Harry Stephen Keeler
Список книг автора Harry Stephen KeelerThe Case of the Crazy Corpse
"My guiltiest pleasure is Harry Stephen Keeler. He may been the greatest bad writer America has ever produced. Or perhaps the worst great writer. I do not know. There are few faults you can accuse him of that he is not guilty of. But I love him." – Neil Gaiman<P> Ho hum. Another day; another corpse dredged up from the depths of Lake Michigan. This time it’s a body having the bottom half of a negro man and the top half of a Chinese woman joined together at the waist by some kind of greenish glue. But we don’t linger long at this unpleasant scene because Angus MacWhorter and his Mammoth Motorized Show are in another pickle. If Angus can’t pay back $3000 – in $100 bills whose serial numbers must be evenly divisible by 13! – he’ll lose the circus to the dastardly Geispitz Gmohling. But the needed bills are on the other side of Old Twistibus, the windingest road in the world, and Giff O’Dell, who has the bills, is obsessed with solving the Crazy Corpse murder. Now that is a pickle!
Stand By -- London Calling!
"My guiltiest pleasure is Harry Stephen Keeler. He may been the greatest bad writer America has ever produced. Or perhaps the worst great writer. I do not know. There are few faults you can accuse him of that he is not guilty of. But I love him." – Neil Gaiman<P> An unholy love! That's what young Erlys Janway found herself in the throes of as she awaits word from her brother, Pell Barneyfield, as to whether they are truly blood-related. If he can come up with the proof they're not related – and then make it to Foleysburg, where MacWhorter's traveling circus is camped – then Erlys won't be compelled to marry Golden-Tongue, the circus barker. But first Pell'll have to traverse Old Twistibus, a road so crooked they gave it a name. In the meantime, Angus MacWhorter, kindly owner of the circus, is offered $1000 for a $10 diorama of a hanged fish with a crown. What's with that? Only the answer to all of the riddles of this classic 1953 tale, the last Keeler published in English during his lifetime.
The Case of the Jeweled Ragpicker
"My guiltiest pleasure is Harry Stephen Keeler. He may been the greatest bad writer America has ever produced. Or perhaps the worst great writer. I do not know. There are few faults you can accuse him of that he is not guilty of. But I love him." – Neil Gaiman<P> In December of 1946 Harry Stephen Keeler wrote a huge novel he called THE ACE OF SPADES MURDER. No publisher would tackle a novel so big so he split it up, eventually making five new novels from it. THE CASE OF THE JEWELED RAGPICKER was the one first published, in 1948 by Phoenix Press. In it, circus driver Bill Chattuck must make his way across Idiots' Valley via Old Twistibus in time to prevent something horrible from happening. You know the story – but this time the notorious Phoenix Press seems to have added its own brand of wackiness to Harry's and produced the wildest Old Twistibus saga yet.
The Ace of Spades Murder
"My guiltiest pleasure is Harry Stephen Keeler. He may been the greatest bad writer America has ever produced. Or perhaps the worst great writer. I do not know. There are few faults you can accuse him of that he is not guilty of. But I love him." – Neil Gaiman<P> It all started with a murder 20 years earlier. A ragpicker was found in a closet, stabbed in the back with a jewelled dagger—through an ace of spades! There’s a reward for the solution to this old murder and Bill Chattuck, driver for MacWhorter’s Motorized Circus, must get that reward—and prove the legitimacy of his girl, Melody—or they’ll never get married! But first, there’s the matter of that rare copy of Beowulf with a secret coded message in it, and the windingest road in the world, Old Twistibus, standing between Bill and happiness. It’s a crazy contretemps only Harry Stephen Keeler could unravel.
The Vanishing Gold Truck
"My guiltiest pleasure is Harry Stephen Keeler. He may been the greatest bad writer America has ever produced. Or perhaps the worst great writer. I do not know. There are few faults you can accuse him of that he is not guilty of. But I love him." – Neil Gaiman<P>When the Cedarville bank is robbed of a gold shipment, Sheriff Bucyrus Duckhouse of Willis Creek was just where he wants to be – waiting at the end of the Smoky Ridge Tunnel where any minute the robbers have just got to emerge. But meanwhile, carny Jim Craney has a truckful of trouble as he scrambles to catch up with the rest of his circus. A truck full of lioness and five newborn kittens! The only way he can make it in time to marry the circus woman he loves is if the Sheriff will let him take the Straightaway through the tunnel. Otherwise he'll have to take Old Twistibus, the road so crooked they gave it a name.
The Riddle of the Yellow Zuri
In the open market in Chicago, a tiger snake could have been bought by a circus for $10. But the particular snake for which Jake Jennings was willing to pay a small fortune was the key to a great mystery. The grand climax is an absolute surprise, and no reader will be able to say, «I knew it from the beginning.»<P> Here is fiction that is stranger than truth. It contains one of the most perplexing and labyrinthine mysteries ever conceived by the human mind.
The First Mystery Novel MEGAPACK ®: 4 Great Mystery Novels
The First Mystery Novel MEGAPACK™ presents four classic mysteries by top crime writers. Here are:<P> The Red Bishop, by Howard Mason … A wild chase through Europe…a castle on the Rhine…some very fancy corpses…a racing columnist who suddenly finds himself a Peer of the Realm… These are the unlikely ingredients that make this book at once hair-raising and light-hearted!<BR> Reclining Figure, by Marco Page … Lucas Edgerton, arbitary and capricious eccentric, brings in Ellis Blaise, a young New York art dealer, to sell some of his art collection for tax purposes. Thefts from the collection, the sensational forgery of a priceless Renoir, and the puzzling murder of Lucas's son force Blaise into a perilous investigation!<BR> The Case of the 16 Beans, by Harry Stephen Keeler … Why did old Balhatchet Barkstone, on dying, leave his nephew 16 beans? And why did Boyce Barkstone, his heir, hold on to the beans? Why did Hu Fong, a Chinese detective, come to the conclusion that a poverty-stricken hermit was murdered for an article of great value, and what might that article be? These are only a few of the seemingly insoluble riddles which Keeler answers in his own inimitable manner!<BR> The Girl Who Had to Die, by By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding … 19-year-old Jocelyn is convinced she's going to be murdered, and accuses John Killian, a young man she met on a cruise ship, of throwing her overboard. But there are a lot of people who seem to hate Jocelyn…and Killian starts to wonder if he'll be the next victim instead!<P> If you enjoy this ebook, don't forget to search your favorite ebook store for «Wildside Press Megapack» to see more of the 250+ volumes in this series, covering adventure, historical fiction, mysteries, westerns, ghost stories, science fiction – and much, much more!
The Man Who Changed His Skin
It’s 1855, and with a war over slavery looming on the horizon, all bachelor Clark Shellcross wants to do is get married. But when his hopes are dashed he succumbs to temptation and takes a weird drug that claims it will change his life. And it does! He wakes up the next morning with black skin! It doesn’t take long for him to realize that 1855 is not a good time to have darkly hued skin, even in the northern city of Boston.<P> The story of his frantic odyssey in search of his former life could only have sprung from the anarchic imagination of Harry Stephen Keeler.<P> NOTE: This book is not politically correct by current standards. It contains language and ideas relevant to the age in which it is set (1855) and was written in the 1930s, a less progressive time. It is dated, but remains a fascinating artifact of its era. Although it deals with race, it is decided anti-racism (which may be why it remained unpublished until discovered among Harry Stephen Keeler’s papers).<P>A note to the sensitive: the language is of its time period and it is not policitally correct by contemporary standards.
X. Jones—Of Scotland Yard
One of Keeler's best, this is the second half of the notorious Marceau case, where a strangler baby dangling from an autogyro may have done the deed. Written in 1935 at the peak of Keeler's powers. <P> Xenius Jones, Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard, gave the exact date he would reveal the details of the infamous André Marceau murder. Then Alec Snide, an American reporter, broke the case before he did! But Jones insists that Snide is 100% wrong—and he’s got the 4-dimensional proof of it! In the second “dossier novel” of this remarkable murder case, Harry Stephen Keeler once again proves that no one could handle a complicated plot as he could. <P> Note for the culturally sensitive: Most of Harry Stephen Keeler's works are not politically correct by contemporary standards. Please keep in mind the time in which it was written as you read it.
The Marceau Case
"The Babe from Hell!" gasped Andre Marceau just as the wire rightened around his neck. A second later he lay sprawled on the ground – dead. Close by his body were the tracks of tiny footsteps, beginning nowhere and leading nowhere…the only clues to one of the most shocking crimes of the Twentieth Century!<P> That was the beginning of a mystery that Scotland Yark sleuths worked on frantically for two years and then abandoned in despair, without a solution. Yet it was to be solved, not by a detective, but by a resourceful and imaginative American newspaper man, who tracked down an overlooked clue and reopened the case. The thread of Destiny which brought a horrible death to Andre Marceau stretched through Europe to Japan and Australia and even America!