Showing results by narrator "Stephen Thorne" in All Categories

The 13 mysteries in this collection were originally published in The Strand Magazine and Collier's in Great Britain and the United States. Published in 1905, this book was the first Holmes collection since 1893, when Holmes died in a confrontation with his arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty in "The Final Problem". The success of The Hound of the Baskervilles, which was published in 1901-1902 and is set before Holmes's death, created great pressure on Doyle to revive his famous character.

Watson and Holmes are engaged by the prime minister and the European secretary to help recover a sensitive stolen political document. Tracking the document to a recently murdered spy, Holmes realizes that the European secretary’s wife actually has the letter. The questions immediately pile up in this tale of international intrigue, blackmail, and double-dealing.

Sherlock Holmes and Watson are asked to assist on a home invasion and murder case. A woman reports that a gang of men broke into her home, killed her husband, tied her up, and stole the family silver. Though it seems like a clear-cut case of robbery gone wrong, Holmes' gut tells him otherwise. But what motive lies behind this erstwhile victim’s story?

A young rugby player asks Holmes and Watson for help finding his missing teammate before a big game. The client explains that his missing teammate disappeared with an older man after sending a mysterious telegram. Holmes and Watson, using forensic techniques on the telegram, track the missing player to a nearby town. After being stonewalled by the doctor of the missing player, Holmes finally finds him with the help of a tracking dog. Then Holmes and Watson learn the shocking secret of the man’s disappearance.

A young man working as the assistant to a professor has been murdered. While it appears that anyone could have entered the house and committed the murder, a clue in the form of a pair of gold glasses is found near the body. Working on the assumption that the killer wore the glasses as well as several other clues, Holmes comes to the chilling realization that the murderer is still in the house.

Sherlock Holmes and Watson, on a research trip in a university town, are approached by a professor. The professor believes someone has entered his office and seen, and perhaps copied, the examination papers he is to administer the next day. Holmes begins by narrowing down the suspects to three students who live nearby. After studying several innocuous pieces of evidence, he believes he has identified the culprit. All that remains is to elicit the confession.

Someone is destroying small busts of Napoleon Bonaparte. At first merely a nuisance, vandalism quickly turns to murder after one of the statue owners finds a dead man on his doorstep beside a smashed statue. Reasoning his way back to the source of the statues, Holmes determines that there is more to this case than just antipathy toward the great French leader. Can Holmes and Watson solve the mystery before the bust buster strikes again?

Sherlock Holmes is hired by a lady who is being harassed by Milverton, a notorious blackmailer who has ruined many people and caused much grief. Though he is determined to stop him, Milverton is very crafty, and Holmes is unable to find the evidence necessary to put him away. Finally, Holmes and Watson decide on a daring plan to retrieve their client’s incriminating letters. While there, they witness a crime that forces Holmes and Watson to make a momentous choice.

A young woman explains to Holmes that an unknown man has been following her by bicycle on her weekly trips from the house where she works to the railroad station. Having met two friends of her recently deceased uncle, one of the men, Carruthers, hires her as a governess and later proposes to her. The young woman, being already engaged, declines. The other man, Woodley, disturbs her with rude behavior and romantic advances. Holmes connects the clues and arrives in time to solve the mystery of the unknown cyclist and to save Smith after she is kidnapped by Woodley.

A Norfolk country squire from a reputable family hires Holmes to help him learn who has been sending him weird encoded messages, in the form of dancing stick figures, that are disturbing his wife. Upon collecting enough of the messages, Holmes cracks the code. He returns to Norfolk to present his findings only to find that his client has been met with tragedy. Using forensic science and his inimitable powers of deduction, Holmes is able to assist the Norfolk authorities and identify the criminal.

A young lawyer asks Holmes to clear him of the charge of murdering a rich man soon after preparing the man’s will. Inspector Lestrade is convinced of the young attorney’s guilt and believes he has finally bested Holmes, but by the use of forensic science and a bogus house fire, Holmes is able to exonerate the young lawyer while proving he was set up.

Thirty-five years after the publication of Ronald Blythe's classic portrait of an English village, Akenfield, Craig Taylor returned to the Suffolk village on which the book was based. He sought out locals who appeared in the original book to learn how their lives had changed, met newcomers, and interviewed Ronald Blythe himself.

Atlanta hovers on the edge of chaos and pandemonium as rumors fly about supernatural beings living among humans. Deadly preternatural predators have been held in check for many years by the most formidable pantheons. One angry being has had enough and accesses majik of an ancient grimoire to release abominations capable of taking down the most powerful of humanity’s supernatural protectors.  

At the age of 53, Tony walks away from a life of journalism and into an unknown future dogged by self-doubt and financial worry. June is 48 years old then, a writer and a teacher, and over the following nine years she watches as her husband gradually changes - in interests, goals, and behavior - until Tony has a sudden fall, ending their life as they have known it.

A vivid and enlightening oral history of homelessness in the Las Vegas storm drains and the hard work of reentering mainstream society. Dark Days, Bright Nights is the follow-up to the best-selling Beneath the Neon and shares the harrowing stories of Sin City's most marginalized people, from bottoming out in homelessness to mending relationships with family and adjusting to jobs, housing, and sobriety. 

Higher education has seen better days. Harsh budget cuts, the precarious nature of employment in college teaching, and political hostility to the entire enterprise of education have made for an increasingly fraught landscape. Radical Hope is an ambitious response to this state of affairs, at once political and practical - the work of an activist, teacher, and public intellectual grappling with some of the most pressing topics at the intersection of higher education and social justice.

Horned gods have influenced the development of many magical traditions. This book explores the deep spiritual and historical roots of these gods, and shares rituals and activities designed to help you get closer to them. From Ancient Greece to the Renaissance, to the contemporary age of witchcraft and ritual magick, horned deities have been honored as gods of nature, sex, fertility, passion, sacrifice, death, and rebirth. The Horned God of the Witches reveals the origins and features of their most common guises.

In TÅμr Medb’s library, Casidhe discovers she doesn’t know Daegan at all. While Daegan battles to survive a satyr attack, a preternatural being offers him a chance to live, but at a price only a dying man would take. Reese is blindsided by the one person she thought she could depend upon at her worst moment. Atlanta is overrun by demons being created by an unknown supernatural with a hidden agenda, and Daegan’s time to save three Beladors facing execution by a VIPER Tribunal runs out.

Trapped waist-deep in a flooded tunnel, Casidhe faces a new threat when Cathbad finds her, forcing her to gamble with her unpredictable sword. After Skarde attacked the gryphon village, a furious Daegan is no longer willing to show mercy to ice dragon shifters. Quinn, Reese, and the Beladors go after the demon-maker flooding Atlanta with predators, which backfires when Reese is faced with an unimaginable choice. Adrianna tries to work with Sen to escape their imprisonment, but he snubs her offer a moment before he shouldn’t have. 

Faced with losing the only grimoire volume Daegan has or turning his back on Casidhe, he makes a surprising choice. Time is literally running out of an hourglass for Casidhe to prove her value to Queen Maeve or face never leaving TÅμr Medb, but to hand the crazy queen a grimoire volume would destroy humans and nonhumans. Reese finds a place to stay away from those she cares for in Atlanta while hunting the origin of demons flooding the city, but she’s not as adept at hiding as she thinks.