The Charing Cross Mystery
Riding home on a late-night Underground train, a young barrister watches an elderly stranger collapse and die, apparently of a heart attack. Another passenger who had been talking with the dead man slips away before the carriage reaches the platform. When a post-mortem reveals a rare poison, the barrister understands he has witnessed a murder and pushes into an investigation that runs from London courtrooms to old secrets and a fortune worth killing for. J. S. Fletcher paces the chase briskly, favoring puzzle and pursuit over gore, in the mode that made his detective novels bestsellers in the 1920s. First published in 1923, it remains one of his most readable thrillers. Read it here as a free PDF and EPUB edition.
About the Author
Joseph Smith Fletcher (1863-1935) was an English journalist and one of the most prolific authors of his generation, credited with well over two hundred books. A Yorkshireman who began in poetry and regional history, he turned to detective fiction in his fifties and won a…
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Listen to The Charing Cross Mystery Audiobook Free
Listen to The Charing Cross Mystery by J. S. Fletcher free online. The full audiobook (9 hr 2 min, 27 chapters, read by Kirsten Wever) streams free on this page.
The Charing Cross Mystery (1923) is a public domain work.
| # | Chapter | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Last Train East | 19:35 | |
| 2 | Whose Portrait is This | 20:49 | |
| 3 | The Potential Fortune | 17:37 | |
| 4 | The Diamond Necklace | 20:01 | |
| 5 | The Police Return | 18:35 | |
| 6 | Samples of Ink | 21:41 | |
| 7 | Black Velvet | 21:42 | |
| 8 | Fligwood's Rents | 17:44 | |
| 9 | The Medicine Bottle | 18:46 | |
| 10 | The Mysterious Visitor | 22:54 | |
| 11 | Lady Riversdale | 22:05 | |
| 12 | Alias "Madame Listorelle" | 13:39 | |
| 13 | Who Was She? | 18:57 | |
| 14 | Is it Blackmail? | 21:19 | |
| 15 | Revelations | 21:40 | |
| 16 | Still More | 22:54 | |
| 17 | The Torn Labels | 19:39 | |
| 18 | The Telegram | 24:12 | |
| 19 | The London Road | 17:16 | |
| 20 | Converging Tracks | 19:49 | |
| 21 | The Order in Writing | 20:16 | |
| 22 | The Highly Respectable Solicitor | 18:42 | |
| 23 | The Landlady of Little Smith Street | 24:41 | |
| 24 | The House in the Yard | 18:45 | |
| 25 | Dead! | 15:50 | |
| 26 | Waterloo | 24:28 | |
| 27 | The Assurance | 18:29 |
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