11 h 50 minAudiobook11 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 hidden route, a careful question, a small mistake: quiet details can expose a secret scheme.
In On Secret Service, William Nelson Taft gathers true detective stories about government agents, spies and smugglers. These short accounts follow investigations through patient watching, disguise and careful questioning. The action lies in pursuit and discovery: agents track people who try to move goods, money or secrets past the authorities, while looking for the detail that does not fit.
Rather than follow one hero through a single plot, this collection opens a series of cases. Its central concerns are work that happens out of sight, the patient details that solve cases, smugglers who test the law, and the courage and judgment agents need. Each investigation brings a practical question: when should an agent keep watching, and when is it time to act?
What you’ll discover
- Work out of sight Look beyond public view at the quiet tasks government agents carry out.
- The detail that matters Follow how careful watching and questioning turn small inconsistencies into trails of evidence.
- Smugglers against the law Explore the hiding places and routes that make pursuit a test of patience.
- Courage balanced with judgment Consider the choices agents face when help is distant and action carries risk.
- Real cases, readable stories Discover factual accounts that bring the appeal of detective stories to government investigations.
Who will love it
This book is for readers who like clue-hunting puzzles, spy stories from the Great War years, and short tales you can read one evening at a time, told by a storyteller with a pipe and a pile of souvenirs.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Flashes in the night over Norfolk
- Common sense solves a vanished fortune
- Trouble from Mexico City and Berlin
- A librarian, a sweetheart and Number 859
- Smugglers, spies and a violin record
- Disguises, mountains and moonshine
- Codes, cakes and clues in plain sight
- Women who solve cases and a smile at fate
- How the stories are told
Who’s who
- Bill QuinnA retired Secret Service man with a bad leg who tells each case from the relics in his den.
- Jimmy CallahanA young Secret Service agent who notices a strange rooftop sign and tries to stop a transport sinking.
- Ezra MarksA lanky Vermont Customs agent who works alone, chases diamonds, opium and silk, and watches details others miss.
- Elmer AllisonA Postal Inspection agent who solves the poison-pen letters and the vanished mail money.
- Mary McNillessA sharp-eyed young librarian who notices a regular reader with odd ears and helps catch a spy.
- Hal PrestonA postal inspector who traces a fraud through a railroad guide and later investigates a locked-room death.
- Madelaine JamesA Washington society woman who helps the Secret Service find a stolen code by understanding how women and diplomats behave.
- Dick WaltersA Secret Service agent hunting the elusive Number 859, who falls for a librarian and takes her advice.
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
- 11 h 50 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 11 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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Read and hear Al servicio secreto in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Al servicio secreto
by William Nelson Taft · 1921
A retired agent turns each souvenir on his wall into a case of spies, smugglers and clever clues.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
On Secret Service is a collection of detective stories by William Nelson Taft, set in the years around the First World War. A retired Secret Service man named Bill Quinn tells them to a friend, one evening at a time, in his den full of odd relics.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Flashes in the night over Norfolk
The frame is simple. Bill Quinn, kept at a desk job in the Treasury by a leg injury from a counterfeiting raid, tells his stories to a friend. The first is about Jimmy Callahan in the spring of 1918. German submarines are sinking ships off the coast, and the sinking of the Carolina suggests someone ashore is feeding them news of sailing dates.
The Chief sends Callahan to find the leak. He has almost nothing to go on, only a file with a boast from a German officer that the U-boats will be told when ships sail. Callahan reasons that the biggest prize will be a troop transport. The War Department tells him one ship, the America, will leave Norfolk at daybreak on Monday with twelve thousand men.
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What is On Secret Service about?
It is a collection of detective tales told by a retired Secret Service man, Bill Quinn. They show agents of several government services catching spies, saboteurs, smugglers, counterfeiters, moonshiners and thieves in the years around the First World War.
Is On Secret Service based on true stories?
The tales are presented as real cases and use real offices, events and names such as the Black Tom explosion and Dr. Heinrich Albert. They are written as lively fiction and told by a character, so treat the details as storytelling.
Who is Bill Quinn in the book?
Quinn is a retired Secret Service man kept at a Treasury desk by an injured leg. He keeps relics from old cases in his den and tells a friend the story behind each one, which links all the chapters.
The author
William Nelson Taft
1857–1930 · American writer
27th President of the United States from 1909 to 1913.
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