Harry Stephen Keeler - Free Library Land Online - Realistic Fiction

The Vanishing Gold Truck

Sat, 18 Mar 2017 16:00:39 +0200

"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

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 Circus Stealers

Sat, 18 Mar 2017 16:01:10 +0200

There's nothing new under the sun in Idiots' Valley, home of Harry Stephen Keeler's Screwball Circus. Angus MacWhorter's circus has made it across Old Twistibus — the windingest road in the world — but there's still an important wagon that Rance Holly has to drive to catch up with the rest of the circus in Foleysburg, or the circus will be lost to rival entrepreneur, Wolf Gladish. There's no nuttier place in the country than Idiots' Valley, with its pack of illiterate bumpkins, and Harry and Hazel milk it for all it's worth in this first English-language edition of a Keeler classic!

Behind That Mask

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 16:01:16 +0300

This classic 1938 mystery could only have come from the fevered imagination of Harry Stephen Keeler! Behind That Mask is a direct sequel to his 1932 novel, Finger! Finger!—and although it concludes successfully the story begun in volume one, readers should definitely have finished Finger! Finger! before starting this one. You have been warned!

Cleopatra's Tears

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 16:00:55 +0300

Several men find themselves stranded by a flooding river on Bleeker's Island. The jewels known as Cleopatra's Tears are missing, and one of the men is believed to be Actor Hart, notorious killer and thief — maybe even the one who stole the jewels. Can the sheriff figure out which one is Hart — and make sure he's the one without a life jacket when the dam upriver gives way?

The Mystery of the Fiddling Cracksman

Sun, 18 Mar 2018 16:00:58 +0200

Wild, fantastic, yet overwhelmingly logical, this yarn could come only from Chicago's own Sherlock Holmes and that favorite of American mystery fans, Harry Stephen Keeler. Here he gives us a brand-new webwork of mysteries — a cracksman who uses not dynamite, but a violin; a second-hand safe with amazing secrets inside; a volcanic island in the Pacific; a fantastic kingdom in Europe; and a pair of lovers caught in the very center of this whirlwind of danger and detection. As usual, this breathless yarn is filled with facts and incidents undreamed of in the usual mystery story. Keeler fans will find it a special treat.

The Six from Nowhere

Sat, 18 Mar 2017 16:00:57 +0200

Who are those six mysterious figures that are looming outside the owner's trailer of Angus MacWhorter's Mammoth Motorized Shows? And why would they want the copy of a pulp magazine that he bought for ten cents? The answers have something to do with a gangster, the tong of the Lean Grey Rats, and a group calling itself the Society of Retired Clergymen.

The Case of the Murdered Mathematician

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 16:01:03 +0300

Quiribus Brown, probably the only 7-and-a-half-foot-tall mathematical detective in the Midwest, has got to solve the mystery of who killed Professor Munstergale, or he'll never get his rightful inheritance. Luckily, Munstergale lived long enough to draw on a blackboard two diagrams, one pointing to his killer, and the other pointing to where he knew the killer from. There are two theories, both involving prominent citizens as suspects, and Inspector Clarvoe's job is depending on Quiribus' deciding which theory—or neither—is correct.

Y. Cheung, Business Detective

Sun, 18 Mar 2018 16:01:09 +0200

Young Y. Cheung is in a pickle! In order to receive a $100,000 inheritance from his grandfather's estate, he must get his name mentioned in 1000 U.S. newspapers, "in an honorable fashion" before midnight of the day before the estate is settled. On top of that, his family doesn't consider his one-of-a-kind profession, business detective, "honorable". How Y. Cheung uses his inscrutable wiles to gain happiness and the inheritance is a tale only Harry Stephen Keeler could spin.

"It was definitely loopy and is the second of his novels I have read to deal sympathetically and sensibly with Asians in 1930s while everyone else was demonizing or eroticizing them in genre fiction of that era. This is one of Keeler's forays into the 'locked room' and impossible problem genre, but being Keller it involves an outrageous and nearly unfathomable solution." — G. F. Norris, Golden Age Detection.

The Portrait of Jirjohn Cobb

Sun, 18 Mar 2018 16:00:37 +0200

The worst flood in decades has isolated an island in the middle of Big River and there's no telling when the dam upriver is going to give. On the island are four men and three lifejackets. The sheriff's got the rifle and knows one of the other three men is a brutal and ruthless killer. Each man has his own story and if you don't think this is a situation ripe for the webwork machinations of Harry Stephen Keeler, you haven't been reading one of the most original mystery writers of the 20th century. Told in outrageous dialect, this book will have you guessing from the first page to the last.

The Case of the Two-Headed Idiot

Sat, 18 Mar 2017 16:01:12 +0200

What would you do if you were Angus MacWhorter, owner of the Biggest Little Circus on Earth, and you'd been offered $3000 for just ten minutes alone with the two-headed child who at one time was the star feature of the circus? Why, you'd send your right hand man, Brock Colburn, to Chicago to check up on the offering party. The trouble is, Brock is wanted in Chitown for an old felony he didn't commit, and any sleuthing he does is going to have to be under deep cover. If only Brock could meet some sympathetic person who could help him, someone like Ardis Waring — Mrs. Ardis Waring. And let's not even mention the Chinese laundryman known as Ah Hell. Yes, Ah Hell. Let's don't mention him.

The Book with the Orange Leaves

Wed, 31 Oct 2018 18:50:39 +0200

What kind of book would be printed on orange leaves? It could only be the one book that contains all of the wisdom of the ancient Chinese, as told in hundreds of aphorisms —The Way Out. Featured in a half dozen webwork mysteries by Harry Stephen Keeler, The Way Out is the only thing keeping one-handed Stefan Czeszcziczki's wife alive as she awaits an operation. How "Zicky" uses its wisdom to save her life is a tale only America's most forgotten author could have written.

The Case of the 16 Beans

Mon, 18 Mar 2019 16:00:41 +0200

"Beans to YOU, sonnyboy, as per my will!"

So read the wishes of rich old Balhatchet Barkstone, uncle of young Boyce. Why would he deny Boyce his proper inheritance by leaving him a paltry 16 beans instead of millions of dollars? Could it have been a big mistake? Or an imagined insult? Only Harry Stephen Keeler could have concocted such a plot

A note to the sensitive: As with many novels written in the first half of the 20th century, this book contains elements which may be viewed as racist today. Please keep in mind the era in which it was first published.

The Straw Hat Murders

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 16:00:48 +0200

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?

The Case of the Two Strange Ladies

Mon, 18 Mar 2019 16:01:13 +0200

It's tough being a damn'd Yankee reporter in Southern City, but life just gets worse when the nude bodies of two women — one white, one black — are found dead in Cattail Swamp with their heads cut off and swapped. Of course the only way to identify them is to have the bodies on display so every person in Southern City can see them. With such an organized ritual, how can ace reporter Tommy Skirmont ever hope to solve the mystery and keep his job?