The Murdoch Mysteries Collection – Maureen Jennings Free Audiobook

Written by Maureen Jennings
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 32 Kbps
Unabridged

The books that inspired the wildly popular TV series — known as the Murdoch Mysteries in Canada and as The Artful Detective in the United States — are available together for the first time in this seven-volume eBook bundle that brings the crime-ridden world of late-19th-century Toronto alive.

“If you want to step back in time . . . let Jennings be your guide. There’s really none better.”
— Ottawa Citizen

From his debut in Except the Dying, where he pursued the secrets behind a young, pregnant servant girl’s death through brothels and drawing rooms, to his immersion in the Dickensian world of workhouses in Vices of My Blood, and the investigation of his own dark family history in Let Loose the Dogs, Detective William Murdoch has been one of crime fiction’s most fascinating and engaging protagonists. These seven riveting novels— inspiration for the internationally popular Murdoch Mysteries television series— blend masterful storytelling, vivid characters, and an extraordinary eye for the rich history of Victorian Toronto to create modern classics; they are must-reads for every mystery lover.

1. Except the Dying (1997)
Turn of the century Toronto makes an evocative setting for murder in Except the Dying, a skillful first novel that is interesting both for its historical accuracy and its fully realized characters. The plot concerns the murder of a young housemaid, discovered naked in a snowy lane, and the cast of suspects spans the social strata. Yet it is William Murdoch, the detective in charge of the case, who breathes life into what might otherwise have been a conventional murder mystery. As he pursues his quest for justice, Murdoch also mourns the death of his fiancée; his manner of doing both reveals a compassionate, principled man, one whose fictional endeavors (readers hope) have only just begun.–

2. Under the Dragon’s Tail (1998)
Women rich and poor come to her, desperate and in dire need of help, and discretion. Dolly Merishaw is a midwife and an abortionist in Victorian Toronto, but although she keeps quiet about her clients’ condition, her contempt for them and her greed leaves every one of them resentful and angry. So it comes as no surprise to Detective William Murdoch when this malicious woman is murdered. What is a shock, though, is that a week later a young boy is found dead in Dolly’s squalid kitchen. Now, Murdoch isn’t sure if he’s hunting one murderer, or two.

3. Poor Tom is Cold (2001)
In this third adventure featuring the lovable detective William Murdoch, he becomes involved with the apparent suicide of Constable Oliver Wicken, a man who was the sole support of his mother and invalid sister. But further investigation by Detective Murdoch takes him far afield and he begins to suspect that the Eakin family, whose house adjoins the one where Wicken died, is more involved with the case than they admit. Whether describing a tooth extraction, the unquestioning prejudice toward the few Chinese immigrants in the city, or the well intentioned, but bizarre, treatment of mentally ill women, Maureen Jennings once again brings the period vividly to life.

4. Let Loose the Dogs (2003)
In each succeeding historical mystery set in late 19th century Toronto, Jennings has not only placed her readers vividly in the period and the place, but has also given them an involving story. Her books have the added spice of a blend of conventionally defined crime and the often more egregious failures of the period’s social system. Finally, she has steadily fashioned and filled out the character of her protagonist, Acting Detective William Murdoch, until he joins the select group of fictional beings who become more real to the reader than most flesh and blood acquaintances. We have met a human being.

In Let Loose the Dogs Murdoch’s job and his life combine tragically. He learns that his beloved sister, who long ago fled to a cloistered convent to evade their drunken and abusive father, is on her deathbed. Meanwhile, Harry Murdoch, the father whom Murdoch had long ago wiped out of his life, and who may have caused his mother’s death, has been convicted of murder. Harry calls on his estranged son to prove his innocence and to save his life.

In the midst of these family crises, Murdoch can at least rejoice that his struggling romance seems to have some promise.

5. Night’s Child (2005)
After thirteen year old Agnes Fisher faints at school, her teacher,the young and still idealistic Amy Slade, is shocked to discover in the girl’s desk two stereoscopic photographs. One is of a dead baby in its cradle, and on the back Agnes has scrawled a terrible message.

Worse, the other photograph is of Agnes in a pose captioned “What Mr. Newly Wed Really Wants.” When Agnes doesn’t show up at school the next day, her teacher takes the two photographs to the police. Murdoch, furious at the sexual exploitation of such a young girl, resolves to find the photographer, and to put him behind bars.

Night’s Child is the fifth novel in Maureen Jennings’s highly praised historical mystery series. Two of the stories have already been adapted for the small screen, in acclaimed movies aired by the Bravo network. Another four movies are in development, good news for Jennings’s fast growing number of avid fans.

6. Vices of My Blood (2006)
The compelling new novel by Canada’s answer to Anne Perry.

In his forties, the Reverend Charles Howard still cut an impressive figure. A married Presbyterian minister in Toronto’s east end, Howard was popular with the congregation that elected him, especially with the ladies, and most particularly with Miss Sarah Dignam. Respected in the community, Howard, as Visitor for the House of Industry, sat in judgment on the poor, assessing their applications for the workhouse.

But now Howard is dead, stabbed and brutally beaten by someone he invited into his office. His watch and boots are missing. Has some poor beggar he turned down taken his vengeance?

Murdoch’s investigation takes him into the arcane Victorian world of queer plungers — men who fake injury all the better to beg — and the destitute who had nowhere left to turn when they knocked on the Reverend Howard’s door.

7. A Journeyman to Grief (2007)
The abduction of a young woman in 1858 ends in Toronto thirty eight years later, in murder.

In 1858, a young woman on her honeymoon is forcibly abducted and taken across the border from Canada and sold into slavery. Thirty eight years later, Detective Murdoch is working on a murder case that will take all of his resourcefulness to solve. The owner of one of Toronto’s livery stables has been found dead. He has been horsewhipped and left hanging from his wrists in his tack room, and his wife claims that a considerable sum of money has been stolen.

Then a second man is also murdered, his body strangely tied as if he were a rebellious slave. Murdoch has to find out whether Toronto’s small “coloured” community has a vicious murderer in its midst, an investigation that puts his own life in danger.

Maureen Jennings’s trademark in her popular and acclaimed Detective Murdoch series is to reveal a long forgotten facet about life in the city that dispels any notion that it really ever was “Toronto the Good.” As well, in A Journeyman to Grief, an exceptionally well plotted and engrossing story, she shows just how a great harm committed in the past can erupt fatally in the present.