Goldfish by Raymond Chandler

Goldfish - Classic Marlowe short story.

Goldfish follows private eye Philip Marlowe through a world of pool hall informants on the hunt for stolen pearls. Along the way, Marlowe and his characters spit out all the short, snappy, now clichéd lines that Chandler invented. You can almost smell the stale smoke hanging in the air and the cheap whiskey on Marlowe's breath.

The Leander pearls were stolen nineteen years ago. The thief caught, but the pearls were never found. But there is still a $25,000 reward for anyone who finds them. Then somebody comes to private detective Carmady with a story about a guy. This guy knows where the pearls are hidden.Carmady agrees to talk to the guy who says he knows. But he finds him dead in his bed, with burned feet. And it seems there are quite a lot of people in Los Angeles who have heard the story, and who are out looking for the Leander pearls...

The White Prophet by Hall Caine

The White Prophet - A story of Egypt and the Soudan, with its principal scenes in Cairo and Khartoum.

The White Prophet published in 1909. It anticipated by many years some racial, political and religious problems which are now agitating those countries. The glamour and mystery of the East are the background of turmoil, in strong contrast to the stark simplicity of the scenes of Hall Caine’s Manx and Icelandic stories.

A later novel by the author who lived on the Isle of Man, and served as Dante Gabriel Rossetti's secretary. Many of Caine's works were adapted to film, including The Christian, The Manxman, and The Eternal City. He also wrote the script for a propaganda film commissioned by Prime Minister David Lloyd George.

Many erroneous statements made in the press during the serial publication of this story. This statements bind its characters and incidents with distinguished living persons and recent public events. So make it necessary to say that "The White Prophet " intended to be read as a work of fiction only.

Excerpt:
Then his father died, without leaving a will, as the cable of the solicitors informed him. And he returned to England to administer the estate. Here a thunderbolt fell on him, for he found a younger brother. With whom he had nothing in common and had never lived at peace, preparing to dispute his right to his father's title and fortune. On the assumption that he was illegitimate—that is to say, was born before the date of the marriage of his parents.

A Man's Life by Arthur Adams

A Man's Life - A novel by Arthur Adams.

A Man's Life Excerpt:
The nurse looked at him. A man of sixty, perhaps, with clear-cut features. His clothes were good. Perhaps a gentleman. Some money in his pocket. She was somewhat curious; she wondered who he was.
Well, she said again to herself, he's gone, poor thing!

She was to be forgiven, with all her experience in the casualty ward, in thinking that the man was dead. True, she could see no sign of life in that still warm body. But the nurse was alive; and the living do not know what the dying think.

For in that final flash of Life there had surged into the man's consciousness one thing after the other that he had done or thought of since childhood. His whole life flashed up in disconnected scenes, pictures startlingly vivid leaping into his mind, and as abruptly dying.

Arthur Henry Adams (1872-1936) - a journalist and author.
His works include: Maoriland, and Other Verses (1899), Tussock Land (1904), The New Chum (1909), Galahad Jones (1910), The Collected Verses of Arthur H. Adams (1913), Mrs. Pretty and the Premier (1914), Double Bed Dialogues (1915), Australian Nursery Rimes (as editor) (1917), The Australians (1920) and A Man's Life (1929).

Fury by Henry Kuttner

Fury - A classic science ficiton novels.

Fury - A truly under-rated work that deserves a lot more recoginition than it gets. Clearly, Henry Kuttner's best work (with some uncredited help from his wife, C.L. Moore. Classic Science Fiction at its best and a ton of fun.

The Earth long dead and the human survivors live in huge citadels beneath the Venusian seas, ruled by the Immortals, genetic mutations with a lifespan of 1000 years. Sam Reed was born an immortal, but his deranged father had him mutilated as a baby. He determined to overthrow the immortals and lead the people of Earth off of the floor of the oceans of Venus.

The premise that mankind, having settled down into a luxurious Eden of the future. With no challenges left, would slowly strangle in its own inertia if, out of somewhere, a deliverer did not come with a flaming sword to drive them back to life.
In this case, life the almost intolerable condition on the continents of Venus. The full of the fury of mindless animal and vegetable and insect life gone wild with growth and death. Even the soil and the air are alive with fierce bacterial forms in constant struggle for survival with every other life-form on the planet.
How Sam fulfills this challenge, by the most complex methods, for the worst of motives, is the story of FURY.

The Bindles on the Rocks by Herbert Jenkins

The Bindles on the Rocks - The last of the Bindle stories.

The Bindles on the Rocks - Some further incidents in the life of mr and mrs Bindle.

Poor old Bindle struck an unlucky patch and lost his job. For weeks he had been out of work and for weeks he had tramped London from early morning until late at night without food, beer or tobacco. He suffered considerable pain from what he called his "various" veins; but Joseph Bindle was a great-hearted little man, who realised to the full his domestic responsibilities and, with the aid of his friends, he pulled through.

In this volume reappear gloomy Ginger, Dick Little, Mr. and Mrs. Hearty, and many others. It tells how Bindle stops a "Prohibition" meeting, pays a visit to the "Zoo," with Mrs. Bindle as militant as ever.

Excerpt:
The critic was silenced, and henceforth held her peace. She prided herself upon her knowledge of the Scriptures; but the reference to the Sea of Galilee puzzled her. She hesitated to confess her ignorance of an incident which seemed to come so easily to Mrs. Bindle's tongue.
Long and patiently this woman had searched Holy Writ for something that seemed even remotely to condone labouring upon the seventh day; but without success. In consequence she disliked Mrs. Bindle even more than before; but her dislike was henceforth tinctured with respect.

A Thousand Miles an Hour by Herbert Strang

A Thousand Miles an Hour - A Tale by Herbert Strang.

A Thousand Miles an Hour Excerpt:
The little tent in which he spent the nights with Pedro had been pitched on a rocky bluff a few yards above the level of the river. Juan and the Indian crews were camped a short distance away. Below them the three canoes were moored to trees on the bank. On both sides stretched the forest-not such immense trees as Derrick had admired lower down, but trees which, though smaller, grew more closely together, and were thickly festooned with creepers and climbing plants. At this point the stream was about two hundred yards broad. The opposite bank also was densely wooded; whichever way he looked Derrick's eyes met nothing but sluggish muddy water, green vegetation dotted with bright spots of colour, and the heavy grey sky above.

While he and Pedro waited for their supper, a sudden jabbering broke out among the Indians beyond the bluff. Presently they came running up, their leader holding something in his outstretched hand. He halted in front of the two young men and began to pour out a torrent of shrill discordant cries, to Derrick incomprehensible.

Herbert Strang was the pseudonym of two English authors, George Herbert Ely and Charles James L'Estrange. They specialized in writing adventure stories for boys. Ely and L'Estrange have been classified as "popular writers of imperial fiction" and "successors of G. A. Henty...."

Honour First by Herbert Strang

Honour First - A Tale of the 'Forty-five.

Honour First - Historical novel for teenagers about the adventures of a young man just before and during the Battle of Culloden of 1746, the culminating event of the Jacobite Rising, during which Bonnie Prince Charlie landed in Scotland with the help of the French, invaded England, and tried to take the British Crown.

Excerpt:
One of his shoelaces snapped.
'Hang old Capplethwaite!' he said explosively, throwing the broken end across the floor.
He sought a new lace, and threaded the eyes with a roughness that threatened another break. Every now and then his lips murmured. Had he uttered his thoughts aloud they would have composed a long tirade against 'old Capplethwaite'. 'Why did my father make him my guardian? What has he ever done for me? Paid my school fees—with my father's money. Paid John Seddon for my keep—with my father's money. What else? Nothing: the old skinflint. Keeps my father's money snug, he says, till my coming of age. I wish I were twenty-one to-day instead of sixteen. He wouldn't keep me here another hour.'
'Hang old Capplethwaite!' he said explosively, throwing the broken end across the floor.
A woman's voice called him from below.