If Mr. Sherlock Holmes had been in the country when the Baker Street Irregulars stumbled across the mystery of the Captive Clairvoyant, then no doubt he would have given immediate assistance. But Mr. Holmes was in Switzerland engaged in a deadly duel of wits with his most feared opponent, the evil Professor Moriarty; and so the Baker Street Irregulars, the gang of ragamuffins who sometimes assisted Mr. Holmes in his investigations, had to rely on their own wits. It all began—and ended—in Trump’s...
Shot while trying to prevent the kidnapping, murder, and brutal despoilment of her thirteen-year-old daughter, Southern California book editor Catherine Desmond has a “tunnel-of-light” experience. “There is something only you can do,” the spirits tell her, and she is returned intact to her former life—or is she? When she recovers, Catherine finds herself gifted—or cursed—with astral projection, and to her dismay finds herself linked psychically with her daughter's murderer. But he too...
In the dark days of the 1930s Depression, veteran detective Jack Dunning loses both his wife and his position with the Boston Police Department because he can't keep the cork in the bottle. He hops a bus to California and signs on with the Santa Paulina Police Department as a consultant. On a dark, stormy night he finds salvation and a fresh beginning in the arms of a beautiful, young, dime-a-dance girl, Angel Doll. When she vanishes after shooting a local gangster, Axel Teague, Jack is...
Something goes drastically wrong at a séance, and suddenly Alan's wife Janice experiences a major personality change. These are signs that her husband just can't ignore: the strange new mark on her hand, the naked wanderings in moonlight, the blood stains on her clothes, not to mention the strange company she now keeps. Alan turns to an ex-Roman Catholic priest, Ruane, a man drained of self-respect, a drunkard, a reject–but the only one who seems to understand what's going on–and...
After eighteen long and friendless years in an orphanage, Julia has finally traced her father, the handsome Dr. Lucius Cagliostro, to a small New England village. But her happiness soon turns into nightmarish terror. The town of Belham is home to unspeakable evil, and the dark and sinister forces that have tormented her all her life are also present too. She quickly finds herself the prey of a demon-worshipping society that wants to make her a slave–or a sacrifice–to the great Lucifer himself. A...
"[This] novel has immense power in its climax," said The Encyclopedia of Fantasy about Darrell Schweitzer's 1982 novel, THE SHATTERED GODDESS. Now, at last, here's the companion volume to that work, a cycle of eleven stories set «in the time of the death of the Goddess.» This is an Earth of the far future, when the planet has declined into chaos, and darkness looms at the end of human history. Here you'll meet…a dadar, a wizard's shadow attempting to become a man; two...
In the longest of the four Cthulhu Mythos stories in this collection, «The Legacy of Erich Zann,» the violin and the music that the ill-fated musician left behind become the target, some fifteen years later, for a mysterious searcher who will stop at nothing–including murder–to obtain them. Edgar Allan Poe's great detective, Auguste Dupin, who's endangered because of his connection to Zann, must not only figure out who–but why. <P>In the original novella, «The Seeds from the...
Ripped from the pages of the September, 1935 issue of Secret Agent "X" magazines comes this sensational novel, Legion of the Living Dead! From nowhere hurtled that black death car. And from nowhere came its grisly occupants. They were not of the earth, for their human flesh was immune to bullets. They were not of the grave, for they manned the wheel and a blasting machine gun . . . Secret Agent “X” made a desperate maneuver to block their invasion of the land of the living. And in that weird...
Ernest Favenc (1845-1908) is a neglected master of Australian supernatural and mystery fiction. Best known for his History of Australian Exploration, 1788-1888, he was also a prolific author and journalist, writing for some of the most popular and important literary journals in colonial Australia. His considerable output is now largely forgotten, even among aficionados of weird and mystery fiction. This book collects thirty-one of Favenc's best stories, many published here for the first...
After Dexter inherits the old family mansion in Tormouth, on the death of his uncle, he visits the main library. Here he peruses the old records pertaining to Tormouth, and finds several references to the Dexter family. The documents trace their history back for almost four centuries. He locates numerous listings of births and marriages in the family, but not one instance of a death! Dexter begins to wonder if he's done the right thing in taking up residence in the house. What happened to...
The girl had been lying dead all night. There'd been a terrible struggle, but in the end, the woman had lost her life to the jagged top of a cologne bottle–her jugular vein severed. Suspicious immediately falls on Richard Lane, who'd planned to meet the deceased at seven o'clock, just before she died. But is Richard really the killer? Only criminal psychologist Dr. Adam Castle can unravel the perplexing mystery. An edge-of-the seat thriller torn from the pages of the 1940s...
From out of the bog alongside the ancient track to the fenland village of Hexney, a line of deep freshly-made footprints runs, trodden into the dry surface of the abandoned droveway. Are these footprints, or hoofprints, or what? Triangular, eight or nine inches long, they're set in a line one in front of another. And, each night, the footprints are advancing steadily towards the village. When a young boy’s body is found in the marsh, the superstitious villagers' ire is directed at a...