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A very pious work of redemption. A naive young orphan girl, unhappily apprenticed to a hard-hearted seamstress, is led astray by a wealthy, weak young man, who abandons her. After a minister and his sister rescue her, she leads an exemplary life, rearing her fatherless son to be a Christian, and ultimately winning the regard even of those who know her past. While such a redemption was daring for its time, and the novel subtly condemns the self-righteous casting of stones at "fallen" women, it makes Ruth into such a paragon of goodness that she's hard to take.

A mysterious bearded man shows up at a suburban house and becomes enmeshed in a murderous plot that he struggles to understand, meanwhile falling in love with a young woman who may or may not be involved. It's definitely a page turner, even though the villain becomes obvious about two thirds of the way through.

A small-town doctor, troubled by a mysterious gap in his memory, discovers he has a disturbing past, one that threatens the well being of a number of people in both his old life and his new. The story moves along well enough, but there's something awkward about it that seems not to ring true.

A very poignant collection of short stories, all set during the First World War. They're not war stories in a classic sense, yet they do bring home not only the real tragedy of war, but also the way it can bring out the best in people.

A historical novel about the siege of Leyden in the 16th century. The author manages to make that exciting period turgid and dull.

A lonely little nebbish, a kind of Walter Mitty precursor, dreams of adventure and traveling the world. When he gets his opportunity, though, he finds that he's just as lonely overseas, although the experience changes him for the better. The trouble is, the book is all so very earnest. It would be better, as Thurber's later story shows, if it had more humor.

This 1953 novel holds up pretty well, if you can ignore such dated bits as space-going ashtrays, Native Americans who "speak Indian" to each other, the presumption of American supremacy and, above all, that peculiarly 1950s optimism about the future. The idea that an inexperienced but bright young man can do anything, beating the odds and the experts, is characteristic of ’50s science fiction, although it's somewhat tempered here, and at least he doesn't do it all alone. Young Joe Kenmore of Kenmore Precision Tool Co. is accompanying equipment made by his family's firm to where they'll be installed in the Space Platform. Once launched, the platform will protect America — and the rest of the world — from nuclear attack through unilateral deterrence and serve as a launching station for star travel. Naively, Joe's surprised to learn that the construction site has been heavily targeted by saboteurs. He's skeptical, but then somebody tries to shoot down his transport plane. And things get worse as the massive project nears completion.

What a marvelous farce! A farce in the best, classic, theatrical sense of that term: P.G. Wodehouse once described his own work as musical comedy without music, and this 1914 novel definitely meets that description. It's loads of fun! An impecunious writer stops a runaway horse and plunges into storybook adventures on behalf of a beautiful actress. She reveals a tragic, romantic and unlikely past and enlists his aid in an international intrigue. Complications arise with the interventions of her saucy French maid, a middle-aged taxi proprietor, a henpecked churchwarden and a well-to-do waster with a bad case of ennui. The plot, worthy of Wodehouse, keeps you turning pages to find out what happens next. I looked up Richard Bird (1881–1965) in search of others of his works, but it appears that most of his oeuvre were boys' school stories, none of which I could find online.

An exciting novel that catches you up in its action at the outset and keeps you there till the end. Set amid the Russian revolution of 1905, the story covers the experiences of Maurice Wynn, an American journalist who goes to St. Petersburg as a correspondent for a London journal after his predecessor was murdered. Just before leaving London, he gets a visit from a mysterious old Russian, who tells him that the woman he loves is in danger. Then he finds his upstairs neighbor stabbed to death, and discovers the man was mixed up in a secret Russian radical society. After arrival in Russia, he hears a panicked call for help from a passing carriage, and realizes it's his English girlfriend, Anne, whom he had thought was in Berlin. She's been kidnapped by the revolutionaries, who say she is Anna Petrovna, an avid revolutionary, who was one of their leaders. They now believe her for a traitor who has betrayed their secrets, and they plan to kill her. Thus Wynn moves from disinterested journalist to an active participant in the fomenting terrors and violent uprisings of 19th-century Russia. This is the sort of book you want to never end. The ending is anticlimactic and less believable than the rest, but until then it's all breathless action, with a little Russian history thrown in.

A notable judge is found shot to death in his deserted Hampstead home when he was supposed to be vacationing in Scotland. Neither the two Scotland Yard detectives nor the private investigator hired by the victim's daughter can make much headway amid all the red herrings strewn in their paths, not least of which is their desire to outdo each other. There's nothing really wrong with this book, but it didn't appeal to me. I thought the clues afforded the reader were too slight, and some of the writing a bit turgid.