House Of Stratus: 587 books

Hazlerigg, Bohun, Mercer and Petrella all feature in turn in this collection of eighteen short stories, which was first published to commemorate fifty years of Michael Gilbert’s published writing. All of the familiar Gilbert themes are present to grip the reader: police procedurals and action packed...

The office party was in full swing so no one heard the shot – fired at close range through the back of Lionel Hargreaves, elder son of the founder of Hargreaves Advertising Agency. The killer left only one clue – a pair of yellow gloves – but it looked almost as if he had wanted them to be found....

It is the 1650's and Spain considers the Caribbean to be its own private sea. But England, Holland and France conspire to battle for freedom on the oceans set in days littered with the plunder of piracy. Ned Yorke, a loyal Royalist living in Barbados has a small vessel and devoted crew and together...

A novel for adults about children, exploring the wonderful land of a lost childhood. Paul returns to England after twenty years in the Canadian wilderness. He has been bereft of adult company and so emotionally feels somewhat like a little boy. Moving in with his widowed sister and her three children,...

A chance meeting between John Mason and Julius Le Vallon sparks a long-forgotten memory of a former life. Le Vallon reminds Mason of the Temple Days – a time hundreds of thousands of years ago when the two of them and a girl conducted a forbidden experiment which went disastrously wrong. The experiment...

Selected from the entire body of Algernon Blackwood's work, this collection of short stories contains his finest writing. Published in a total of five volumes, Volume 3 contains twelve thrilling and terrible tales, including ‘The Man The Trees Loved’, ‘The Pikestaffs Case’, and ‘The Decoy’....

St Swithan’s Hospital keeps the rooms of its male and female students separate by an ingenious bricking up of corridors and staircases. However love will always find a way – even if its path is not always smooth and it has to encounter a few locked doors and barred windows along the way. Simon...

In ‘The Man Who Wrote Detective Stories’ an emissary from Scotland Yard visits Freddie Seston in Venice, who happens to have bumped in to an old school friend, now a QC. Freddie is the supposed secret author, under a pseudonym, of a string of novels. Now, a murder has been committed using the...

For many years hunters had tried to kill Dhlulamiti, but he had survived. An elephant some thirteen and a half feet tall – his name translated to ‘Taller than trees’ – and weighing in at twelve tons he was a giant even amongst the largest species of mammal ever to have inhabited the earth....

Employing his unique style of innocent and endearing humour, Bones has written to the newspapers The Surrey Star and The Middlesex Plain Dealer inviting the Foreign Secretary to pay a visit to the African territories which they administer. It is against the regulations and his boss Hamilton is furious....

Charles II returns from exile bringing with him unease to the Spanish Main. In this vivid description of seventeenth-century buccaneers, Ned Yorke, the leader and hero of the swashbuckling band are depended upon for the defence of Jamaica, fighting with captured Spanish guns. Daring raids on the Spanish...

Promoted to Detective Inspector, Patrick Petrella now finds himself in a London borough close to the Thames. In these short stories he has to deal with arson, blackmail, fraud, forgery and murder. The Thames is a focus for some of the stories, as it is convenient for the dumping of a body and also...

Liverpool Docks, on Merseyside - a senseless strike threatens to delay the departure of an ocean liner. As the last of the passengers come aboard, including the shipping line's chairman, the drama increases with the threatened walk-out of the stewards. Below deck, agitation and unrest mount as the tide water rises and the vital hour for sailing approaches.

Passion, conflict and infidelity are vividly depicted in this gripping tale of two people and their marriage. Set against the glittering background of glamorous high life in South Africa, New York and Barbados, an idealistic young writer tastes the corrupting fruits of success, while his beautiful,...