7 h 58 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 7 h 58 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
A murder, a stolen war secret, and a detective who trusts the laboratory more than a hunch.
In Arthur B. Reeve’s The Adventuress, murder meets espionage in a race to recover a stolen war secret. At the centre stands Craig Kennedy, a professor who treats crime as a problem to test and measure. The stakes reach beyond a private crime: a death and a missing secret bring public danger into the detective’s work.
Kennedy’s tools are chemistry, instruments, and careful observation. Where police struggle, he looks for evidence that a test can reveal. This quick, clue-driven thriller draws its energy from an early age’s faith in scientific detection. Its title also evokes the adventuress: the clever, charming woman who lives by her wits in the fiction of the time.
What you’ll discover
- A professor on the case Follow Craig Kennedy as he brings the habits of the laboratory to criminal investigation.
- Secrets with wider stakes Enter a mystery where murder and espionage place private crime beside public danger.
- Clues put to the test Watch measurement and careful observation take the place of rumor and uncertain hunches.
- The appeal of invention Explore Reeve’s fascination with devices and tests, explained in plain terms.
- A brisk detective adventure Enjoy a fast, clue-driven plot shaped by the confidence and conventions of early detective fiction.
Who will love it
Readers who like detective puzzles built on laboratory science, secret signals and suspects who all hide something will feel at home here. Fans of Sherlock Holmes style deduction and wartime intrigue will find plenty to follow.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A frightened lawyer brings Kennedy a death
- The yacht, the dancer and a house of hate
- A safe opens without a mark
- Gas, poison and a trap in the dark
- Hidden ears and a staged conversation
- Dogs, ciphers and signals from the water
- A family poisoned by money
- Science as the detective's chief witness
- How Jameson tells it and where to look
Who’s who
- Craig KennedyA chemistry professor and scientific detective who answers every crime with instruments, and who will not name a culprit until he holds a fact.
- Walter JamesonA newspaper man and Kennedy's friend who tells the story, follows suspects, and asks the questions the reader would ask.
- BurkeA Secret Service man who forms theories fast, believes in a gang of foreign criminals, and has orders to recover the stolen weapon.
- Shelby MaddoxThe youngest Maddox brother, an easygoing pleasure seeker whose heart and character are tested by money, grief and two very different women.
- Winifred WalcottA bright, outdoor young woman, sister of Johnson Walcott, who wants to trust Shelby but is told by others to doubt him.
- PaquitaA Mexican cabaret dancer and self-made adventuress who seems to follow Shelby everywhere and keeps everyone guessing what she wants.
- SanchezA sallow, dark-skinned watcher once hired to trail Marshall Maddox, who now trails Paquita, and whose loyalty nobody can read.
- MitoShelby's silent Japanese servant, well educated and quick with jiu-jitsu, who is seen where he should not be.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 7 h 58 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 14 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 La aventurera 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.
La aventurera
by Arthur B. Reeve · 1917
A shot rings out at Kennedy's door, a munitions tycoon floats dead in Westport Bay, and a war weapon vanishes.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
The Adventuress is a Craig Kennedy detective novel by Arthur B. Reeve, an American writer who died in 1936.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A frightened lawyer brings Kennedy a death
The book opens with a revolver shot that shatters the front door of the Chemistry Building. A moment later an elderly man stumbles into Kennedy's laboratory, pale and shaken. Walter Jameson hands him a stimulant while Kennedy searches the campus and finds nobody there. The shooter has vanished as if he never existed.
The visitor is Maxwell Hastings, lawyer to Marshall Maddox, head of Maddox Munitions. He tells them that Maddox's body was found in Westport Bay that very morning. Hastings recovers fast and speaks like a hardheaded businessman, and it is clear he has come to hire Kennedy. He sizes up the detective just as Kennedy sizes him up.
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What is The Adventuress by Arthur B. Reeve about?
It is a detective novel in which Craig Kennedy investigates the death of munitions chief Marshall Maddox and the theft of a wireless war weapon. A feuding family, a cabaret dancer and a silent servant all draw suspicion.
Who is Craig Kennedy?
Craig Kennedy is a university chemistry professor who works as a scientific detective. He solves crimes with instruments such as a spectroscope and a detectaphone detector, and his friend Walter Jameson tells the stories.
What is the telautomaton in The Adventuress?
The telautomaton is a fictional wireless system for steering torpedoes, ships, vehicles and aircraft from a distance. Maddox Munitions buys it, and its plans and a working model become the object of theft and murder.
The author
Arthur B. Reeve
1880–1936 · American mystery writer
Arthur Benjamin Reeve (1880–1936) was an American journalist and writer. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and died in Trenton, New Jersey. He wrote detective stories featuring Craig Kennedy, beginning in 1910. His books include The Silent Bullet (1912) and The Dream Doctor (1914).
More by Arthur B. Reeve
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