Mystery & Thriller Audiobooks

The Soul of a Policeman

"Richard Barham Middleton was born on the 28th October 1882 in Staines, Middlesex.His education was primarily at Cranbrook School in Kent before he began work as a clerk, in 1901, at the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation in London. There he struggled with constraints and boundaries and by night he took to a bohemian lifestyle. Middleton moved into rooms in Blackfriars and joined the New Bohemians club where his literary contacts grew.He became an editor at Vanity Fair where he told a fellow editor, the notorious Frank Harris, that he wanted to pursue a career as a poet. Shortly afterwards Harris published Middleton’s poem ‘The Bathing Boy’.As an author he is most remembered for his short ghost stories.Richard Middleton died on 1st December 1911. He was 29."

Richard Middleton (Author), Mark Rice-Oxley (Narrator)

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Baroness Orczy - A Short Story Collection

"Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála Orczy de Orci, or more familiarly, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, was born on the 23rd September 1865, in Tarnaörs, Heves County, Hungary.The family lived in their ancestral home; a great, rambling farmhouse on the river Tarna. Orczy’s memories of the time were of sophisticated parties, sparkling conversation, joyful dancing and gypsy music. But fear of a peasant uprising meant moving to Budapest and then many years of semi-nomadic travels across Europe.Arriving in London in 1880 Orczy, aged 15, studied painting and, a few years later, had some pictures exhibited at the Royal Academy.London, she now felt, was home, her spiritual birthplace. Art school also provided a husband; the young illustrator, Montague Barstow, the son of an English clergyman. Determined to prove herself as a writer she plunged headlong into a writing career shortly after her son’s birth. In a mere five weeks she wrote the adventure classic ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel’. Originally rejected, she re-worked it as a successful play. It was then published as a best-selling book in 1905 and later a very successful movie. Politically Orczy was a conservative with an unwavering belief in the superiority of the aristocracy and of the British Empire. During World War I, she formed the Women of England's Active Service League, tasked with recruiting female volunteers "to persuade every man I know to offer his service to his country". In the coming years the family lived on an estate in Kent, in a tasteful London home and an extravagant villa in Monte Carlo. All the while Orczy’s pen wrote novels, short stories, plays, translations and, eventually, her autobiography. Baroness Orczy died on the 12th November 1947 at Henley-on-Thames in South Oxfordshire. She was 82."

Baroness Orczy (Author), Mark Rice-Oxley, Richard Mitchley (Narrator)

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Cheese - Bait For The Beast

"Ethel Lina White was born on the 2nd April 1876 in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, in Wales.Her family were wealthy due to her father’s invention of a waterproofing material used, initially, for the London Underground.Ethel started writing when she was only a child and published essays and poems in children’s papers. She was also a talented artist.As an adult she began to write short stories and, some years later, she started writing novels. At the time she was working for the Ministry of Pensions in London but resigned in order to accept an advance of ten pounds and begin a career as a novelist. It was this determination that helped her become one of the best-known crime writers in the English-speaking world during the 1930’s and 40’s.Perhaps her best-known books are the ‘The Lady Vanishes’ and ‘The Spiral Staircase’ both of which were originally entitled differently but were republished with new names after being filmed. Whilst today she lacks attention, in her day she was as popular and as highly regarded as Agatha Christie.Ethel Lina White died in London on the 13th of August 1944 of ovarian cancer. She was 68.In her will she made a bizarre condition in order for her sister to receive her estate of £5737. It read: "I give and bequeath unto Annis Dora White all that I possess on condition she pays a qualified surgeon to plunge a knife into my heart after death." In life she had a fear of being buried alive."

Ethel Lina White (Author), Mark Rice-Oxley (Narrator)

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Water Running Out

"Ethel Lina White was born on the 2nd April 1876 in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, in Wales.Her family were wealthy due to her father’s invention of a waterproofing material used, initially, for the London Underground.Ethel started writing when she was only a child and published essays and poems in children’s papers. She was also a talented artist.As an adult she began to write short stories and, some years later, she started writing novels. At the time she was working for the Ministry of Pensions in London but resigned in order to accept an advance of ten pounds and begin a career as a novelist. It was this determination that helped her become one of the best-known crime writers in the English-speaking world during the 1930’s and 40’s.Perhaps her best-known books are the ‘The Lady Vanishes’ and ‘The Spiral Staircase’ both of which were originally entitled differently but were republished with new names after being filmed. Whilst today she lacks attention, in her day she was as popular and as highly regarded as Agatha Christie.Ethel Lina White died in London on the 13th of August 1944 of ovarian cancer. She was 68.In her will she made a bizarre condition in order for her sister to receive her estate of £5737. It read: "I give and bequeath unto Annis Dora White all that I possess on condition she pays a qualified surgeon to plunge a knife into my heart after death." In life she had a fear of being buried alive."

Ethel Lina White (Author), Robert Maskell (Narrator)

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Waxworks

"Ethel Lina White was born on the 2nd April 1876 in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, in Wales.Her family were wealthy due to her father’s invention of a waterproofing material used, initially, for the London Underground.Ethel started writing when she was only a child and published essays and poems in children’s papers. She was also a talented artist.As an adult she began to write short stories and, some years later, she started writing novels. At the time she was working for the Ministry of Pensions in London but resigned in order to accept an advance of ten pounds and begin a career as a novelist. It was this determination that helped her become one of the best-known crime writers in the English-speaking world during the 1930’s and 40’s.Perhaps her best-known books are the ‘The Lady Vanishes’ and ‘The Spiral Staircase’ both of which were originally entitled differently but were republished with new names after being filmed. Whilst today she lacks attention, in her day she was as popular and as highly regarded as Agatha Christie.Ethel Lina White died in London on the 13th of August 1944 of ovarian cancer. She was 68.In her will she made a bizarre condition in order for her sister to receive her estate of £5737. It read: "I give and bequeath unto Annis Dora White all that I possess on condition she pays a qualified surgeon to plunge a knife into my heart after death." In life she had a fear of being buried alive."

Ethel Lina White (Author), Lisa Bowerman (Narrator)

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Tomorrow

"Eugene Gladstone O’Neill was born on the 16th October, 1888, in the Barrett hotel which would later become part of Times Square. During the painful childbirth his mother was administered morphine and subsequently became addicted to it for several years.In his youth O’Neill was sent away to the Catholic boarding school St. Aloysius Academy for Boys in the Riverdale area of the Bronx. Here he found solace in books from the realities of both the tough schooling and distant parents. Although an unexceptional student he went on to study at Princeton University, though only for a year. Leaving without qualifications, O’Neill went to sea for several years. Here he found himself turning frequently to alcohol to cope with the conditions at sea which led to alcoholism, and, in turn, depression. He did though develop a deep love for the sea and its people despite everything and it became a major theme throughout his writing career.O’Neill married for the first time in 1909. However, it only lasted 3 years and in 1912-13 he spent time recovering from tuberculosis at a sanatorium. After a long period of recuperation, he decided to enrol at Harvard University, but again left after only a year. In 1914 O’Neill’s first play, the one-act ‘Bound East For Cardiff’, was performed at a small theatre in Provincetown, Massachusetts. It was obvious to everyone that O’Neill was prodigiously talented and several of his plays would now progress from small theatres to the fabled Broadway.By 1920, and on his second marriage, ‘Beyond The Horizon’ reached Broadway and won him a coveted Pulitzer Prize. His other play that year? ‘The Emperor Jones’ was a huge commercial success.In 1922 his Mother passed and naturally somewhat dulled the sensation of a second Pulitzer Prize, this time for his play ‘Anna Christie’. Incredibly his ideas and pen continued to generate hit plays and in 1928 he received his third Pulitzer Prize, for the play ‘Strange Interlude’. O’Neill abandoned his second wife and family in 1929 in favor of an actress from San Francisco. Shortly after they married and moved to the Loire Valley in France that same year. On the 26th October 1931, ‘Mourning Becomes Electra’ debuted at the Guild Theatre on Broadway. It retold the ‘Oresteia’ by Aeschylus. Shortly thereafter he began a lengthy period of literary inactivity.In 1936 O’Neill was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature and he now moved to California. By the 1940’s his own health was being undermined with a Parkinson’s-like trembling in his hands which rendered writing very difficult. Disenchanted he rushed to complete three more, largely autobiographical, plays, ‘The Iceman Cometh’ (1939), ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’ (1941) and ‘A Moon for the Misbegotten’ (1943). It was a momentous period for his writing as he pushed himself to complete these great works before his hands would fail.On the 27th November 1953 O’Neill, now 65, was lying in bed in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel in Boston. He knew he was dying, “I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room.” Three years after his death in defiance of Eugene’s instructions that it be allowed to wait 25 years ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’ was staged. The play won O’Neill a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in 1957, it was his fourth."

Eugene O'Neill (Author), Eric Meyers (Narrator)

Audiobook

William Wilson

"Edgar Poe was born in Boston Massachusetts on 19th January 1809. His father abandoned his family the following year and within a year his mother had died leaving him an orphan. He was taken in by the Allan family but never formally adopted although he now referred to himself as Edgar Allan Poe. His father alternatively spoiled or chastised him and tension was frequent over gambling debts and monies for his education. His university years to study ancient and modern languages was cut short by lack of money and he enlisted as a private in the army claiming he was 22, it is more probable he was 18. After 2 years he obtained a discharge in order to take up an appointment at the military academy, West Point, where he failed to become an officer.Poe had released his 1st poetry volume in 1827 and after his 3rd turned to prose and placing short stories in several magazines and journals. At age 26 he obtained a licence to marry his cousin. She was a mere 13 but they stayed together until her death from tuberculosis 11 years after.In January 1845 ‘The Raven’ was published and became an instant classic. Thereafter followed the prose works for which he is now so rightly famed as a master of the mysterious and the macabre.Edgar Allan Poe died at the tragically early age of 40 on 7th October 1849 in Baltimore, Maryland. Newspapers at the time reported Poe's death as ‘congestion of the brain’ or ‘cerebral inflammation’, common euphemisms for death from disreputable causes such as alcoholism but the actual cause of death remains a mystery."

Edgar Allan Poe (Author), Eric Meyers (Narrator)

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3 Stories About - Disapproving Fathers

"There is something about the number 3. The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two. Most religions also have 3 this and 3 that and, of course, in these more modern times, three’s a crowd may be too many, except when it’s a ménage à trois. It seems good things usually come in threes.Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore themes and literary avenues that classic authors were so adept at creating.From their pens to your your ears."

Elizabeth Gaskell, Leo Tolstoy, Stephen Crane (Author), Eric Meyers, Mark Rice-Oxley, Richard Mitchley (Narrator)

Audiobook

3 Stories About - Social Standing

"There is something about the number 3. The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two. Most religions also have 3 this and 3 that and, of course, in these more modern times, three’s a crowd may be too many, except when it’s a ménage à trois. It seems good things usually come in threes.Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore themes and literary avenues that classic authors were so adept at creating.From their pens to your your ears."

Elizabeth Gaskell, F Scott Fitzgerald, O Henry (Author), John-Michael MacDonald, Laurel Lefkow, Richard Mitchley (Narrator)

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3 Stories About - Appearances Can Be Misleading

"There is something about the number 3. The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two. Most religions also have 3 this and 3 that and, of course, in these more modern times, three’s a crowd may be too many, except when it’s a ménage à trois. It seems good things usually come in threes.Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore themes and literary avenues that classic authors were so adept at creating.From their pens to your your ears."

Guy De Maupassant, Mark Twain, Saki (Author), David Shaw-Parker, Eric Meyers, Eve Karpf (Narrator)

Audiobook

3 Stories About - Dead Women Returning as Ghosts

"There is something about the number 3. The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two. Most religions also have 3 this and 3 that and, of course, in these more modern times, three’s a crowd may be too many, except when it’s a ménage à trois. It seems good things usually come in threes.Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore themes and literary avenues that classic authors were so adept at creating.From their pens to your your ears."

H Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, The Vision of the Dead Creole (Author), David Shaw-Parker, Richard Mitchley (Narrator)

Audiobook

3 Stories About - Alcoholism

"There is something about the number 3. The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two. Most religions also have 3 this and 3 that and, of course, in these more modern times, three’s a crowd may be too many, except when it’s a ménage à trois. It seems good things usually come in threes.Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore themes and literary avenues that classic authors were so adept at creating.From their pens to your your ears."

F Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Lydia Maria Child (Author), Conor Charlton, Laurel Lefkow, Michael Carleton (Narrator)

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