Emmuska Orczy Orczy

The first and most successful in the Baroness's series of books that feature Percy Blakeney, who leads a double life as an English fop and a swashbuckling rescuer of aristocrats, The Scarlet Pimpernel was the blueprint for what became known as the masked-avenger genre. As Anne Perry writes in her Introduction, the novel "has almost reached its first centenary, and it is as vivid and appealing as ever because the plotting is perfect. It is a classic...

In this thrilling sequel to The Scarlet Pimpernel, the dastardly Monsieur Chauvelin devises a plot to annihilate, once and for all, both Sir Percy and his beautiful wife Marguerite. Will the Scarlet Pimpernel prevail?

Mysteries! There is no such thing as a mystery in connection with any crime, provided intelligence is brought to bear upon its investigation. So says a rather down-at-heel elderly gentleman to young Polly Burton of the Evening Observer, in the corner of the ABC teashop on Norfolk Street one afternoon. Once she has forgiven him for distracting her from her newspaper and luncheon, Miss Burton discovers that her interlocutor is as brilliantly gifted...