The Straw Hat Murders

It’s tough being being Chief of Homicide when there have been four murders of piano students—all in the same studio apartment! So Huntoon Cambourne knows his job is on the line as he tries to prevent a fifth murder. He’s not lacking for clues because there is a cheap straw hat found at the scene of all four murders. And then there’s the matter of the killer leaving a $20 gold piece in the alms bucket of a deaf and blind mendicant down on the street near the apartment house. But how does the murderer get into the death room when the only opening is a trapdoor that’s only reachable by a dangerous 7-foot leap?

A powerful and gripping collection of stories about the darkest years in Sri Lankan history A young man confesses to a bizarre crime. A girl is hailed as a miracle worker when she makes a desperate appeal to God. A seaside town is plagued by mysterious thefts. The death of a whore triggers a lifelong obsession in a teenage boy. A refugee returns to Sri Lanka to find a country engulfed in a living nightmare. In these vivid and inventive tales, Shobasakthi gives shape to the unspeakable violence, fear and trauma unleashed during the years of Sri Lanka’s civil war and its aftermath. By turns visceral, moving and shocking, The MGR Murder Trial ably conjures the horrors suffered by a silenced people.

The 15th July 1889 was a busy day on the Isle of Arran as it was Fair Monday. A number of visitors opted to climb Goatfell though many were put off by the cloud lingering on the summit. It seemed a day like any other, but that evening there would be an tragic event which would lead to one of the biggest man-hunts in Scottish criminal history, as well as a sensational murder trial. Two of the people who set out to climb the mountain that afternoon were John Watson Laurie, a 28-year-old pattern-maker from Coatbridge, and Edwin Robert Rose, a 32-year-old clerk from London. They had met three days previously on the excursion steamer Ivanhoe. Rose’s battered body, ‘the face terribly mangled’, was found three weeks later concealed under a boulder on a remote part of the mountain. The discovery sparked a huge search for Laurie who was subsequently arrested for Rose’s murder after two months on the run. When captured he attempted suicide with a cut-throat razor, then stated: ‘I robbed the man, but I did not murder him.’ This is the story of the Goatfell tragedy and its aftermath, described by the Glasgow Herald as ‘the most remarkable tale of crime and retribution in the annals of Scottish judicial history’.

In the style of Stuart Kaminsky, Wes D. Gehring of Ball State University has written an intriguing murder mystery involving a lost Chaplin film and a host of nefarious characters who want it. Using his vast knowledge of all things Chaplinian, Gehring perfectly captures the mindset of the little tramp and has produced a short novel worthy of the subject.

Many decades before Ted Bundy roamed the country there was serial killer Earle Nelson. During the 1920s, this geographically mobile killer went from city to city. His modus operandi involved getting into a house by pretending to be a person looking for a room to rent or inspecting a house that was for sale, and then strangling the landlady, often followed by having sex with the dead body. Robbery was frequently a secondary motive. After Nelson was captured in Canada in 1927, it was commonly reported that he had killed 21 women and a baby during the 1926-27 period. But were these the only cases linked to him? The author examines an additional nine unsolved murders of landladies, two of which have never been dealt with in previous literature. Based on decades of archival research, the author examines all 31 murders, relying on primary sources when available and a wide variety of secondary sources. For each murder, the book provides biographical sketches of the victim, outlines the police investigation and the various suspects, and covers any subsequent attempts to link Nelson to the crime by identification evidence of witnesses or by fingerprints.

Dillon Bryant, a successful engineer, is off on assignment after finishing his honeymoon. But news from home comes that his new bride, Laura, a beautiful woman whom he had met only weeks before proposing marriage, is in deep trouble. By the time he gets to her, Laura has been murdered. Filled with grief and rage, he cannot leave it up to the police to solve the case - he wants his own kind of revenge against the killer ...

This grand collection comprises over 270 mystery tales and murder cases of the famous British detectives and investigators: Sherlock Holmes Series: A Study in Scarlet The Sign of Four The Hound of the Baskervilles The Valley of Fear The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes The Return of Sherlock Holmes His Last Bow The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes Father Brown Stories: The Innocence of Father Brown The Wisdom of Father Brown The Incredulity of Father Brown The Secret of Father Brown The Scandal of Father Brown Inspector Furnival Series: The Abbey Court Murder The House in Charlton Crescent The Crow's Inn Tragedy Inspector Stoddart Series: The Man with the Dark Beard Who Killed Charmian Karslake? The Crime at Tattenham Corner The Crystal Beads Murder Martin Hewitt Series: Martin Hewitt, Investigator Chronicles of Martin Hewitt Adventures of Martin Hewitt The Red Triangle Dr. Thorndyke Series: The Red Thumb Mark The Eye of Osiris The Mystery of 31 New Inn A Silent Witness Helen Vardon's Confession The Cat's Eye The Mystery of Angelina Frood The Shadow of the Wolf The D'Arblay Mystery A Certain Dr. Thorndyke As a Thief in the Night Mr. Pottermack's Oversight Pontifex, Son and Thorndyke When Rogues Fall Out Dr. Thorndyke Intervenes For the Defence: Dr. Thorndyke The Penrose Mystery Felo De Se? The Stoneware Monkey Mr. Polton Explains The Jacob Street Mystery Percival Bland's Proxy The Missing Mortgagee Dr. Thorndyke's Cases The Adventures of Dr. Thorndyke Dr. Thorndyke's Casebook The Puzzle Lock The Magic Casket Hamilton Cleek Series: Cleek, the Master Detective Cleek of Scotland Yard Cleek's Government Cases The Riddle of the Night The Riddle of the Purple Emperor The Riddle of the Frozen Flame The Riddle of the Mysterious Light The Riddle of the Spinning Wheel Bulldog Drummond Adventures Max Carrados Mysteries Thorpe Hazell Mysteries P.C. Lee Stories Paul Campenhaye – Specialist in Criminology Eugéne Valmont Mysteries ...