12 h 38 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 12 h 38 minPaperback · 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 enjoy Victorian detective stories, country houses with secrets, ciphers and old pistols, and an amateur sleuth who falls in love, with a touch of the uncanny.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A bright house hides a mystery
- The weapons undermine an easy answer
- An inheritance comes with a threat
- Sidney sees what Herrick cannot explain
- Robin's lies bring suspicion closer
- Protective silence can hide the truth
- Money tests love and personal honesty
- Bright light leaves the truth hidden
- Clues matter more than confident accusations
Who’s who
- Jim HerrickA big, calm, kind doctor on a walking holiday who stumbles on a body and becomes an amateur detective.
- Robin JoyceHerrick's frail, nervous friend, a writer in mourning, who is quick to complain and quicker to lie.
- Bess EndicotteA quick-witted young reporter for the Beorminster Chronicle who believes the Colonel's servant is innocent and sets out to prove it.
- Stephen MarshThe Colonel's gentle poet nephew, who inherits a fortune with strange conditions and needs a friend and protector.
- Ida EndicotteBess's calm, beautiful sister, who loves Stephen quietly and sees more clearly than Herrick does.
- Sidney EndicotteThe pale, otherworldly youngest brother, called the Changeling, who seems to see things that have not happened yet.
- FriscoThe Colonel's scarred, red-haired servant, who vanishes the night his master dies and becomes the chief suspect.
- Don Manuel SantiagoA smooth, dangerous Mexican adventurer who says he once hunted treasure in Peru with the Colonel and now wants his share.
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- Large print hardcover
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The Silver Bullet in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
The Silver Bullet
by Fergus Hume
Two weary walkers find a mansion blazing with light and a dead man in its tower.
Medium level5–10 hours to read16 languages
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“There lives some soul of good in things evil”
In short
What would you do if you crossed a dark moor and found a mansion with every window blazing and no one at home? Two friends face exactly that on a summer night.
The Silver Bullet at a glance
- Reading time
- About 7 h 15 min5 h 45 min fast, 8 h 40 min slow
- Length
- 104,100 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Two walkers find a lit empty house
On a summer night on Southberry Heath, Robin Joyce, a frail writer still grieving for his mother, sits down in the heather and says he cannot go another step. His friend Jim Herrick, a big doctor with a steady head, soothes him with tobacco and ordinary talk.
They cross the moor and enter a pine wood where a low swish fills the air. A white light burns high above the trees. Then the wood opens, and they see a gray Tudor mansion with a slender new tower, standing alone on a mown lawn. Every window blazes, yet there is no fence, no path, and no sound of life.
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Details
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 8 h 15 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Hume, Fergus. The Silver Bullet. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-silver-bullet.
Hume, F. (2026). The silver bullet. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-silver-bullet
Hume, Fergus. The Silver Bullet. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-silver-bullet.
@book{hume2026silver,
author = {Hume, Fergus},
title = {The Silver Bullet},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-silver-bullet}
}
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What is The Silver Bullet by Fergus Hume about?
It follows a young doctor, Jim Herrick, who finds a dead man in a lit but empty mansion and stays in a village to learn who killed him. Clues include a strange will, a cipher, and an old pistol.
Who is Frisco in The Silver Bullet?
Frisco is Colonel Carr's scarred, red-haired servant, an American sailor with a past nobody can name. He disappears on the night of the murder, so the police and the jury blame him, but Bess Endicotte doubts it.
What does the silver bullet mean in the story?
The Colonel is shot with an odd round bullet, and Bess and the Inspector find that it is cast from silver. In old folk belief only silver can kill a witch or a devil's friend, so it becomes a key clue.
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.
“There lives some soul of good in things evil”
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