On Christmas Eve during Prohibition, a burglar named Dancing Dan drinks hot Tom and Jerrys at Good Time Charley's speakeasy with the narrator and the proprietor. Dan has been courting Miss Muriel O'Neill, a nightclub worker, despite the dangerous attention of Heine Schmitz, a violent Harlem mobster who considers her his own. As the evening wears on and the liquor flows, Dan arrives with a suspiciously heavy package, and Ooky—a down-and-out porter still wearing his Santa Claus costume from his advertising job—stumbles in and passes out. What begins as a drunken Christmas celebration becomes something more complicated when Dan gets an idea about how to impress Miss Muriel, one that mixes his criminal instincts with an unexpected impulse toward kindness.

Publication: "Dancing Dan's Christmas," first published December 21, 1932 (Collier's magazine); collected in Furthermore (1938).

Author: Damon Runyon (1880–1946), American journalist and short-story writer known for his Broadway underworld tales written in present-tense slang. His stories inspired the musical Guys and Dolls.

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A battered hat. A Christmas goose. A puzzle that begins in jest.

On a winter evening in Baker Street, what starts as idle curiosity leads Sherlock Holmes into the heart of London's markets and back alleys, where something precious has gone astray and the wrong man may pay the price.

The trail winds through shopkeepers and strangers, each holding one fragment of the truth. But detection is not merely about finding answers—sometimes it asks harder questions. What is justice worth? When does punishment heal, and when does it only harden?

In the glow of the season, a small mystery reveals the weight of mercy.

Published in The Strand Magazine, January 1892, with illustrations by Sidney Paget. Later collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, October 1892.

Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, was a Scottish physician and writer born in 1859. Beyond detective fiction, he wrote historical novels, campaigned against injustice, and devoted his later years to spiritualism, dying in 1930.

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Read by Brendan Sullivan

A man, stuck inside with time on his hands, watches the small theatre of neighbouring lives through a single window. Patterns harden into questions; silences feel heavier than noise. An ordinary evening acquires edges: late footsteps, a restless light, a habit broken. Curiosity grows teeth. What do you really know about people you never meet—only study from across the brick divide? In this narration, the city is a chessboard, the view a keyhole, and the air itself seems to hold its breath.

“It Had to Be Murder” by Cornell Woolrich; first published in Dime Detective Magazine, February 1942. Also known as “Rear Window” in later anthologies and editions.

Cornell Woolrich (1903–1968), American noir writer publishing under his own name and the pseudonyms William Irish and George Hopley. His fiction shaped mid‑century suspense, fuelling numerous film adaptations; he lived reclusively and wrote with stark, fatalistic intensity.

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A dangerous prisoner has escaped from Dartmoor, and the police are certain he will return to where he stashed the stolen jewels whose whereabouts remain maddeningly obscure. When Inspector Muirhead comes to Philip Trent's rooms, he brings not evidence but an enigma: a letter whose phrasing seems deliberately cryptic, as though its author were speaking in code.

First published in The Strand Magazine, March 1914.

Collected in Trent Intervenes (1938).

E. C. Bentley (1875–1956), journalist, satirist, and inventor of the clerihew.

Best known for Trent’s Last Case (1913) and the Philip Trent stories.

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wo men are out late for dinner in a swanky hotel: one is a detective, the other writes detective stories. They notice three Wall Street tycoons at a nearby table. Before the night ends, one of those men is found dead. The detective says it’s suicide. The detective story writer says it’s not.

Publication: First published in 1934 in Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror, Third Series, edited by Dorothy L. Sayers. Later reprinted in classic detective anthologies, including The Mammoth Book of Great Detective Stories.

Author: Leslie Charteris (1907–1993) was a British‑American writer best known for creating Simon Templar, “The Saint.” He also wrote short fiction and edited anthologies, shaping mid‑century popular crime writing.

The thumbnail and introduction are anti-pirate devices!

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A young woman arrives at Baker Street with a story of barred shutters, a locked room, and a low whistle in the small hours. Holmes and Watson travel to a crumbling country house where money, menace, and family obedience coil tightly together. There is a dying warning that makes no sense, a bed fixed to the floor, and a bell-pull that rings nothing. Night falls; the air grows close; and in the hush between breaths, something answers the dark.

First published in The Strand Magazine, February 1892.

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was a Scottish physician and writer, creator of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson.

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Was it accident, or murder? On a frosty Christmas morning, the household of Septimus Tonks awakens to a grim discovery: their patriarch lies lifeless beside his wireless set, seemingly electrocuted. Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn arrives to find more than just a tragic accident; he finds a family simmering with resentment, secrets festering beneath a veneer of festive cheer, and a tangled web of motives lurking within the unforgiving walls of their home. The precision of the crime contrasts with the messiness of the people who surrounded the unhappy patriarch. I invite you to listen as we untangle the threads of this domestic drama and unravel the truth behind "Death on the Air".

"Death on the Air" was initially published in 1936. It was subsequently included in the short story collection, Death on the Air and Other Stories, published by HarperCollins Publishers in Great Britain in 1995. The collection also features the Alleyn stories, "I Can Find My Way Out," and "Chapter and Verse: The Little Copplestone Mystery," along with two biographical essays by Marsh, "Roderick Alleyn" and "Portrait of Troy."

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A luxurious weekend at Brighton's Grand Metropolitan Hotel takes a dark turn when Mrs. Opalsen's prized pearl necklace vanishes! Hercule Poirot, enjoying a seaside escape with Hastings, finds his holiday interrupted by a perplexing jewel robbery. Suspicion falls on the staff, but the little Belgian detective suspects a far more intricate plot. Can Poirot unravel the truth amidst a maze of alibis, red herrings, and glittering distractions? Prepare for a classic Christie mystery where observation and deduction are the keys to unlocking a seemingly impossible crime.

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Can a hair colour be sinister, Holmes? A London pawnbroker, lured by the absurd Red-Headed League, unwittingly becomes a pawn in a far grander scheme. As Jabez Wilson carries out his bizarre task, Sherlock Holmes meticulously unravels a plot far more audacious than it seems. What is the motive behind this strange organisation? Join us as we investigate dark motives and cunning schemes in this classic Sherlock Holmes mystery.

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This story by two American cousins, Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, writing under the name Ellery Queen, is a classic of Golden Age American detective fiction, narrated for us by the accomplished Brendan Sullivan with his classic smooth voice!

I hope you enjoy the story and enjoy Brendan's narration.

Tony

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