The Valley of Fear

The second book of Sherlock Holmes adventures. Yellow fog is swirling through the streets of London, and Sherlock Holmes himself is sitting in a cocaine-induced haze until the arrival of a distressed and beautiful young lady forces the great detective into action. Each year following the strange disappearance of her father, Miss Morstan has received a present of a rare and lustrous pearl. Now, on the day she is summoned to meet her anonymous benefactor, she consults Holmes and Watson.

A rich American art-collector and his daughter Maggie buy in for themselves and to their greater glory a beautiful young wife and noble husband. They do not know that Charlotte and Prince Amerigo were formerly lovers, nor that on the eve of the Prince’s marriage they had discovered, in a Bloomsbury antique shop, a golden bowl with a secret flaw. In this, the last of his three great poetic masterpieces, James combined with a dazzling virtuosity elements of social comedy, of mystery, terror, and myth.

The Maltese Falcon is a classic of noir literature that will immerse you in a labyrinth of intrigue and deception, where a cunning detective faces a ruthless search for a valuable statuette. With themes of greed, betrayal, and morality in a dark world, The Maltese Falcon explores the fragility of human nature and the limits of loyalty in a plot full of surprising twists

THE POLICEMAN’S DISCOVERY “Eleven o’clock and a windy night!” might have been the cry of a mediæval watchman at that hour on the 24th July 19–. Constable Mulligan was more reticent, as it formed no part of his duties to intimate publicly the time or the state of the weather. Nevertheless the bells of the Anglican Church, Troy, London, S.W., chimed the hour through the clamour of a high wind; and those people who were not in bed must have decided to retire. Not that any one appeared to be stirring. The lights were extinguished in all windows within the range of Mulligan’s vision, and the flashing of his lantern on the doors and gates in Achilles Avenue showed that they were discreetly closed. Not even a tramp or a cat enlivened the roadway. Mulligan was apparently the sole waking person in a sleeping world. Troy was a bran-new suburb, built by a jerry-builder, who knew Greek history through the medium of Lempriere’s Dictionary.

Understanding that his beauty will fade, Dorian Gray expresses the desire to sell his soul, to ensure that his picture, rather than he, will age and fade. The wish is granted, and Dorian pursues a libertine life of varied and amoral experiences, while staying young and beautiful; all the while his portrait ages and records every sin.