Subject: Thrillers
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Above the Dark Circus Hugh Walpole
Huge Walpole's thrilling adventure novel of the 1920s revolves around Piccadily Circus. Richard Gunn is an ex-soldier in trouble after the end of the Great War. Jobless and starving in Piccadilly Circus, he encounters his nemesis, Leroy Pengelly. From this encounter the secrets of their shared past start to unravel….Read More »
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Desperate Remedies Thomas Hardy
Described by Hardy as a tale of "mystery, entanglement, surprise and moral obliquity", his first published novel violated the literary decorum of its day with blackmail, murder, and romance. It relates the story of Cytherea, a maid to the eccentric arch-intriguer Miss Aldclyffe, and the man she loves, Edward Springr…Read More »
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Huntingtower John Buchan
Dickson McCunn, a respectable, newly retired grocer of romantic heart, plans a modest walking holiday in the hills of south-west Scotland. He meets a young English poet and, contrary to his better sense, finds himself in the thick of a plot involving the kidnapping of a Russian princess, who is held prisoner in the …Read More »
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Lonely Road Nevil Shute
Malcolm Stevenson, a wealthy ex-naval officer haunted by his memories of the war, finds his lonely life turned upside down one night when he runs into trouble on a road near the coast. What at first appears to be an accident leads him to discover an international conspiracy against his country—and to fall in love wi…Read More »
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Marazan Nevil Shute
A story of flying, drug smuggling and murder in the 1920s. Pilot Philip Stenning crashes his aircraft while flying from London to Devon. He is rescued by escaped prisoner Denis Compton, who claims he was sent to prison for embezzlement after being framed by his half-brother, Italian baron Rodrigo Mattani. Owing Comp…Read More »
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Savrola Winston S. Churchill
A fast-paced thriller written near the end of Queen Victoria's reign when Great Britain ruled a worldwide empire, it subtly reveals the political awareness and personal views of a young Churchill, decades before he would become one of the most important figures of the twentieth century. Savrola shows that it is poss…Read More »
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So Disdained Nevil Shute
When Peter Moran picks up a man on the roadside while driving through a bitter rainy night on the South Downs, he embarks upon an adventure that will lead him into treasonous international plots, flying adventures and tests of both his bravery and his loyalty.
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The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Dostoyevsky’s towering reputation as one of the handful of thinkers who forged the modern sensibility has sometimes obscured the purely novelistic virtues–brilliant characterizations, flair for suspense and melodrama, instinctive theatricality–that made his work so immensely popular in nineteenth-century Russia. The…Read More »
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The Efficiency Expert Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Efficiency Expert, an often overlooked by Burroughs' fans, is a cracking tale of young Jimmy Torrance, an upstanding college graduate in post-World War I Chicago who inadvertently rubs shoulders with mobsters and ends up framed for murder. Jimmy Torrance was a hero in college. A champion boxer, star of the baseb…Read More »
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The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar Edgar Allan Poe
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar tells the tale of a mesmerist who puts a man in a suspended hypnotic state at the moment of death to see if he can communicate with him after he is dead. While a tale of suspense and horror, it was also, at the time of its publication, a bit of a hoax since it was published wit…Read More »
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The Inquisitor Hugh Walpole
The Inquisitor is a murder thriller set in a haunted village. State of rest which they call Yin…state of action which they call Yang. The play opens with a perfect state of Yin. When Yin is thus complete it is ready to pass over into Yang. The impulse or motive which makes a perfect Yin-state pass over into the…Read More »
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The Man Who Was Thursday G. K. Chesterton
G. K. Chesterton's classic novella tackles anarchy, social order, God, peace, war, religion, human nature, and a few dozen other weighty concepts. And somehow he manages to blend all of it together into a delightful satire, full of tongue-in-cheek commentary that is still relevant today. As the book opens, Gabriel S…Read More »
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The Parasite Arthur Conan Doyle
Austin Gilroy, a physiology student, is introduced to a Miss Penclosa, a cripple who allegedly has psychic powers. After a convincing experiment of Miss Penclosa's powers, Gilroy is convinced and so begins to study her unique skills. Unfortunately for Gilroy, Miss Penclosa falls in love with him and begins to use he…Read More »
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The Spider Strain Johnston McCulley
The supervillain's right-hand man, John Warwick, must steal a priceless necklace. This is his last assignment, for if he can finally satisfy the Spider, he will free himself from the criminal forever. With a rival gang after the necklace and the Spider's fate hanging in the balance, this may be Warwick's most danger…Read More »
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The Thirty-Nine Steps John Buchan
Famous as the basis for several films, including the brilliant 1935 version directed by Alfred Hitchcock, The Thirty-Nine Steps is a classic of early twentieth-century popular literature. Richard Hannay has just returned to England after years in South Africa and is thoroughly bored with his life in London. But then…Read More »
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Uncle Silas Sheridan Le Fanu
In Uncle Silas, Sheridan Le Fanu's most celebrated novel, Maud Ruthyn, the young, naïve heroine, is plagued by Madame de la Rougierre from the moment the enigmatic older woman is hired as her governess. A liar, bully, and spy, when Madame leaves the house, she takes her dark secret with her. But when Maud is orphane…Read More »
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Vendetta Marie Corelli
Imagine friends and family believed you were dead from the Cholera- Imagine being buried alive and awakening in your coffin - Now, imagine a frantic escape from the rotting crypt only to discover something worse waiting in store…. Thus begins Marie Corelli's suspense-thriller, Vendetta. Awakening to find he has be…Read More »