While most of the Golden Age mysteries are not in the Public Domain,
there is a lot of quality material, from Poe and Doyle through Edgar
Wallace and very early Agatha Christie. If you are a mystery fan, I
have begun an organized site of
Librivox Mysteries.
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Novels |
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The Bat by Mary Roberts
Rinehart. This is the novelization of a mystery play that ran for over 800 shows on Broadway, and
has been made into 3 movies. (I recorded this as a solo project.) |
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Fantomas by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre. The first of the long running French pulp series,
Fantomas was the darling of the French avant garde in the pre World War I period.
(I recorded this as a solo project.) |
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The Exploits of Juve by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre. The
second Fantomas novel. (I recorded this as a solo project.) |
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Armadale by Wilkie Collins. A
long, involved mystery involving two characters named Allan Armadale. Collins is best known for
The Moonstone and the The Woman in White, but Armadale is also a quality story.
This is a very long novel. I recorded nine of the sections. |
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Short Stories |
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The Blue Sequin by R. Austin
Freeman. This is one of the Dr. Thorndyke mysteries. Freeman was an important figure in early 20th
century mystery writing. |
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The
Missing Mortgagee by R. Austin Freeman. Freeman invented what is
known as the "inverted mystery", for which all Columbo fans
should be happy! Another Thorndyke mystery. |
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The Black Bag Left on a Doorstep
by C. L. Pirkis. Pirkis created one of the first female detectives, Loveday Brooke, in the 1890s.
Brooke was intelligent and also used her ability to penetrate areas of households, where males might have
difficulty entering, to solve crimes. |
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The Redhill Sisterhood by C. L. Pirkis. Another Loveday Brooke
mystery. |
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The Red-Headed League by
Arthur Conan Doyle. One of my favorite Holmes stories, emphasizing Holmes' ability to deduce a serious
crime from minor oddities. |
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The Riddle of the 5:28 by
Thomas W. Hanshew. A Hamilton Cleek "impossible crime" mystery from the early 20th century. |
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The B-Flat Trombone by
Samuel Hopkins Adams. The first Average Jones, from 1911. It establishes the basis for the series,
since my son plays the trombone, this was a title I couldn't pass up. |
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The Problem of the Crystal-Gazer
by Jacques Futrelle. One of the Thinking Machine stories. A solid, if unexceptional story. |
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I recorded two de Maupassant stories, Ghosts and Fear for this collection:
Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 4. |
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The
Green-Stone God and the Stockbroker
by Fergus Hume. |