Showing results by narrator "John Rayburn" in All Categories

The sublime beauty of Hawaii nearly a century ago is captured in this first book featuring the fictional Honolulu police detective, Charlie Chan. Author Biggers was staying at a hotel on Waikiki Beach in the 1920s when he was inspired to write the book. The Chan role at first was relatively minor, and he didn’t say anything until several chapters had gone by. However, the concept caught on when the literary public wanted more of him. That prompted five subsequent books as the character became more prominent.

A late-night murder of a diamond merchant’s veteran employee in London’s Hatton Gardens has Scotland Yard calling on Inspector French to investigate. When French gets there he finds not only the victim but missing diamonds and money from an open safe. There are meager clues as the Inspector follows a trail to mainland Europe and back. There are many false clues and several suspects with much of the searching leading to nothing but dead ends. We can listen as French sorts it all out, finding the missing diamonds and nabbing the murderer.

The fiction world of today needs a “Saint” more than it ever did. For years now that scene has been dominated by the “anti-heroes"—those grim gray operators in a sunless sub-culture where global issues are worked out with totally unemotional pragmatism, those hapless uninspired puppets manipulated and expended by ruthlessly dedicated little brothers of Big Brother. It made morbidly fascinating narrative, but it never gave anyone a lift until it climaxed in the hyper-gadgeted parodies of 007 extravaganzas.

The chief character, Lord Peter Wimsey, goes to the Bellona Club to have a meal with an old friend of his, ninety-year old General Fentiman. In great surprise, he finds the aged man fully dressed by the fire in full rigor mortis. A question arises concerning the time of death and the situation develops into a serious murder investigation. Wimsey sometimes seemed to have a supercilious attitude as a monocled aristocrat and sometimes became a sort of professional detective. His family motto was, “As my whimsy takes me.”

If it had not rained on a certain May morning, Valancy Stirling’s whole life would have been entirely different. She would have gone, with the rest of her clan, to Aunt Wellington’s engagement picnic and Dr. Trent would have gone to Montreal. But it did rain and you shall hear what happened to her because of it. Valancy wakened early, in the lifeless, hopeless hour just preceding dawn. She had not slept very well.

The ferry-boat was waiting when Rebecca Flint got off the train with her bag and lunch basket. When she and her small trunk were safely embarked she sat stiff and straight and calm in the ferry-boat as it shot swiftly and smoothly across stream. There was a horse attached to a light country wagon on board, and he pawed the deck uneasily. His owner stood near, with a wary eye upon him, although he was chewing, with as dully reflective an expression as a cow.

A 17th-century writer named Charles Perrault was sometimes called Mother Goose, an imaginary author of fairy tales. His early material was inspired and derived from earlier folk tales that he greatly embellished and improved. This collection includes "Cinderella", along with other such known favorites as “Sleeping Beauty", “Little Red Riding Hood”, “Blue Beard”, and “Puss in Boots”, along with such lesser known fairy tales as “The Ridiculous Wishes”, “Little Thumb”, “Ricky of the Tuft", “Griselda,” and “Donkey Skin”.

Here is a meeting with George and Marion Kerby, a couple of free-wheeling ghosts, who meet up with respectable banker Cosmo Topper. This was noted by the New York Times, claiming: “Thorne Smith created the modern American ghost story, ghosts with style and wit; ghosts that haunt us still.” Others pointed out, “Smith was a master of urbane wit and sophisticated repartee.” The overall mood has a touch of silliness, but it provides lighthearted reading and listening, a matter of nonsensical escapism. For Topper it meant relief from a nagging wife with ongoing indigestion.

A subtitle of this book is “The Lost World Under the Sea,” and it’s somewhat based on the famed legend of Atlantis. That was an ancient city or continent that was supposedly inundated by the sea. Whether it actually existed has been a question that has lasted for thousands of years. Greek philosopher Plato wrote about it around 360 BC, so even his possible information was second-hand. Tsunamis (sea storms) have existed for centuries and if there really was an Atlantis, any survivors may have fled inland and built new cities.

Seven Keys to Baldpate was such an intriguing tale it brought on an effort to build an actual counterpart of Baldpate. The site selected was about five miles south of Estes Park, Colorado, opposite Lily Lake on Highway 7. It turned out to be a fascinating getaway location; vacationers were not only intrigued by the concept, but many actually made extensive contributions of various keys to match the mood. This erased the story’s description of the “Seven Keys”, and the inn’s collection of keys reached an astounding total of 20-30,000 of them.

It was a magical time enhanced by radio as well as the great live performances. Radio and music of the Big Band Era were made for each other, and the so-called Swing Years were a golden age of rhythm. It was not just music that made you want to dance. It was music that made you glow, music that made you want to sing, music that made you come alive, music for falling in love. And, despite the passage of time, it still is.

It was a clear, apple-green evening in May, and Four Winds Harbour was mirroring back the clouds of the golden west between its softly dark shores. The sea moaned eerily on the sand-bar, sorrowful even in spring, but a sly, jovial wind came piping down the red harbor road along which Miss Cornelia’s comfortable, matronly figure was making its way towards the village of Glen St. Mary. Miss Cornelia was rightfully Mrs. Marshall Elliott, and had been Mrs. Marshall Elliott for thirteen years, but even yet more people referred to her as Miss Cornelia than as Mrs. Elliott.

It gives us considerable pleasure to be able to offer to the public the “inside” record of those of former District Attorney Markham’s criminal cases in which Mr. Philo Vance figured so effectively. The true inwardness of these famous cases has never before been revealed by S. S. Van Dine, Mr. Vance’s lawyer and almost constant companion, being the only person who possessed a complete record of the facts and has only recently been permitted to make them public.

Their instincts and intelligence were valuable assets for teenage brothers, Joe and Frank Hardy, as they followed in the footsteps of their well-known father, Fenton Hardy, a former police detective. They had wits and courage that gave them what it took to solve cases in their fictional home of Bayport in the upper east coast area of the US. They never lost their nerve despite being frequently confronted by danger. In this instance there is a robbery at the Tower Mansion and a friend of the Hardy Boys’ father is falsely accused. Young Joe and Frank take on the case.

On the southern edge of the populous parish of Paddington, England, in a parallelogram bounded by Oxford and Cambridge Terrace on the south, Praed Street on the north, and by Edgware Road on the east and Spring Street on the west, lies an assemblage of mean streets, the drab dullness of which forms a remarkable contrast to the pretentious architectural grandeurs of Sussex Square and Lancaster Gate, close by. In these streets the observant will always find all those evidences of depressing semi-poverty which are more evident in London than in any other English city.

The author’s birth name was Alan Alexander Milne, but his pen name used only the initials A. A. Milne. He eventually won worldwide acclaim for his renowned youth-oriented stories about Winnie-the-Pooh. However, he tried something different a few years before that, a story based on parental devotion.

The idea that the extraordinary narrative which has been called the Joyce-Armstrong Fragment is an elaborate practical joke evolved by some unknown person, cursed by a perverted and sinister sense of humor, has now been abandoned by all who have examined the matter. The most macabre and imaginative of plotters would hesitate before linking his morbid fancies with the unquestioned and tragic facts which reinforce the statement. Though the assertions contained in it are amazing and even monstrous, it is nonetheless forcing itself upon the general intelligence that they are true.

The story you’re about to hear is the second Charlie Chan novel, and it features a parrot named Tony who is witness to a crime. The unusual bird spoke Chinese and had a less-than-perfect use of English grammar but was killed by the criminals as a precaution. Chan himself was a friend of a family selling jewels and agreed to deliver them on his first trip to mainland California. While there he masquerades as a pidgin-speaking cook during his undercover investigation. His profound and original intelligence offers genial humor and witty dialogue.

Humor and overall literary style have changed a lot in the 132 years since this book was published in 1889. However, the information remains informative, primarily because there is a certain amount of truthfulness about it that manages to disregard the passage of time. It takes in some unusual events that either did happen, or could have. It involves three men and a dog that is sometimes smarter than any of them. Between them, they come up with some depth of thought and at least a minor ability to understand human nature.

It was a lonely English courtyard where attorneys received traditional apprenticeship … one of the ancient Inns of Court. The bludgeoned body of a well-dressed elderly man was found there at midnight, an apparent murder victim. Investigative newspaper reporter Frank Spargo was one of the first to arrive at the crime scene and he was puzzled about why such a prosperous looking man had been wandering there at that time of night. The only item found on the body was a small paper with a young barrister’s address.