Quando Raymond Sturgis riceve un invito da Anne Mansfield, sua vecchia fiamma del liceo, non si aspetta di ritrovarla sposa (infelice) dell'anziano milionario David Van Wyck. Ma ancora meno si aspetta che venga accusata dell'omicidio del marito.Van Wyck viene infatti trovato morto nel suo studio, chiuso dall'interno, senza tracce di effrazioni né dell'arma del delitto. Solo l'intervento del celebre detective Fleming Stone potrà chiarire la vicenda.

When millionaire Joseph Crawford is slain in the study of his New Jersey home the only physical evidence the police have to go on is a small gold bag left at the crime scene. Suspicion falls on the dead man’s niece, Florence, who admits to having once owned a similar bag and who stands to inherit the bulk of Crawford’s fortune. Amateur sleuth Burroughs believes her to be innocent. The killer could be Florence’s unscrupulous fiancé or one of the victim’s many bitter employees. Burroughs becomes infatuated with Florence and can no longer be objective. It’s up to society detective par excellence Fleming Stone to solve the mystery of … The Gold Bag.

Fleming Stone Mystery #8 is a courtroom drama centering on the slaying of a Bronx businessman whose body is discovered in a remote corner of Van Cortlandt Park. The dead man’s last words were “Cain killed me,” which leads investigators to the victim’s nephew Kane Landon. But was ‘Cain’ a Biblical reference? Or did it mean something else entirely? Landon has no credible alibi and finds himself on trial. With circumstantial evidence against him, Landon turns to expert detective Fleming Stone and his assistant Fibsy to unravel the meaning of … The Mark of Cain.

Wealthy New York widow Ursula Pell enjoys hosting parties and playing cruel jokes on her guests. If anyone complains about the humiliating mistreatment, she threatens to cut them out of her will. When Ursula’s dead body is discovered in a locked-room the morning after a dinner party, suspicion initially points to the murder victim’s niece Iris, the most recent recipient of one of Ursula’s humiliating pranks. But there are many others competing for Ursula Pell’s fortune in gems, which the eccentric widow hid somewhere and which includes a highly prized diamond pin.Who killed Ursula and how? And where is the stash of gemstones? When amateur sleuths fail to unearth any clues, they call in Detective Fleming Stone to fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle. Curl up with this classic locked-room whodunit from Carolyn Wells, author of The Clue.

A group of bored rich New Yorkers obsessed with the supernatural decide to spend a month in Black Aspens, a supposedly haunted mansion deep in Vermont’s Green Mountains. A bizarre murder is rumored to have occurred there in an infamous room with tassels. Jokes about Ouija boards and séances abruptly halt when two members of the party are mysteriously struck down at afternoon tea. Were their deaths the result of supernatural forces? Or did they meet their demise due to a more human hand? The Room with the Tassels marks the debut of occult detective Pennington ‘Penny’ Wise and his female sidekick Zizi. Carolyn Wells created this younger crime fighting duo after the success of her Fleming Stone books. As her twelfth mystery novel, The Room with the Tassels marks a maturity of writing from the author of The Clue.

The cozy college town of Corinth, New England is the setting for this classic locked-room mystery by Carolyn Wells, author of The Clue. All entrances to the study where the body was found were locked from the inside. The future college president and groom-to-be had no known cause for suicide, yet no clues point to a murder. Was Anita, the eponymous Mystery Girl, who is rumored to have been romantically involved with the dead man, somehow implicated in his death? Love letters between the two of them point to her guilt. And yet she seems incapable of such a crime. It’s up to Detective Fleming Stone to decipher the story’s twin puzzles; the mystery of the locked-room death and the true nature of … The Mystery Girl.

A man is found murdered in a locked Manhattan apartment, the only other inhabitants of which were his niece and a servant. The niece, under suspicion, will be indicted unless Otis Landon, a young lawyer from the apartment across the hall can discover the real killer. The clues, a safety deposit key, a woman’s hat pin without a head, a railroad timetable, and two music hall tickets, each point to a different person, none of whom can have committed the crime. From these clues, Landon, with the help of the noted detective, Fleming Stone, must forge the chain of evidence with which he can convict the killer and prove the innocence of the niece. Curl up with this classic cozy mystery from the author of The Clue.

Sir Herbert Binney, millionaire owner of ‘Binney’s Buns,’ is found murdered in the ritzy lobby of the New York apartment hotel where he lives with his mother and aunt. The two women are bun-baking competitors and have been mortal enemies for decades. A partially written note discovered with the corpse reads, ‘Women did this get …’ Police are convinced one of the rival bun bakers killed Binney for financial gain. That is until Detective Pennington Wise and his sidekick Zizi present an alternate theory. Curl up with this classic cozy whodunit from Carolyn Wells, author of The Clue. *Newly revised text in modern American English.

Madison Avenue attorney Tom Brice is working late one night when he overhears an argument raging in the adjoining office suite belonging to the mysterious recluse Amos Gately. A gunshot rings out. Brice panics and flees but his conscience gets the better of him. Returning, he enters Gately’s office but there is no sign of a murder or … of anyone. As Brice never left the building, how did the people he heard arguing exit without passing him? Moreover, the place is spotless - there wasn’t enough time to clear up any sign of a struggle or bloodshed. And Brice definitely heard a shot! Flummoxed, Brice contacts the only person in New York City capable of solving such a conundrum. It’s up to Pennington Wise and his quirky sidekick Zizi to solve the mystery of … The Man Who Fell Through the Earth.

Guests gather at Maxwell Chimneys, the stately home of Alexander Maxwell, for a weekend of picnics and charades. During a dance party, Alexander’s nephew Philip Maxwell is murdered. The murder weapon is quickly located in the hand of an unconscious woman lying next to the corpse, who has been shot in the shoulder. A local detective is hired and is aided in his investigation by one of the guests, Mr. King. Everyone is a suspect and the clues shift to implicate one guest and then another. Ultimately, the amateur sleuths call in the famous detective Fleming Stone to solve the pieces of the puzzle. The Maxwell Mystery marks the debut of franchise character Detective Fleming Stone.

Chester Calhoun lives with his sister and his aunt in a house on the upper east side, and across the street lives beautiful and mysterious society hostess Victoria Van Allen, known to her friends as Vicky Van. Vicky is a an enigma. She lives in a stunningly appointed house with a servant but no one really knows anything about her. She’s vivacious and a little bit Bohemian, but entirely respectable. Vicky often hosts bridge parties for well-heeled New York socialites. One night, a wealthy millionaire is stabbed to death at one of these salons, and Vicky Van disappears before the police can be summoned. Chester is convinced that Vicky didn’t do it, despite the circumstances. The police discover that the millionaire was not merely a random millionaire, but a well-known businessman with ties to Vicky’s past. Fleming Stone is summoned and for once he has an assistant. Fibsy is one of the rare sidekicks who is actually allowed to figure out the solution to the mystery. The surprise twist ending is one of Carolyn Wells’ best.

The quaint town of Deep Lake, Wisconsin is rocked to its core when millionaire Sampson Tracy is found murdered in a locked room -- with a nail driven into his skull and his corpse festooned with bizarre ritualistic items. Is the rich man’s slaying the work of a local cult or is someone closer to the Tracy household trying to make it look that way? Curl up with this classic locked-room whodunit from Carolyn Wells, author of The Clue.

A wealthy entrepreneur is found murdered in the study of his lavish New Jersey mansion. Suspects include a retinue of servants, a beautiful niece, a private secretary and a will. Circumstantial evidence in the shape of a gold mesh bag points to the niece, Florence Lloyd, being the murderer. But Detective Herbert Burroughs believes her innocent and centers his investigation on Florence’s fiance. Unable to prove his thesis, Burroughs calls upon famous sleuth Fleming Stone to solve the mystery that hinges on a gold bag and a pair of shoes. Curl up and enjoy this cozy mystery from the author of The Clue.

Eccentric millionaire David Van Wyck has decided to pledge all his money away, leaving his wife Anne nothing but her jewelry to survive on. When David sees Anne flirting with an old high school friend during a weekend party at his mansion, Buttonwood Terrace, he decides to include Anne’s gems in his giveaway. David Wyck is found murdered the next morning in a locked-room and while suspicion initially points to Anne, it becomes apparent that several of Wyck’s guests had a motive for the crime. The narrator of the story, the guest Anne is in love with, prays that the culprit is ‘Anybody but Anne.’ In a structural twist, Detective Fleming Stone appears in the preamble and returns in the third act, book-ending the mystery, rather than merely appearing in the denouement.

When wealthy heiress Lucy Carrington is found murdered in the bedroom of her Long Island estate, suspects abound: the rich woman’s pretty niece, the social secretary, the cousin who managed her finances, the suspicious maid, a mysterious “count” and even the strange neighbor. With police baffled, master criminologist Fleming Stone is called in. But in a romantic twist, the great detective loses his heart to the primary suspect. Will she reciprocate? Will he get too close to her to solve the mystery of… The Curved Blades ... Curl up with this classic cozy whodunit from Carolyn Wells, author of The Clue.

Raspberry Jam is a classic locked-room whodunit featuring Detective Fleming Stone and is widely considered to be one of the best of the Fleming Stone Mysteries. Millionaire Sanford Embury is found dead in bed, alone, with the door of his second-story bedroom bolted shut from the inside. He was known to be a controlling husband, refusing to give his pretty young wife an allowance of cash or her own checking account. Was his wife a party to the murder, or perhaps did she commit the murder in a fit of rage? Who else had a motive? And how does a clue of raspberry jam point to the killer? Curl up with the classic cozy locked-room mystery from the author of The Clue.

On the eve of her wedding, stunning heiress Madeleine Van Norman is found stabbed to death in the library of her palatial country mansion, killed by a single thrust from her Venetian letter opener. Suspicion falls by turns to the groom who loved another, the cousin who stands to inherit her fortune, the woman the groom loves, the murdered woman’s secretary, and the former lover of the murdered woman’s uncle who will inherit the mansion. A suicide note is found next to her body, but the evidence points to murder. The house had been securely locked with no sign of a break in. A classic from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, The Clue falls squarely in the tradition of two favorite mystery sub-genres – the Big House Mystery and the Locked Room Mystery. Detective Fleming Stone is cool and methodical, not unlike his more famous fictional contemporaries, Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes. The twist is that he doesn’t appear until the second half of the story.

Sam Appleby, the former Governor of Massachusetts, pays a weekend visit to Sycamore Ridge, the Connecticut estate of his old political rival Dan Wheeler. Appleby wants Wheeler’s support for his son Appleby JR who is running for Governor, but Wheeler is a hard sell. As tension escalates between the two men, a small fire erupts, causing a commotion. During the melee a gunshot rings out. When everyone returns to the study, Appleby is discovered dead in his chair, with a bullet through his heart. Wheeler seems the obvious suspect, but as the police probe further it appears more than one member of the Sycamore Ridge household may have had a motive for murdering the ex-Governor. With not enough clues to proceed in their investigation, the local authorities call in master sleuth Fleming Stone and his sidekick Terence McGuire - or ‘Fibsy’ as he’s more commonly known - to solve … The Mystery of the Sycamore.

Guests gather for the weekend at White Birches, the upper New York mansion of millionaire scion Justin Arnold. Festivities are cut short when the host inexplicably goes missing, presumed to be hiding or unwell somewhere within the grounds of his heavily protected, fortress-like estate. With amateur sleuths and the local police unable to solve the mystery, they call in Detective Fleming Stone and what starts as a missing person thriller becomes a murder mystery in this clever locked-room puzzler from Carolyn Wells, author of The Clue.