12 h 38 minAudiobook17 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
A death demands answers, but hidden treasure gives people another reason to keep their secrets.
In The Silver Bullet, Fergus Hume offers a Victorian murder mystery of hidden secrets, buried treasure and the pursuit of justice. A death needs explaining, and the search for truth means looking beyond what people choose to reveal. The puzzle invites you to watch closely rather than hurry toward an answer.
Treasure adds another question to the mystery: not just who commits the crime, but what someone stands to gain. Greed and old wrongs give you motives to consider. Hume’s measured approach leaves room for suspicion to grow, as patience and observation become the means of seeking justice.
What you’ll discover
- A death to explain Follow a murder puzzle that asks you to question appearances and weigh what remains unsaid.
- The lure of treasure Consider how a buried prize can turn desire into greed and bring danger close.
- Secrets beneath the surface Look past polite appearances toward the private matters people would rather keep hidden.
- Justice through careful attention Share a search for truth that values patient observation rather than a show of force.
- A measured unfolding Enjoy the slow unmasking that gives secrets and suspects room to hold your attention.
Who will love it
Readers who love puzzles, secret codes, old country houses and amateur sleuths will enjoy this. It also suits anyone who likes a warm friendship, a lively heroine and a hint of the supernatural.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A lit house and a dead man
- The village weighs a dead Colonel
- A will with a stranger condition
- The Biffs and the boy who sees
- A message in a code
- A friend's lies and a Mexican's stories
- Money, greed and the question of loyalty
- Reason, the unseen and a doctor in love
- Lights, towers and the way the tale is told
Who’s who
- Dr. James HerrickA big, practical London doctor who finds the body and becomes an amateur detective, while protecting a friend and learning what love really is.
- Robin JoyceA small, nervous writer who has lost his mother and tells Herrick careful stories about where he has been, hiding his own worries about money.
- Bess EndicotteA quick-witted reporter for the Beorminster Weekly Chronicle who defends the Colonel's servant and sets out to find the real killer.
- Stephen MarshA gentle, poor young poet who suddenly inherits his wicked uncle's fortune, on the strange condition of visiting a vault each month.
- Colonel CarrA rich, hated recluse who lights his mansion like a palace and sleeps alone in a bare tower, afraid of enemies from his past.
- Sidney EndicotteA sixteen-year-old with second sight who wanders the pine wood by night and sees things that keep coming true.
- Don Manuel SantiagoA smiling Mexican adventurer with a missing ear who says he once hunted Inca gold with the Colonel and wants his share.
- Inspector BridgeA lean, cheerful police officer who loves a good breakfast and public praise, and who is out of his depth in the case.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
- On your phone, tablet, computer or Kindle, with the type as large as you like.
- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 12 h 38 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 17 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Die silberne Kugel
by Fergus Hume
A doctor and a nervous poet stumble on a blazing mansion in a pine wood, and a dead man waits in its tower.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
The Silver Bullet is a murder mystery by Fergus Hume, set in the English countryside of the late nineteenth century. Hume was a prolific writer of crime fiction, and here he builds a puzzle around a dead man, a blazing house and a heap of buried treasure.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A lit house and a dead man
The story opens on Southberry Heath, a wide moor in the English Midlands. Dr. James Herrick, a big, sunburned and practical physician, is leading his friend Robin Joyce on a walking tour. Joyce is a small, nervy writer who has lost his mother two months before and has been nursing his grief like a treasure. Herrick has brought him out into the open air to cure him, and after thirteen hours of walking Joyce drops to the ground and declares he cannot go on.
While they rest, the two men talk. Herrick confesses that he fell in love at first sight with a tall, dark-haired girl he saw in Southberry church. Joyce explains that he has just come back from two days in London, where he saw his lawyers about his mother's property. He is oddly exact about which day he went, which hotel he slept in and when he returned. A careful reader will want to remember that.
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What is The Silver Bullet by Fergus Hume about?
It is a Victorian murder mystery. A doctor and his friend find a rich recluse shot dead in a tower, and the doctor, with a clever girl reporter, tries to work out who killed him and why.
Who is Frisco in The Silver Bullet?
Frisco is the nickname of the Colonel's servant, a stout American sailor with a cross-shaped scar on his forehead. He disappears after the murder, and the whole district believes he is the killer.
What does the silver bullet mean in the story?
The bullet that killed the Colonel is made of silver. An old superstition says that only silver can kill a witch or wizard, so the bullet suggests the killer feared that the Colonel had dealings with the devil.
The author
Fergus Hume
1859–1932 · English mystery novelist
Fergus Hume (1859–1932) was a British novelist born in England. He grew up in Dunedin, New Zealand, and moved to Melbourne, Australia, in 1885. He published The Mystery of a Hansom Cab in 1886. He returned to England in 1888 and continued writing crime novels, including The Green Mummy.
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