mystery – Page 13

Free Listens review: Fantomas by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre

Fantômas by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre

Source: LibriVox (zipped mp3s or M4B)
Length: 10 hrs, 11 min
Reader: Alan Winterrowd

The book: Literature is full of great detectives; less so with great criminals. The criminal masterminds that take center stage in novels are often either effeminate plotters or crooks-with-a-heart-of-gold types. Fantômas is the rare criminal genius with the brawn and cold-heartedness to carry out gruesome murders, yet the charm to seduce a princess as he robs her. Close on his heels is the detective Juve of the Paris police, a master of disguise with the intelligence to almost, but not quite, catch up with Fantômas.

In France, Fantômas stars in over 40 books by Allain and Souvestre; the authors’ system of working together on the plot, then dividing the writing of the chapters led to this astounding productivity. Fantômas’s criminal exploits and his pursuit by Juve make for an entertaining read, but the characters do not have the brilliance of Sherlock Holmes nor the humor of Arsene Lupin. Although the characters are not so deep, the plot twists so much that even when I thought I knew the identity of Fantômas, there were still several more surprises. Fantômas belongs in the middle ground between the pulps and the great classics of the crime genre.

Rating: 7 / 10

Reader: Allan Winterrowd has a strong American baritone that does not distract from the story. He varies his tone slightly for the various characters, without going so far as to perform voices. As far as I could tell, he pronounces the French place-names correctly, though I’m no expert in French. Winterrowd speaks in a steady pace that allows the listener to keep up. The recording itself is well-done and clear.

posted by Seth

Random House Audio: Three FREE audiobooks: Louis L’Amour, Holly Black, Marjorie Weinman Sharmat

SFFaudio Online Audio

Random House Audio has made three very different audiobooks available for FREE DOWNLOAD on their website. One’s a novel, and the other two are short stories. As all three are in the MP3 format and just single files (even the novel) I’m going to HuffDuff all three later today. I’ve already started listening to Louis L’Amour title, and I’ve got to tell you, the introductory material in which L’Amour himself tells stories from his own life, is ABSOLUTELY RIVETING – it’s amazing, amazing stuff.

White Cat: The Curse Workers, Book One
By Holly Black; Read by Jesse Eisenberg
1 |MP3| – Approx. 6 Hours 41 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Listening Library
Published: May 11, 2010
ISBN: 9780307711816
Cassel comes from a family of curse workers—people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they’re all criminals. Many become mobsters and con artists. But not Cassel. He hasn’t got magic, so he’s an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail—he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago. Cassel has carefully built up a façade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his façade starts to crumble when he finds himself sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He’s noticing other disturbing things too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him. As Cassel begins to suspect he’s part of a huge con game, he must unravel his past and his memories. To find out the truth, Cassel will have to outcon the conmen.

Nate The Great Goes Undercover (From Nate the Great Collected Stories: Volume 1)
By Marjorie Weinman Sharmat; Read by John Lavelle
1 |MP3| – Approx. 14 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Listening Library
Published: May 13, 2008
ISBN: 9780807216651
Nate the Great has his first night case! Somebody is raiding Oliver’s garbage can each night, but who? The list of suspects is long. Nate courageously encounters a skunk and a telephone pole, but not until he goes under cover of the garbage can lid does he narrow the suspects down to one.

Survival
By Louis L’Amour; Read by Richard Crenna
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour 6 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: Nov 9, 1999
ISBN: 055345031X
This harrowing adventure of shipwreck and survival is L’Amour’s fictionalized account of the heroic true story of merchant seaman Tex Worden and his efforts to save the passengers of the doomed Raratonga. A unique look at the early life and times of one of our most cherished writers, Survival is the action-packed oral biography of a true American original, an audiocassette that no L’Amour fan will want to miss. Includes biographical notes read by L’Amour himself.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Tantor Media: FREE AUDIOBOOK: The Memoirs Of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Aural Noir: Online Audio

Tantor Media is releasing another new limited time FREE MP3 audiobook download. Despite what it looks like on the cover (apparently Sherlock Holmes had a Macbook Air) The Memoirs Of Sherlock Holmes is an all original, un-remixed, collection of Sherlock Holmes stories, first collected in 1894.

You will need to have an account with Tantor Media, and to login to it. Start by clicking HERE. Accounts are free and do not require a credit card. The free audiobook should be available through the end of June 2011. I know some folks have had difficulty figuring out how to either “log in” or “create an account.” You must have an account and be logged in to get to the download. It is a two step process as illustrated below.

Step 1: Create An Account And Log In

First Create An Account Or Log In

Step 2: After Signing In, You Get Your Download Link

After Signing In Get Your Download Link

As usual there was a bit of trouble the first couple of times I downloaded the zipped file, but it now works and downloads. You will, of course, also need to unzip the MP3s once the download completes.

The Memoirs Of Sherlock Holmes
By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Read by Simon Prebble
11 Zipped MP3 Files – Approx. 8 Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: March 2010
Sample: |MP3|
|ETEXT|
The Memoirs Of Sherlock Holmes are overshadowed by the event with which they close—the meeting of the great detective and Moriarty, the Napoleon of Crime. When The Final Problem was first published, the struggle between Holmes and his arch nemesis, seemingly to the death, left many readers desolate at the loss of Holmes, but it also led to his immortality as a literary figure. The stories that precede it included two narratives from Holmes himself—on a mutiny at sea and a treasure hunt in a Sussex country house—as well as a meeting with his brilliant brother Mycroft.

Stories included: Silver Blaze, The Yellow Face, The Stock-Broker’s Clerk, The ‘Gloria Scott’, The Musgrave Ritual, The Reigate Puzzle, The Crooked Man, The Resident Patient, The Greek Interpreter, The Naval Treaty, and The Final Problem.

I should also point out that like most publications of this collection in the USA, over that last 117 years, this collection omits The Adventure Of The Cardboard Box for what Wikipedia indicates are reasons of morality.

If you’re not quite so squeamish The Adventure Of The Cardboard Box is available through LibriVox as two MP3 Files (Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3|). |ETEXT|

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #105 – AUDIOBOOK: The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #105 – a complete and unabridged reading of The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell. Narrated by William Coon of Eloquent Voice.

A tempest tossed hunter crawls ashore on a mysterious island only to find his way to a creepy castle inhabited by a Russian Count named Zaroff.

After listening to this wonderful recording I heartily recommend you check out the 1932 RKO film version of The Most Dangerous Game. It has an excellent provenance having been produced by David O. Selznick and Merian C. Cooper. That’s the same team, with the same actors, with the same sets that was later used to make the original King Kong (1933)! The film version of Game adds a couple of characters (most notably a love interest), changes a few scenes, but really keeps the spirit of the piece and adds a haunting and beautiful visual motif. When the hero crawls ashore he meets the lovely Eve (played by Fay Wray) and her drunken brother Martin (Robert Armstrong), who were also shipwrecked. The film opens with a shot of a door with an ornate door knocker in the shape of a wounded centaur that’s carrying a subdued human woman. We see the door knocker once again and then later, inside the castle, the same iconic image is seen upon a mighty tapestry.

So, the wounded centaur is obviously a symbol. But for who or for what?

Now if you think about it, I’m sure you’ll see it, just as I did. Let’s break it down:

1. A centaur is, of course, half-man and half-beast.

2. The wound is from an arrow.

3. The woman in the centaur’s arms is either being rescued or abducted.

That’s almost enough. But it may help to know that, as I figure, the image was inspired by the myth of the centaur Chiron. In one part of the legend of Chiron, he is wounded by Hercules, with the wound’s cause being an arrow. An arrow dipped in the blood of a hydra. And hydra blood (of course) causes a wound that can never heal.

Now here’s the clincher, there’s a character in the film that has a wound that constantly bothers him. Get it?

As one of the reviewers on Archive.org’s page for The Most Dangerous Game put it: “[It’s a] film you can watch again and again.” Another reviewer put it this way:

“I think watching this movie has awakened my latent homicidal tendencies and right now I wanna fart around on an island with a cod Russian accent, wear a black polo neck sweater guzzle the best cognac smoke filterless cigarettes … and im gonna start right now.”

The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell

The Most Dangerous Game

The Most Dangerous Game FILM

The Most Dangerous Game

Download the |AVI| of the public domain movie!

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review: Death Cloud by Andrew Lane

SFFaudio Review

Death Cloud
By Andrew Lane; Read by Dan Weyman
6 CDs – Approx. 7 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Published: February 2011
ISBN: 9781427211224
Themes: / Mystery / Sherlock Holmes / Bees / Evil Mastermind / YA /

It is the summer of 1868, and Sherlock Holmes is fourteen. On break from boarding school, he is staying with eccentric strangers—his uncle and aunt—in their vast house in Hampshire. When two local people die from symptoms that resemble the plague, Holmes begins to investigate what really killed them, helped by his new tutor, an American named Amyus Crowe. So begins Sherlock’s true education in detection, as he discovers the dastardly crimes of a brilliantly sinister villain of exquisitely malign intent.

I realize that I’m not the target audience for this book, but I went into it with hopes for some Sherlock Holmes-like detecting. What I found was a fairly typical YA story with lots of chases, a little bit of teenage romantic awkwardness, and the promise of a sequel.

The Sherlock Holmes-ness in the book can be found mainly in discussions between 14 year-old Sherlock and his tutor from America, Amyus Crowe. He tells Sherlock to remember even unimportant things, and to prize logic. Other allusions to his later life come near the end, when he reflects on how his life will never be the same now that he’s brushed with things he needs to put right. He thinks about Laudanum (he was knocked out with the drug earlier in the story). He’d heard of people getting hooked on the stuff, and he “had no desire to go down that route – none at all”. Also, bees play a very important role in the story, as they will late in Sherlock’s fictional life.

I’m no Sherlock Holmes expert. I haven’t read any significant Arthur Conan Doyle for probably 30 years. But this book just doesn’t feel like any Sherlock Holmes story I remember. It would be perfectly at home as a story of James Bond as a teen. Young James could encounter his first evil (and ridiculous) villain with a big evil (but ultimately ridiculous) plan and a long monologue meant to reveal the plan just before failing to kill the hero. I am pleased that some kids will pick this up and go on to pick up some of the famous Holmes stories, but I dunno. This isn’t an introduction to Sherlock Holmes.

Enough with reviewing the book I wanted. The book it is is an entertaining, light listen with some eye-rolling moments. Dan Weyman does a fantastic job with the narration. There are plenty of characters to perform, but standouts are Amyus Crowe and the evil villain, Baron Maupertuis, who is performed with enthusiasm.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

LibriVox: Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 031

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVox A couple of tales that stood out for me in this collection Unborn Tomorrow by Mack Reynolds is a mystery with a male and female pair of New York City private investigators who have a client with a story tell. Its, clever, funny and manages a fairly unique twist on the time travel theme. Waste Not, Want by Dave Dryfoos is the story of an aged widower living in a society in which consumer consumption isn’t just fashionable it’s required by law. This is more of a vignette than a story, but if you’re interested, that idea (compulsory consumption), also pops up in Robert Silverberg’s second novel, Starman’s Quest too.

Short Science Fiction Collection 031
By various; Read by various
15 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 5 Hours 31 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
Science Fiction is speculative literature that generally explores the consequences of ideas which are roughly consistent with nature and scientific method, but are not facts of the author’s contemporary world. The stories often represent philosophical thought experiments presented in entertaining ways. Protagonists typically “think” rather than “shoot” their way out of problems, but the definition is flexible because there are no limits on an author’s imagination. The reader-selected stories presented here were written prior to 1962 and became US public domain texts when their copyrights expired.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/3674

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Competition
By James Causey; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 22 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
They would learn what caused the murderous disease—if it was the last thing they did! From Galaxy Science Fiction May 1955.

Devil’s Asteroid
By Manly Wade Wellman; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour 6 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
“The Rock Bred Evolution in Reverse!” From Comet July 1941.

Heist Job On Thizar
By Randall Garrett; Read by Norm
1 |MP3| – Approx. 24 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
In the future, we may discover new planets; our ships may rocket to new worlds; robots may be smarter than people. But we’ll still have slick characters willing and able to turn a fast buck—even though they have to be smarter than Einstein to do it. From Amazing Stories October 1956.

The Hunted Heroes
By Robert Silverberg; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 31 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
The planet itself was tough enough—barren, desolate, forbidding; enough to stop the most adventurous and dedicated. But they had to run head-on against a mad genius who had a motto: Death to all Terrans! From Amazing Stories September 1956.

The Last Supper
By T.D. Hamm; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 4 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
Before reading this story, prepare yourself for a jolt and a chill in capsule form. O. Henry could have been proud of it. It could well become a minor classic. From If Worlds of Science Fiction September 1952.

Old Rambling House
By Frank Herbert; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 17 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
All the Grahams desired was a home they could call their own … but what did the home want? From Galaxy Science Fiction April 1958.

Pythias
By Frederik Pohl; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 12 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
Sure, Larry Connaught saved my life—but it was how he did it that forced me to murder him! From Galaxy Science Fiction February 1955.

Revenge
By Arthur Porges; Read by Steven Anderson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
Hell may have no fury like a woman scorned, but the fury of a biochemist scorned is just as great — and much more fiendish. From Amazing Stories February 1961.

Solander’s Radio Tomb
By Ellis Parker Butler; Read by Steven Anderson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
“I first met Mr. Remington Solander shortly after I installed my first radio set. I was going in to New York on the 8:15 A.M. train and was sitting with my friend Murchison and, as a matter of course, we were talking radio.” First published in Amazing Stories June 1927, later in Amazing’s April 1956 issue.

Stop, Look and Dig
By George O. Smith; Read by Ric F
1 |MP3| – Approx. 36 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
The enlightened days of mental telepathy and ESP should have made the world a better place, But the minute the Rhine Institute opened up, all the crooks decided it was time to go collegiate! First published in Space Science Fiction, March 1953.

Such Blooming Talk
By L. Major Reynolds (aka Louise Leipiar); Read by Steven Anderson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 7 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
A bit of levity never hurt anyone—even a science fiction editor, writer or reader, we hope. And a laugh has been known to lighten a heavy load and even change the path of history. So—we give you this brief moment with an amazed scientist and his startling creations—for a brief chuckle. From Fantastic Universe March 1954.

Sweet Their Blood And Sticky
By Albert R. Teichner; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 14 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
They weren’t human—weren’t even related to humanity through ties of blood—but they were our heirs! From “Worlds of If” November 1961.

Unborn Tomorrow
By Mack Reynolds; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 31 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
Unfortunately, there was only one thing he could bring back from the wonderful future … and though he didn’t want to … nevertheless he did… From Astounding Science Fiction June 1959.

Vanishing Point
By C.C. Beck; Read by MGVestal
1 |MP3| – Approx. 10 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
In perspective, theoretically the vanishing point is at infinity, and therefore unattainable. But reality is different; vanishment occurs a lot sooner than theory suggests… From Astounding Science Fiction July 1959.

Waste Not, Want
By Dave Dryfoos; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 18 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
Eat your spinach, little man! It’s good for you. Stuff yourself with it. Be a good little consumer, or the cops will get you…. For such is the law of supply and demand! From If Worlds of Science Fiction September 1954.

[In addition to the readers, this audio book was produced by Gregg Margarite, Wendel Topper and Lucy Burgoyne]

Posted by Jesse Willis