Rare Books

Castle Skull

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Description: The great magician, Maleger, has bought Schloss Schädel (Castle Skull) on the Rhine and has transformed it into a fitting abode for his stage persona, replete with all the trappings of gothic romance. When a man is seen atop the battlements, running aflame and then plunging to his doom, the calamitous reputation of the Castle seems to have become reality. And when Maleger himself is found drowned in the great river, Inspector Bencolin is sent to investigate how the magician was killed, within an apparently sealed room, with only a small group of suspects on the ill-fated fortress at the time.
Type: Rare Books(Opens in new tab)
Publication date: 1931.
Call number: 660810
Creator: Carr, John Dickson (1906-1977)(Opens in new tab)

Poison in jest

Rare Books

When Jeff Marle returns home to Pennsylvania for the first time in years, he visits his old friends the Quayles. But the respectable family isn’t as he remembered them – he’s shocked by the tattered state of both the house and the Quayles’ nerves. Patriarch Judge Quayle is poisoned right in front of Jeff and nearly dies, and this near-tragedy is followed by another poisoning, and then a more brutal attack. Without the help of his friend Bencolin, will Jeff manage to find the killer? Or is he fated to become a serial Watson – and if so, who will play the role of detective?

660811

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It walks by night

Rare Books

Inspector Bencolin must unravel a dumbfounding locked-room mystery and apprehend a sadistic killer. In the smoke-wreathed gloom of a Parisian salon, Bencolin has summoned his allies to discuss a peculiar case. A would-be murderer imprisoned for attempting to kill his wife has escaped and is known to have visited a plastic surgeon. Bencolin predicts his return, and his worst suspicions are realized when the beheaded body of the wife's new suitor is discovered in a locked room just feet away.

660808

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The Arabian nights murder

Rare Books

When Scotland Yard detective John Carruthers attends the Wade Museum of Oriental Art, and begins to investigate the interior of one of a series of carriages on exhibit, he is sarcastically told by the night watchman "Watch out when you touch it! There's a dead man inside!" Of course, a dead man tumbles out. The corpse has been stabbed with an elaborate Persian dagger, is wearing an obvious set of false whiskers, and is clutching a cookbook. Gideon Fell must investigate the death and explain all the bizarre circumstances of what was a very busy night at the museum.

660805

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He who whispers : a Dr. Fell mystery story

Rare Books

When Miles Hammond is invited to a meeting of the Murder Club in London, he is met instead with just two other guests and is treated to a strange tale of an impossible crime in France from years before-the murder of a man on a tower with only one staircase, under watch at the time the murder took place. With theories of levitating vampires abounding, the story comes home to Miles when he realizes that the librarian he has just hired for his home is none other than Fay Seton, a woman whose name still echoes from the heart of this bizarre and unsolved murder of the past.

660817

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Death turns the tables

Rare Books

Mr. Justice Ireton believes that, when presented with circumstantial evidence about a crime, he can unerringly penetrate to the truth. He also believes that he can pay off handsome Anthony Morrell to break off his engagement with the judge's daughter Constance, in the hopes that Constance will marry the judge's assistant Fred Barlow. However, there are a few problems that will stand in the way of that arrangement; notably, that the judge is broke and Tony Morrell cannot be bought off, although he is known to enjoy exacting revenge for slights both real and imagined. When Morrell is found dead in the Iretons' seaside cottage, a great deal of circumstantial evidence points to the judge, who cannot think of how to divert suspicion.

660818

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Scandal at High Chimneys : a Victorian melodrama

Rare Books

In 1865, novelist Clive Strickland is relaxing at his club when his friend Victor Damon comes to him in a panic, begging Clive to help him marry off his sister to a cash-poor marquis whose affections reek of gold-digging. Victor doesn't care. Something sinister lurks at High Chimneys and he wants his sisters out of the house before their lives are put in danger. Old Matthew Damon, their father, has long been dogged by scandalous rumors of solitary visits to the cells of women about to be hanged for murder. But when murder is done at High Chimneys, Strickland and private investigator Jonathan Whicher will have to sort out the rumors and look behind the discreetly drawn curtains of High Chimneys for a killer.

660786

Castle Skull

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Poison in jest

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He who whispers : a Dr. Fell mystery story

Death turns the tables

Scandal at High Chimneys : a Victorian melodrama