The Mystery of the Skeleton Key
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Narrated by:
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Finlay Robertson
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By:
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Bernard Capes
About this listen
The fourth in a new series of classic detective stories from the vaults of HarperCollins involves a tragic accident during a shooting party. As the story switches between Paris and Hampshire, the possibility of it not being an accident seems to grow more likely.
“The Detective Story Club”, launched by Collins in 1929, was a clearing house for the best and most ingenious crime stories of the age, chosen by a select committee of experts. Now, almost 90 years later, these books are the classics of the Golden Age, republished at last with the same popular cover designs that appealed to their original readers.
The Mystery of the Skeleton Key, first published in 1919, has the distinction of being the first detective novel commissioned and published by Collins, though it was Bernard Capes’ only book in the genre, as he died shortly before it was published. This is how the Detective Club announced their edition ten years later:
“Mr Arnold Bennett, in a recent article, criticised the ad hoc characterisation and human interest in the detective novels of to-day. “The Mystery of the Skeleton Key” contains, in addition to a clever crime problem and plenty of thrills, a sensible love story, humour, excellent characterisation and strong human interest. The scenes are laid in Paris and Hampshire. The story deals with a crime committed in the grounds of a country house and the subsequent efforts of a clever young detective the track down the perpetrator. The Selection Committee of “The Detective Story Club” have no hesitation in recommending this splendid thriller as one which will satisfy the most exacting reader of detective fiction.”
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Story
Can You Forgive Her? is the first of the six in the Palliser series. Trollope inextricably binds together the issues of parliamentary election and marriage, of politics and privacy. The values and aspirations of the governing stratum of Victorian society are ruthlessly examined, and none remains unscathed. But above all Trollope focuses on the predicament of women. 'What should a woman do with her life?' asks Alice Vavasor of herself, and this theme is echoed by every other woman in the audiobook.
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Superb performance and sound
- By David on 05-21-10
By: Anthony Trollope
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The Crime at Black Dudley
- An Albert Campion Mystery
- By: Margery Allingham
- Narrated by: David Thorpe
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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When George Abbershaw is invited to Black Dudley Manor for the weekend, he has only one thing on his mind - proposing to Meggie Oliphant. Unfortunately for George, things don't quite go according to plan. A harmless game turns decidedly deadly and suspicions of murder take precedence over matrimony. Trapped in a remote country house with a murderer, George can see no way out. But Albert Campion can.
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I LIKE this narrator quite a lot!!!!
- By Meep on 11-16-13
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The Idiot
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Narrated by: Alastair Cameron
- Length: 23 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Young Prince Mishkin is that rare thing - a "completely beautiful human being". He is honest, humble, generous, and selfless, but unfortunately these traits mean he is often mistaken for an idiot. Upon his return to St. Petersburg, after being away at a Swiss sanatorium for the treatment of epilepsy, Prince Mishkin is taken under the wing of the wife of General Yepanchin, who arranges for him to live with the family of her money-obsessed friend Ganya.
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wow.
- By Michal Krawczyk on 04-25-17
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Murder of a Lady
- By: Anthony Wynne
- Narrated by: James Bryce
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Duchlan Castle is a gloomy place in the Scottish Highlands. Late one night the body of Mary Gregor, sister of the laird, is found in the castle. She has been stabbed to death in her locked bedroom. The only tiny clue to the culprit is a silver fish's scale, left on the floor next to Mary's body. Inspector Dundas is dispatched to investigate. The Gregor family and their servants are quick to explain that Mary was a kind and charitable woman, but Dundas uncovers a more complex truth.
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Solid "Golden Age" Mystery
- By Carl P. Beetz on 06-09-16
By: Anthony Wynne
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Armadale
- By: Wilkie Collins
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton, Rachel Atkins, David Rintoul, and others
- Length: 30 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Wilkie Collins' follow-up to The Woman in White and No Name is an innovative take on mistaken identity, the nature of evil, and the dark underbelly of Victorian England. The story concerns two distant cousins, both named Allan Armadale, and the impact of a family tragedy, which makes one of them a target of the murderous Lydia Gwilt, a vicious and malevolent charmer determined to get her hands on the Armadale fortune. Will the real Allan Armadale be revealed, and will he survive the plot against his life?
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Listen again & again to unravel layers of mystery
- By Proud Parents of Furry Kids on 10-28-20
By: Wilkie Collins
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The Cater Street Hangman
- By: Anne Perry
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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When a maid in the upper class Ellison household is strangled, Inspector Pitt is called in to investigate. He finds a world ruled by strict manners and social customs, where the inhabitants of the Ellison's neighborhood appear to be more outraged by the thought of scandal than they are by murder. Inspector Pitt finds a most unlikely ally in Charlotte, the Ellison's spirited daughter. But as the murders continue, Charlotte and Pitt find themselves drawn together by more than the investigation.
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I really like this book but it's not for everone
- By Ancient Warrior on 03-14-11
By: Anne Perry
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The Cornish Coast Murder
- By: John Bude
- Narrated by: Ben Allen
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The reverend Dodd, vicar of the quiet Cornish village of Boscawen, spends his evenings reading detective stories by the fireside - but heaven forbid that the shadow of any real crime should ever fall across his seaside parish. But the vicar's peace is shattered one stormy night when Julius Tregarthan, an ill-tempered magistrate, is found at his house in Boscawen with a bullet through his head. The local police inspector is baffled by the lack of clues.
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A Good Old Fashioned Who Done It
- By C. Rosser on 05-12-16
By: John Bude
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The Complete Father Brown Collection
- By: G. K. Chesterton
- Narrated by: Stephen Scalon
- Length: 41 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Shabby and lumbering, with a face like a Norfolk dumpling, Father Brown makes for an improbable super-sleuth. But his innocence is the secret of his success: refusing the scientific method of detection, he adopts instead an approach of simple sympathy, interpreting each crime as a work of art, and each criminal as a man no worse than himself… Here you will find the complete Father Brown stories in the chronological order of their original publication. The Innocence of Father Brown Starts at Chapter 1, The Wisdom of Father Brown Starts at Chapter 13.
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Good collection, bad editing, bad American accent
- By Samantha on 04-01-20
By: G. K. Chesterton
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The Groote Park Murder
- Detective Club Crime Classics
- By: Freeman Wills Crofts
- Narrated by: Crawford Logan
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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When a signalman discovers a mutilated body inside a railway tunnel near Groote Park, it seems to be a straightforward case of a man struck by a passing train. But Inspector Vandam of the Middeldorp police isn’t satisfied that Albert Smith’s death was accidental, and he sets out to prove foul play in a baffling mystery which crosses continents from deepest South Africa to the wilds of northern Scotland, where an almost identical crime appears to have been perpetrated.
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The Soundest Builder of Them All
- By John on 07-22-19
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Something New
- By: P. G. Wodehouse
- Narrated by: B.J. Harrison
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Here, we have a glorious ensemble of Woodhousian characters knocking elbows to foreheads in the elegant and grand Blandings Castle. Meet Freddy Threepwood, the vagrant son of doddering old Lord Emsworth of Blandings Castle. Freddy has recently become engaged to Aline Peters, the American heiress of an irascible father. The snag is that Freddy seems to have at one point become enamored of a struggling actress, Joan Valentine, and written some impetuous and imprudent letters to her.
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Same book as Something Fresh
- By customer on 03-07-15
By: P. G. Wodehouse