Carolyn Wells

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.