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The Detective Megapack (R): 30 Modern and Classic Tales of Mystery and Detection

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The Detective Megapack presents 30 choice mysteries, spanning the Victorian age through modern times. From Dashiell Hammet to Arthur Conan Doyle, from Vincent Starrett to Johnston McCulley -- there is something for every fan of detective tales!


ARSON PLUS, by Dashiell Hammett

IT TORE THE LAUGH FROM MY THROAT, by Meriah L Crawford

THE TAGGART ASSIGNMENT, by Vincent Starrett

TOMORROW’S DEAD, by David Dean

THE FLAMING PHANTOM, by Jacques Futrelle

MESSAGE IN THE SAND, by John L. French

THE ASSISTANT MURDERER, by Dashiell Hammett

ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, by C.J. Henderson

THE RED THUMB MARK, by R. Austin Freeman

MONSIEUR LECOQ, by Emile Gaboriau

THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, by Edgar Allan Poe

HELL-BENT FOR THE MORGUE, by Don Larson

DEATH OF THE FLUTE, by Arthur J. Burks

OH FANNY, by Raymond Lester

CLANCY, DETECTIVE, By H. Bedford-Jones

THE TATTOOED MAN, by William J. Makin

TRIGGER MEN, by Eustace Cockrell

BUTTERFLY OF DEATH, by Harold Gluck

MY BONNIE LIES…, by Ted Hertel

THUBWAY THAM, FASHION PLATE, by Johnston McCulley

THE MURDER AT TROYTE’S HILL, by Catherine Louisa Pirkis

THE AFFAIR OF THE CORRIDOR EXPRESS, by Victor L. Whitechurch

SECRET SUGGESTION, by Vincent H. O’Neil

THE FIVE ORANGE PIPS, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

BLACK SUNRISE, by Jack Halliday

THE LION’S SMILE, by Thomas W. Hanshew

THE NAIL, by Pedro de Alarçon

THE ROME EXPRESS, by Arthur Griffiths

IN THE FOG, by Richard Harding Davis

OFFICER DOWN, by Robert J. Mendenhall


And don't forget to search this ebook store for "wildside megapack" to see all the entries in Wildside's "Megapack" series -- including volumes of science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, westerns, and much, much more!

1334 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 31, 2013

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113 people want to read

About the author

Dashiell Hammett

622 books2,872 followers
Also wrote as Peter Collinson, Daghull Hammett, Samuel Dashiell, Mary Jane Hammett

Dashiell Hammett, an American, wrote highly acclaimed detective fiction, including The Maltese Falcon (1930) and The Thin Man (1934).

Samuel Dashiell Hammett authored hardboiled novels and short stories. He created Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon), Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man), and the Continental Op (Red Harvest and The Dain Curse) among the enduring characters. In addition to the significant influence his novels and stories had on film, Hammett "is now widely regarded as one of the finest mystery writers of all time" and was called, in his obituary in the New York Times, "the dean of the... 'hard-boiled' school of detective fiction."

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashiell...

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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
Profile Image for Randal.
1,122 reviews14 followers
June 15, 2013
The Detective Dog's Breakfast would be more apropos. Or, as it's a download, app-ropos perhaps.
First off, don't let the author line sway you ... Dashiell Hammett contributed two, fairly pedestrian, stories to this collection.
I don't know who selected the stories in this collection, but it's pretty clear the major qualifier is that they are available free online ... and as usual, you get what you pay for. Some of them are downright bad.
There are a few classics here ... a Sherlock Holmes, Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue, the Hammett. But there's no apparent rhyme nor reason. No editor's notes to explain why a given story is of interest. Just a mammoth collection of musty, mostly so-so detective fiction.
One of note is M. Lecoq by Émile Gaboriau. It's of interest because Gaboriau is widely held to be a precursor to A. Conan Doyle, and Lecoq is cited by Holmes haters as the original scientific detective of whom Sherlock is but a copy. The difference is that Doyle could tell a story.
Gaboriau is of an era when novels were long-winded things, and he fits that to a T. He describes a murder scene in detail. Then the magistrates who are investigating the crime, complete with backstories for otherwise disposable characters. The biograpy of the fishmonger standing on the corner who didn't see anything to do with the crime. The wallpaper in the adjoining house. OK, so not the wallpaper, but it's interminable. I swear that if there was a Baskin Robbins in 19th century Paris, Gaboriau would have devoted dozens of pages to describing each of the 31 flavors, and he seems to think that it's a crime to paraphrase when he can recite entire conversations.
Given that Monsieur Lecoq has an inconclusive ending, it's just not worth the effort.
It also used up the last day and a half I had on my borrowed Kindle, so I didn't finish the entire collection.
Noir and old sci-fi are both hobbies of mine, so I read a lot of pulp. But most of that is pulp that has been chosen for "best of" collections. The "Megapack" is a reminder that those gems were originally published among a lot of dross.
Profile Image for Alice.
Author 39 books51 followers
September 21, 2015
I like the Megapacks - it's good to know there's something on the Kindle to dip into. Like the science fiction ones I've read, this Detective Megapack is a very mixed bag of long and short stories, some contemporary, some dating back to Conan Doyle's day (and there is a Sherlock Holmes story in here). A few of these are hidden gems, a few have been deservedly forgotten, but I certainly got value for money out of this bundle, and broadened my crime horizons a little.
Profile Image for Julian King.
185 reviews4 followers
June 9, 2020
Glad to have discovered this series of 'megapacks' - excellent value and some wonderful new discoveries amongst old favourites with only very little rubbish (and @ 34p for 1000 pages who's complaining?)
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews

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