Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe detective stories, while never dull, can sometimes have almost hysterical, over-the-top plots which become terribly confusing to decipher. Fortunately the cracking dialogue and bizarre characters compensate nicely. In The High Window the author takes a breather, and delivers a story which is relatively simple ... and enjoyable to read.

Like in many Marlowe stories, our naughty private eye is hired by a rich recluse. This time the recluse is a rich widow who believes her trashy daughter-in-law has stolen a rare coin inherited from her deceased hubby. As Marlowe investigates we understand that the daughter-in-law keeps some rather nasty company, and before long Marlowe is tangled in multiple homicide situation. Of course in the end it is all resolved in a surprisingly uncontrived way (..at least by Raymond Chandler standards).

My only real complaint, or rather disappointment, is the general absence of Marlowe's normally razor-sharp sarcasm. In other books Marlowe can be extremely brutish with the ladies, and the ladies all fall in love with him. In The High Window we do not see this side of Marlowe, and so he seems somewhat two-dimensional in this story.

Bottom line: most definitely not a Chandler classic, but certainly a very enjoyable read. Recommended.

Chandler wrote his first four novels in rapid succession, then went to Hollywood for four years before writing the fifth Philip Marlowe novel, "The Little Sister." These first four are "original recipe" Chandler -- the novels that defined high-brow hard-boiled.

"The High Window" (the third) is the anomaly of the first batch because it is the only novel prior to "The Little Sister" that was written as a novel; "The Big Sleep," "Farewell My Lovely," and "The Lady in the Lake" were all built using three to four of Chandler's earlier pulp short stories. Chandler called this practice "cannibalizing."

Chandler actually put aside the third cannibalized novel, "Lady in the Lake," to work on "The High Window." It's plot is only slightly less convoluted than the other three early novels, and it is slightly contrived, but what is interesting is the way in which it deliberately re-emphasizes concerns developed in its predecessor, "Farewell, My Lovely." Chandler was pressed to make sense of a detective with so much cultural capital and the ability to turn such a fantastic phrase, and in these two novels the emphasis is on developing Marlowe's class animosities and his determination to preserve the free-agency afforded him by his vocation. He comes across as a relative high-brow determined to take out his sense of failure on those who pretend to be his betters, and who employ him, but who are phonies. It is a novel about class and about Marlowe working to control the exploitation inherent in hiring himself out.

It may not be the best of the early four novels, but "The High Window" provides a clear and deliberate vision of Chandler's original conception of Marlowe. After the hiatus in Hollywood, he would begin to loosen the detective conventions and develop Marlowe as a man in existential crisis (in "The Little Sister" and "The Long Goodbye").

I decided to give this Raymond Chandler novel a shot after a vexing round of midterm examinations. If I didn't read something light and entertaining, my head would have exploded! I'd never read noir before, but I found this book to be pretty representative of what one pictures when one thinks of noir: seedy characters and snappy dialogue in a big, dark city teeming with danger. Chandler apparently gave new life to this genre when he wrote a few (an unfortunate few) crime novels starring Phillip Marlowe, a private detective who has since become immortalized in film and T.V. Chandler didn't even start writing these books until he was in his late 50's. Thank goodness he did write them, because this book is a real hoot!

The High Window finds Marlowe on the trail of a missing coin called the Brasher doubloon. Within a few pages we begin to see an endless parade of seedy and suspicious characters, such as Mrs. Murdock, a port-drinking hothead who hires Marlowe to find the coin. Other characters include a scummy nightclub owner, a couple of dirty dames, and a cast of supporting characters both wicked and wise. At the center of it all is Marlowe, doggedly pursuing the truth through all the deceits and danger. I really can't go into the story because doing so would probably ruin the suspense for anyone who hasn't read the book. Just be prepared to see some wacky characters and great scenes.

This book wouldn't be worth mentioning at all if it weren't for the dialogue. The language in this book is so clever and snappy that it literally makes the story. You'll howl out loud at some of the smart quips Marlowe tosses off as he tries to track down the doubloon. Another interesting aspect of the book is that everything occurs in the present tense. There is almost no history to know or anything in the future to worry about. This makes the story scream along at a fast pace; so fast that you won't want to put the book down. I never really thought I'd care for crime noir, but this book makes me want to read more! Recommended.

I'd like to give it a score of "-5" but 1 is the lowest available here. This is absolutely and positively the ugliest artistic rendition of Oscar Wilde's beautiful fairy tales and of that of thousands of children's books I have read or collected over many years. The comic book style illustrations draw the reader away from the inner poetry and beauty of Wilde's prose. This is truly the first book I have ever thought of burning - it would make good kindling for the fireplace.

P. Craig Russell's pen makes sparks fly as it gives depth, color and life to every brilliant fold and cascade and ripple of luxury. More sparks fly as the pen portrays the poor and the raggled: the thinness of their bones, the dirtiness of their quarters, and, most poignantly of all, the pitiably concave looks on their scrawny faces. P Craig Russel makes Oscar Wilde's otherwise beautiful fairytales into something far beyond beautiful. The magic of the words and glistening sketches combined are enough to make one weep or wonder at the miracle of someone so talented as P. Craig Russell, and someone so talented as Oscar Wilde. Please buy this book knowing that it will bring you a treat like you have never experienced.

I have a vivid memory of a film strip adaptation of "The Selfish Giant" that I saw several times in kindergarten and first grade. I didn't really understand the Christian allegory at the time, but I was entranced by the beautiful, melancholy nature of the story. Years later I still find it deeply moving, and P. Craig Russell's adaptation is as perfect a retelling as I can imagine. Though a non-Christian, I find that the story loses none of its impact or beauty. This is a story for anyone with an open mind and a love of well-told children's tales. Russell is one of the modern masters of cartooning, and his artwork and sense of design really compliment the story. His second collection of Wilde's fairy tales is also highly recommended, as are his adaptations of various operas and the fantasy stories of Michael Moorcock.

Here we have a book and an author that have positive and negative points. Donald Wandrei, of Arkham House fame was not a very good writer. His two best works, in my opinion, were "THE WEB OF EASTER ISLAND" and "THE BLINDING SHADOWS". But for the most part, he was almost a hack-writer, putting forth a production not always very exceptional. This book is quite an example of that. An anthology comprised of mostly low-grade stories. We wouldn't give it 3 stars but for the fact that Wandrei was an important figure in Lovecraftiana and in the growth of Arkham House and every Lovecraft Addict should know about him. Also, Fedogan & Bremer always do an excellent work on their products and this is definitely the case. All in all, if you have spare money, by all means, buy it!You won't be dissapointed.

Yes, Donald Wandrei was a member of the notorious "Lovecraft Circle", but herein you will find no Great Cthulus, slime dripping Byakhees, or worm-eaten copies of De Vermiis Mysteriis, for this collection consists largely of sci-fi stories that rely heavily upon pseudo-science, physical revulsion, and violence for their effect, hence most could be called "horror" stories. There are few tales of the genuine supernatural here, "The Chuckler", "The Lady in Gray", "Don't Dream", and the "Painted Mirror" being the only stories in this thick compendium with authentic occult overtones. Indeed, although Wandrei admired Lovecraft, he doesn't seem to have been influenced much by him in terms of style or device; Wandrei clearly owes much to writers like H.G. Wells, H. Rider Haggard, and Edgar Rice Burroughs for his sci-fi yarns, and his language is surprisingly contemporary. Nearly all of Wandrei's "fantasy fiction" consists of his dream stories and prose poems, all of which are markedly different in feel from his sci-fi efforts. They are true ravings from a fevered mind and smack of the genuine, illogical stuff of nightmare...little if any plot, but striking and atmospheric images and sensations with an ever present feeling of dread in the backdrop. Wandrei captures the feeling of a dream much better than Dunsany or Lovecraft, but his forays into the Dreamlands are brief excursions, not well-plotted epics in the tradtion of the other two authors.

Highlights of this collection include the action-adventure/murder mystery/sci-fi tale "Giant-Plasm" (the give away title being the only drawback), the genuinely creepy "Treemen of M'Bwa", the disorienting man-to-animal soul transference of "The Witch Makers", the graphic and ultraviolent yarns "The Monster From Nowhere" (a metallic alien rips peoples heads off) and "The Destroying Horde" (flesh absorbing ancestors of the "The Blob" terrorize St.Paul), the awesome little tale "The Eye and the Finger", and the gruesome, Stephen King-esque "It Will Grow on You". A few of the stories simply do not work (these include the dreadfully hokey "A Scientist Divides" and the corny "When The Fire Creatures Came"), but thankfully these duds are the exception. On a similar note, much of Wandrei's earlier "prose poetry" is too brief and undeveloped to be very enjoyable...it only tantalizes you with a taste of a fuller nightmare vision that never seems to materialize, while Wandrei attempts to see just how freaky he can get with words reminds one of Clark Ashton Smith (who DW also, not at all surprisingly, greatly admired).

All fans of 30s pulp fiction should own this book, it is a rare gem: a compilation of classic, ground-breaking sci-fi stories. Sure, there are some stinkers in the list, but the good stories predominate, for Wandrei was a writer of startling originality. But Lovecraft junkies beware...if you buy this book anticipating more uninspired Cthulhu Mythos stories (ala August Derleth), you'll be disappointed, for the only two stories that resemble anything written by Lovecraft are "The Shadow of a Nightmare" (nine pages) and "The Chuckler in the Tomb" (a cop tracks down a grave robber who turns out to be something other than human...four pages).

Donald Wandrei thought of himself as primarily a poet and used poetic language to excellent effect. As demonstrated in this thick collection, he could also open up with blazing machine guns and giant amoebic monstrosities. DON'T DREAM collects all of his short fiction that can be considered as horror or fantasy together with a series of prose poems, a youthful essay on horror in literature, and a engrossing essay by the editior on the prolonged litigation for the control of Arkham House, Publishers after the death of Wandrei's partner August Derleth. Excellent art by Rodger Gerberding highlights the stories. Highly recommended.

Malina is a strange book that provoked my interest in what it means to love and live -- is the love-obsession justifiable? When there is noone else but a single person in your life, because you are just this way, does it mean that there are many people like this one but you have not found them yet. Because Bachmann's stream-of-consciousness style, the book is really difficult to follow, especially the part 'The third man' but once you have the patience to read and think continuously, to be shocked and still know who you are -- it gives an enormous pleasure to know a little more of the world that is inside!

Ingeborg Bachmann is a truly great and underappreciated writer, and this is her masterpiece. It is also the earliest novel I'm aware of on the subject of the lasting impact of child abuse in adult life, written at a time when the possibility of such an experience was almost unspeakable. Her approach is never polemical, but dreamy and suggestive, and the ending is one of the most devastating in literature. Check out her poetry, too.

A decade ago, Philip K. Dick's complete short stories were published as a five volume series. Prospective buyers should note that this is simply a reissue of the fourth of those five volumes. It isn't a "best of" short story collection; you get the brilliant along with stories tossed off to keep bread on the table. It's still worth four stars. (The fifth volume is also particularly worth owning, and all five are still in print on backorder.)

You can't compare Philip K. Dick to any other science fiction writer. About the only other author he can be fairly compared to at all is Franz Kafka - but a workingman's Kafka, shorn of all pretension or artiness. All his heros are the same besieged everyman as K., wrestling with elusive metaphysics, impossible transformations, a cosmic bureaucracy, and a dysfunctional society - but also with overdue rent bills, insistent advertising, and messy divorces.

Precogs show up in many of Philip K. Dick's works, but Dick himself was not particularly in the prediction business. Nearly every world he created, large (in his novels) or small (in stories like these) was a future dystopia. But whereas the dystopias of other sf writers make you shudder and think, "Yes, it could be like that... If Things Go On," Dick's have a different flavor, a different kind of immediacy.

And the reason for that is, that Philip K. Dick was not so much a science fiction writer as a prophet. He showed us a future that mirrored the present so faithfully that he could convince us of what he always felt - that dystopia is already here; apocalypse is already here. All you have to do (the original meaning of apocalypse) is tear away the veils.

Many people are going to take a fresh interest in Mr. Dick's writings because of the movie Minority Report. For them, I give this advice: go first to his novels (some of the best ones are "Ubik", "A Scanner Darkly", "Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch", "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"). You have to immerse yourself in his world to grasp where he's coming from, and short stories don't give you room to do that. The novels do.

For those who already know his stuff, this book is a treat. Besides the great title story, you'll see the seeds of several of his novels here ("Palmer Eldritch" prefigured in "Days of Perky Pat", "Simulacrum" in "The Mold of Yancy", and "Ubik" in "What the Dead Men Say").

Although these are not necessarily Philip K. Dick's best short works, they are necessary reading for every fan. As the writer in the introduction says, the reason I read PKD is because he has that oddest and most unique of all virtues in a writer - strangeness. You'll be hard-pressed to find stories stranger than this anywhere. As PKD himself says in the notes section at the end of the book, he often sold his stories to the flexible SF magazine Galaxy, as the more famous Astounding and its editor, John W. Campbell, considered his stories "nuts." Also, this notes section is very interesting for other reasons: it becomes apparent in reading them that these stories have much deeper meanings than they at first appear to have. It is quite entertaining enough to read them for their sure strangeness - you will laugh out loud often reading PKD - mostly at the dialogue, which you'll be hard-pressed to determine whether it is entirely unreal, or more real than most. However, deeper and more profound themes were always resonating at the bottom of the well of Philip K. Dick's stories. Although he was quite consistent and extremely prolific with his writings, some of his stories were definitely better than others. Still, everything the man ever wrote is worth reading. This particular collection contains some of his best - and most interesting - shorter works. Covering the period from 1954-1964, we get such classic stories as The Minority Report, an all-time classic SF story; The Unreconstructed M, a dramatic story of spine-tingling SF suspense; and many others - classic stories, profound stories, and just plain weird stories. This is some of the best science fiction published since the Golden Age of Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov. Essential reading for any fan of science fiction, or of off-kilter writing in general.

These are the earliest stories PKD wrote, starting with the previously unpublished 1947 story "Stability" and ending with "Prize Ship", written in 1952. There are 25 of them in the lot, most with comments from the author. Some real gems are collected here (like "King of the Elves" and the pulpy "The Infinites"), but also some rather, ah, unpolished work.

But the thing is that this is not just interesting because of the actual stories but it gives a direct line to the developing talent of the man and that man at this point in his life was blossoming with ideas. He just hadn't yet gotten to the point where he knew how to express them. But that really doesn't stop one who is willing to drop those preconceived notions as to what constitutes good science fiction; this is FICTION with a capital letter, imagined from the get-go and heading towards uncharted waters. Reading this stuff made me long for such stuff today - most of what you get these days is pale and boring, closer to science fact and lacking in any true originality.

Well, I bought it for "The Shadow and the Flash."

I read this story years ago and loved it. It's not well known and not frequently anthologized. I see that it was written in 1902 and that H. G. Well's "The Invisible Man" was written in 1897, and possibly Jack London sort of borrowed the theme as he was wont to do--the editor of this volume thinks so--but "The Shadow and the Flash" is nevertheless brilliantly original. It is about two competitive brothers, both serious amateur scientists of the kind you run across in Victorian fiction--who decide to tackle the problem of becoming invisible, in two different ways. You can almost make out a case for its' being "harder" SF than Wells, because he explains the physics of how they do it. The explanation is sort of cockamamie, but the story carries you along.

(The title comes from the fact that each method has a flaw. Neither produces total invisibility. One brother casts a shadow, the other produces prismatic rainbow flashes when he catches the light at the right angle).

The other fourteen stories are equally entertaining, and some are more than that. "A Thousand Deaths" was written very early in his career and is a haunting piece of fantasy. "The Unparalleled Invasion" has been anthologized frequently because of the prophetic way it anticipates bacteriological warfare.

Jack London was indelibly impressed with what he saw in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and some of this may have found its way into a number of stories about the breakdown of civilization after a disaster. "The Scarlet Plague" calls to mind the after-the-atom-bomb-has-fallen stories of a later day.

"The Red One," with which the book closes, possibly deserves the adjectives "great" and "classic." And if one suspects that Jack London had been reading H. G. Wells, after reading "The Red One" I certainly suspect that Stephen King has been reading Jack London.

The collection is well chosen. The editor's commentary is good. This is a very readable book. And it looks like it's put out by a brave little tiny publisher, and I always like to support brave little tiny publishers.

Oh, none of the stories are about dogs or snow.

This is another in the American Girls Short Stories series about Felicity Merriman, a nine-year-old girl living in the America of 1774. In this book, Felicity's romping and playing causes trouble when she soils the washing of Mrs. Burnie, the crabbiest woman in town. Felicity know that it is up to her to make restitution for what she did, so she volunteers to clean the clothes she muddied. But working with Mrs. Burnie presents Felicity with something of a mystery; Mrs. Burnie is hiding something, and Felicity accidentally finds out what.

The final chapter of this book contains an interesting look at the history of eyeglasses, and has a project to make lorgnettes. This is another good Felicity story. My daughter and I value Felicity's honesty and helpfulness. We both liked this story and recommend it to you.

The very short 1981 edition currently before me features black and white illustrations by Philip Gough, and was translated by Naomi Lewis.

There's been a trend lately for fantasy authors to take traditional fairy tales and retell them, either as novels (as in Mercedes Lackey's case, or Peggy Kerr's _The Wild Swans_) or short stories (Tanith Lee did this even before Terri Windling came along). Hans Christian Andersen's little gems *aren't* traditional folk tales - he did the work - but quite often serve to fuel such fires anyway.

The translator, Naomi Lewis, has included a brief introduction discussing Andersen's life and career, and a few pages of notes at the end of the book discussing the original publication and origins of each story herein.

"The Princess and the Pea", "Thumbelina", "The Emperor's New Clothes"

"The Little Mermaid" - If you're only familiar with the Disney version, I warn you that they discarded much of what makes this story truly great. When evaluating a translation of this story, a quick test is to check the last scene between the mermaid and her prince to see how well the translator captures the actions and feelings of the characters.

The youngest of the seven mer-princesses has always been more fascinated by her grandmother's tales of the world above than any of her sisters, but she has the longest to wait for her first trip to the surface on her fifteenth birthday. Since mer-folk turn into seafoam at the end of their 300 years of life and have no immortal souls, she is especially curious about her grandmother's tales of how humans, when they die, can rise into a higher world just as the merfolk rise to the ocean surface, but one the merfolk can never reach, save through a human's love. (Oscar Wilde once turned this upside-down in "The Fisherman and the Soul", a very good story in which a fisherman fell in love with a mermaid and magically cut himself free of his soul to join her in the sea.)

As each of the sisters in turn makes her first journey, we see the world through their eyes, and since each has a different temperament and their birthdays fall at different times of the year, each sees and seeks out different sights. But when the youngest princess' turn finally comes (her name is never given), she has experiences that even the 3rd sister (the most adventurous of the lot) never had: a prince's birthday celebration at sea is struck by a great storm, foundering his ship before her eyes.

"The Steadfast Tin Soldier" - A toy story.

"The Nightingale" - Try Lackey's _The Eagle and the Nightingales_.

"The Ugly Duckling"

"The Snow Queen" - Check out Joan D. Vinge's novel of the same name.

"The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep" - They're porcelain figures who have fallen in love, but when her grandfather arranges a marriage for her with a mahogany carving instead, they decide to run away together.

"The Happy Family" - One of Andersen's lesser-known stories, of a little family of snails who know that they're the most important people in the world. :)

"The Goblin at the Grocer's" - The poet rescued an old book of poetry from the grocer who was using it as scrap paper, and the household goblin took offense at what was said. But when he entered the poet's room to play him a spiteful trick, he got more than he bargained for.

"Dance, Dolly, Dance" - Very short story about a poem written for little Amalie and her dolls.

The stories in this collection are among the weakest Sherlock Holmes pastiches this reviewer has ever encountered. (And I am guilty of reading a lot of them.)
To begin with, the character known as Simon Hawkes bears not the slightest resemblance to the real Sherlock Holmes. In truth the central character is so totally devoid of personality that he resembles no one at all.
The writer has relieved himself of any obligation to imitate the prose style of Watson by casting the stories in the third person. Also a presumed American accent might account for other oddities. Unfortunately the author's prose style is almost as drab as his characters are lifeless. In addition the author has fallen into the trap into which writers of historical stories often stumble - namely the tendency fill the story with irrelevant historical detail. For example, did we really need three paragraphs of background on the New York Elevated Railway in order to get Holmes (or whoever) into a train ?
Finally in regard to plotting, we will consider the first story, essentially a novella. The author apparently considers this to be an ingenious locked room story. Alas, the solution is so obvious that anyone beyond a complete novice will see it even as the events unfold, making the rest of the endeavor a truly tedious exercise.
Perhaps the overall result could be given two stars, but I see no reason to encourage, in this overcrowded field of pastiche writers, someone who cannot write well, who cannot create real characters and who has no ability in plotting.

These are well written tales that are sure to be enjoyed by anyone who likes a good story and mystery but which will prove, I think, to be especially tantalizing to the real mystery affectionado. As most mystery lovers know, Edgar Allan Poe originated the "locked room" mystery with his "Murders in the Rue Morgue". Since then the "locked room mystery" (in which the victim's body is found in a locked room with seemingly no possible way out for a killer) has been a staple of the mystery genre. "The Sign of Four" by A. Conan Doyle, the Holmes novella, was also a locked room mystery.

What makes two stories in this collection so good is that they are very clever variations on the locked room mystery. There is originality here which is pleasant to see in a genre so much written in that one might think no further originality is possible. Yet here it is. "The Adventure of the Magic Alibi", a novella, turns the locked room story around and has the murder victim's body found outside the locked room while it is the killer who is inside the locked room with seemingly no way out.

So certain are the witnesses there on the night of the murder that the killer must have been in the locked room that the police are unable to arrest the killer even though the victim has written the murderer's name in blood before dying! And these witnesses are absolutely positive the killer was in the room with them despite never having actually seen him at the time! An impossibility! Well, not quite. That very "impossible" plot is pulled off nicely here.

The second variation on the locked room mystery is "The Adventure of the Glass Room" which is (unless someone discovers another) the first and only "locked room within a locked room" mystery. Here the victim(s) are found inside not one locked room but two! What is impressive about this story, besides the cleverness of the plot, is the fact that the existence of a glass room inside another room is so well explained that it seems rational under the circumstances. Very often clever "puzzle" plots outdo themselves by seeming totally unrealistic (as with a few mysteries by the great John Dickson Carr)but that is not the case with this story, which is grounded in a sense of 1893 reality.

The tale entitled "The Adventure of the Art Forger" is as much a suspense tale as a mystery and has its own kind of "tongue in cheek" connection with A. Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb". Sherlockians will appreciate the deduction made here as it harkens back to Doyle's own Holmes story. As with Doyle's story, the deduction is a simple one if the reader is paying attention.

Then there is "The Adventure of the Talking Ghost", a nice tale of murder and seances. Here is a serial killer plot that could have been expanded into its own novel if the author chose to do so.This story ends the book nicely with a suggestion by the author that Sherlock Holmes is about to leave his hiding place of New York City (remember that Sherlock is running from the revenge of Moriarty's gang) and "become Sherlock Holmes again. " That is, return to England, to his home. As we Sherlockians know, Holmes did reappear quite dramatically causing his friend Watson to faint dead away for the first and only time in his life while, at the same time, causing Holmes' fans to applaud with joy...Very nice job here indeed.--Behind the Curtain Review

As discovered in Carraher's previous Simon Hawkes novel, "The Adventure of the Dead Rabbits Society", Sherlock Holmes, fearful that Professor Moriarty's surviving gang members will hunt him down to take his life, has crossed the Atlantic Ocean to the new Continent. There he has taken up residence in New York City, residing at a males-only club called "The Dead Rabbits Society", living under the alias of Simon Hawkes.
"Alias Simon Hawkes" brings us four more of Holmes' adventures in New York City, and they are unique crimes to say the least. These are ingenious murder mysteries.

With 'The Adventure of the Glass Room", we are offered the first "locked room WITHIN a locked room" mystery ever written. It is certain to become a classic in the mystery genre.
Alwyn Pritchett has had built in his parlor a room with walls and ceiling of glass, the purpose of which is to forbid the trickery of any psychic he hires to help him contact his deceased wife. He has been fooled before by false psychics and is taking this amazing step of building a room with glass walls to hold the next séance in which he partakes, to assure there will be no further tricks.
A psychic agrees to perform the séance under the conditions he has set forth. Together they enter his parlor and then enter the glass room. The sole glass door is bolted shut from the inside. The other members of Pritchett's family then leave the parlor after which the parlor doors are also locked by the butler. The two, Pritchett and the psychic, are therefore sitting inside a room, bolted shut from the inside, that is also inside another locked room.
Minutes later two shots ring out and there, to the horror of all, is Pritchett and the psychic are found dead, both shot through the head, an apparent murder/suicide. What else could it be, for they are found dead with the door to the glass room still bolted from the inside. The murder weapon on the floor at Pritchett's feet. The doors to the parlor too reminded locked until the shots were heard and the butler came running with the key to open them. It must be that Pritchett shot the psychic and then killed himself, determine the police. There CANNOT be any other possibility.
Yet there is another possibility. Both Pritchett and the psychic were in fact brutally murdered and it is left to Hawkes/Holmes to unravel the shrewd and cunning manner in which the double murder was executed.
"The Adventure of the Magic Alibi" is the longest of the mysteries. At over 100 pages it is a novella. It tells of an inventive plan of murder, in which the killer, planning the deed down to the smallest detail, has devised a means by which he can persuade twenty-one good citizens to swear to the police that they knew where he was at the time of the murder, and so prove him innocent of the crime, even though not one of those witnesses actually saw him at the time. They continue to swear to his innocence even though his victim has written his very name in her own blood just before dying, declaring him to be her killer! The alibi is so strong that the police cannot arrest him. Impossible but true! It is left to Holmes to solve the mystery, to break the ingenious "magic" alibi, and bring the killer to appropriate justice.
In "The Adventure of the Captive Forger" we have the story of William Lancaster, an art appraiser who is hired by the mysterious Charles Buonocore to come to his house in the faraway and isolated countryside of the Bronx to judge the authenticity of some drawings he is thinking of purchasing. Lancaster agrees to go and arrives at the lonely house, deep in the countryside, late at night. He finishes his appraisal too late to return home that night and so sleeps over. He is awakened in the dead of night to the sound of screams and a scuffle outside his bedroom door. Investigating, he sees Buonocore fighting with a beautiful and very frightened young woman. Any chance he has of assisting the woman is taken from him as he is hit on the head from behind and knocked out. When he wakes up he is back at the train station far from the farmhouse in which he was sleeping.
Lancaster is certain the young woman is in trouble and is being held by Buonocore against her will, but he has no idea how to return to the house to rescue her, the last leg of his journey being made in a long carriage ride along dark trails with the window curtains down.
He tells Simon Hawkes of his dilemma. The woman is in very serious trouble. He wants to help her but he cannot, not knowing how to once again find the house. It is up to Hawkes to discover the location and so help rescue the "damsel in distress".
In the last of the tales, "The Adventure of the Taking Ghost", a wealthy tycoon, Joseph Julius Carter, and two friends go to a séance and there are startled to hear the voice of his deceased daughter coming forth from the psychic's mouth. What his daughter declares is as startling as hearing her speak. She tells the audience that her death was not an accident and that she was in fact murdered! The psychic cannot say more after making that pronouncement and tells Carter he will have to come back another time to hear his daughter say more.
Carter returns, but not to listen to more talk from beyond, rather to kill the psychic to silence the accusations of his own dead daughter! The unusual motive is to silence a ghost! However, the psychic is able to defend her self and ends up shooting Carter dead.
A clear case of self defense. Or is it? Did Carter kill his own daughter and so desire to silence her accusing voice from the other side of the grave? Only Hawkes can see through the mystery and the lies to reveal the truth.

These are four inventive tales that mystery lovers everywhere are sure to enjoy immensely and that Sherlock Holmes fans must have.