Rebecca Burns

When a man is murdered in his berth aboard a train, the clues point to three completely different suspects.

After being transported by a cyclone to the land of Oz, Dorothy and her dog are befriended by a scarecrow, a tin man, and a cowardly lion, who accompany her to the Emerald City to look for a wizard who can help Dorothy return home to Kansas.

"For generations, children around the world have come of age with Louisa May Alcott's March girls: hardworking eldest sister Meg, headstrong, impulsive Jo, timid Beth, and precocious Amy. With their father away at war, and their loving mother Marmee working to support the family, the four sisters have to rely on one another for support as they endure the hardships of wartime and poverty. We witness the sisters growing up and figuring out what role...

When someone shoots Horatio Leavenworth, a wealthy retired merchant, through the head in his library late one night, the evidence at the inquest indicates that no one could have left the victim's locked Manhattan mansion before the discovery of the body the next morning. Suspicion thus falls on members of the household, specifically the dead man's nieces, Mary and Eleanore, only one of whom stands to benefit from their uncle's death. Everett Raymond,...

In New England in the late nineteenth-century, a fatherless family, happy in spite of its impoverished condition, is befriended by a very rich gentleman and his young son.

Mrs. Pepper, a widow, and her five children lived in a plain little brown house where she struggled to feed and clothe her lively brood. The family had little in the way of luxury and hardly any of the things that many of us today take for granted. But they had such fun and good times together and loved one another so dearly that when a very rich little boy discovered the warmth and happiness that flooded the little brown house he felt himself lucky...

Just out of the hospital and totally out of funds, Ralph Leslie jumped at the chance to sign aboard millionaire Marshall Turner's luxurious super-yacht as steward to the passengers lodged in its after house. His job was easy sailing until one sultry summer night, when the dream voyage suddenly became a nightmare of blood and terror. One ship's officer was thrown overboard. Another was hacked to death with an ax. The killer struck again and again,...

Wealthy, middle-aged spinster Rachel Innes is persuaded by her niece Gertrude and nephew Halsey to take a house in the country for the summer. Rachel is unaware that the house hides a sinister secret, and soon unexplained happenings and murder follow.


The Circular Staircase is perhaps Mary Roberts Rinehart's most famous story. The tale mixes bone-chilling suspense and romance with good humor to produce an absorbing and entertaining...

Dissatisfied with life in her rural Wisconsin life, 18-year-old Caroline "Sister Carrie" Meeber moves to Chicago to live with her sister and work in a shoe factory. It doesn't take long for her to realize that factory work is hard and dirty. After becoming ill and losing her job, Carrie is taken in by a rich, handsome man who pays for her apartment and finds her work as an actress. But Carrie soon finds another man to take care of her, who happens...