Professor Mandrake Smith would be unrecognisable to his former colleagues now, but the shambling, drink-addled former Professor of Anthropology at Oxford is now barely surviving in Morecambe. Here he has many things to forget, although some don't want to forget him. Plagued by the nightmares of his past, both in Oxford and Papua New Guinea, he finds himself dragged into a morass of supernatural activity centered around the deposition of filleted corpses in the ancient rock-cut graves at St....
Richardson had several guided tours that he alternated throughout the week. His favourite was a trip around the Old City, visiting several of the locations where over the years, apparitions had, allegedly, been seen. He would then lead his group into the tunnels and the catacombs beneath street level—into the so-called Undercity; a labyrinthine warren of vaulted, coarse-brick, underground chambers that dated back hundreds of years. In this dark subterranean environment, the poor had lived a...
It was in a litter-strewn back alley in downtown Chicago that Private Investigator Jack Murphy first saw the poster: «THE SORCERY OF CHUNG-FU, An Evening of Oriental Magic and Mystery.» Below the image of Chung-Fu were a series of alarming drawings: a scantily-clad woman shown in mid-scream, strapped to a rack as a pendulum blade swung low; a grinning, hideous, puppet-like thing, its dagger held aloft; a man cowering from two tigers; and, in the bottom left corner, another man, open-mouthed,...
Ever since agent Daniel Myers had fl ed from Turkey with stolen secret papers vital for Western interests and entered Bulgaria, he had been aware of a certain disturbing atmosphere. Bulgaria was a place that was steeped in the old ways and ancient, dark gypsy beliefs and superstitions. A time-haunted land of mystery and evil in which the Western, modern way of life seemed to hold little sway. Things happened here. Inexplicably terrible things which were mentioned only in hushed whispers by...
According to eyewitnesses, the victim was sitting on a park bench and talking loudly in a foreign language when he suddenly got to his feet and started flailing his arms around. Then his head fell off and the rest of his body became a human torch. By the time the police arrive, all that remains is a pile of smoldering ashes, along with an unscathed severed head. For Detective Inspector John Dryer, the unexplained death represents one of the toughest cases of his career. Was the man murdered, or...
What is the nature of the evil that terrorizes Dyrysgol? Detective Inspector Bernard Owen must investigate the disappearances of several inhabitants of a remote Welsh village. Local anger is directed towards Dyrysgol Castle and its enigmatic owner, Viscount Ravenwood, but Owen knows that fear and superstition can cloud the facts; he needs to make his own judgment. The nobleman is a strange and solitary man–but is he a murderer? When another man goes missing, and his car is found with great claw...
Accountant Michael Parker had been seen by several witnesses clutching his head before purposefully throwing himself in front of a London bus. A post-mortem examination had ruled out a seizure or drugs, which only left suicide. Case closed.<P> But Parker’s widow refused to accept these findings. There had been no suicide note, and Parker had no reason to kill himself. They had been happily married and comfortably off.<P> His widow believed that someone had intentionally driven...
