahead of the crazed killer. What they don’t understand - until it’s almost too late - is that his murderous spree is far more personal than either of them ever suspected.

Like many mysteries, this one begins with a murder. But in this case, the victim happens to be the detective, on the verge of revealing the culprit in an earlier crime. Had Shadwell Rafferty identified his own murderer? When news of Rafferty’s death reaches Sherlock Holmes, in Chicago on the last leg of an American speaking tour, the world’s most famous detective and his redoubtable companion Watson rush to Minnesota to hunt for their friend’s killer.

What causes people to forsake their country and take arms against it? What prompts their neighbors, hardly distinguishable in station or success, to defend that country against the rebels?  That is the question H. W. Brands answers in his powerful new history of the American Revolution.

For The Penguin Book of Murder Mysteries, writer and anthologist Michael Sims did not summon the usual suspects. He sought the unfamiliar, the unjustly forgotten, and little-known gems by writers from outside the genre. This historical tour of one of our most popular literary categories includes stories never before reprinted, features rebellious early “lady detectives," and spotlights former stars of the crime field—Austrian novelist Auguste Groner and prolific American Geraldine Bonner among them.

Colonel Thomas Hoyer Monstery was a master swordsman who participated in more than fifty duels, fought under twelve flags, battled gangsters, and was constantly involved in the great conflicts and upheavals of his time. In the 1870s, he began writing his magnum opus - a series of newspaper articles that are now collected here for the first time in Self-Defense for Gentleman and Ladies.

Archibald is a changed boy. He stands up to bullies and hangs out with the gargoyles that used to scare him. But for all his new toughness, he’s also a lost boy who misses his friends in Lemurea. When strange footprints are discovered on the manor grounds, he realizes a piece of that world has followed him home. Without golems, witches, or magic, Archibald knows there’s little to stop what’s prowling the London suburbs, which means he’ll have to return to Lemurea to seek Faerydae’s help.

With the unforgettable opening words “Marley was dead, to begin with...” Charles Dickens kindled not just the modern celebration of the Yuletide but also rekindled the tradition of gathering ‘round the fire on Christmas Eve to tell ghost stories. Here are a few of my favorites - some light, some somber, some extra scary, beginning with a solo adaptation of A Christmas Carol.

Murderers is a trio of three monologues by acclaimed playwright and screenwriter Jeffrey Hatcher. Each monologue is a confession of murder. The murders all take place on the same night on the premises of Riddle Key, a fictitious senior retirement center in Sarasota, Florida.

Three legendary fighter pilots from the Pacific War—all recipients of the Medal of Honor—tell their own stories in this remarkable collection.