Books with title The Tangled Skein

In The Tangled Skein, author David Stuart Davies accomplishes a creative coup by arranging the fateful meeting of two of literature's most resilient characters: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Bram Stoker's Count Dracula. The setting is 1888 London, shortly after The Hound of The Baskervilles case. It opens with Holmes' characteristic derisive reaction to a newspaper account of a local lecture by Amsterdam University Professor Abraham Van Helsing upon the subject of vampires. The Baker Street detective's opinions of the supernatural are quite set and intransigent. The events which proceed from this moment of contempt and disbelief, however, eventually make a believer of Holmes and of the listener to David Stuart Davies' ability to resurrect the very spirits of Holmes and Watson. A mysterious illness begins to afflict the young ladies of a finishing school for girls. Reports of children being attacked and left with bite marks upon their necks appear in the papers. From the outset, Holmes himself is stalked by an assailant whose obsessive, unmitigated hatred and cleverness may cost Holmes his life. So filled with complications is this gripping drama that the evocative title Tangled Skein could scarcely have been better suited. Portraying it all with customery style and wit is British actor David Ian Davies, whose solitary voice work weaves its own magic and allows us to enter into that place and time, beholding it all vividly in our minds, and forgetting that One Voice has captured our imaginations.

Here in this third complete-in-itself novel of the Incarnations of Immortality, Piers Anthony weaves a fascinating plot as tangled as any skein of fate. This is Anthony at his most ingenious, with another gripping fantasy of the struggle of the incarnations against the machinations of Satan.When the man Niobe loved was shot, she learned that she had been the target, in a devious plot of the Devil's. Hoping for revenge. Niobe accepted a position as one of the three Aspects of Fate, only to find that Satan's plots were tangled into the very Tapestry of Fate. Now the Evil One was laying a trap to ruin Niobe's granddaughter Luna, who threatened his plans—and he had tricked her son into Hell.Niobe's only chance to save her son and Luna was to accept a challenge by the Prince of Deceit—a challenge to be decided in Hell and in a maze of Satan's devising!

It is the autumn of 1888. Following the successful conclusion of the investigation into the affair of the Hound of the Baskervilles, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson have returned from Dartmoor, little realising that fate will see them back in Devon before the year is out. Holmes receives a potentially lethal package, the first strand in the tangled skein, which he will need to unravel before this new adventure is resolved. A threat to Holmes' life, murders on Hampstead Heath, and a strange phantom lady lead Holmes and Watson into the most dangerous investigation they have ever undertaken - an encounter which brings them face to face with evil itself, embodied in Count Dracula, the Lord of the Undead.

A threat to Holmes's life, murders on Hampstead Heath and a deadly phantom lady lead Holmes and Watson into the most dangerous investigation they have ever undertaken - an encounter which brings them face to face with evil itself, embodied in Count Dracula, the Lord of the Undead. Written by David Stuart Davies - Adapted by Richard Dinnick. Directed by Nicholas Briggs & Ken Bentley. Cast: Nicholas Briggs (Sherlock Holmes), Richard Earl (Dr Watson), Barnaby Edwards (Mr Jack Stapleton), Beth Chalmers (Mrs Hudson/Delia Lydgate/Mary Gardner/The Phantom Lady/Catherine Hunter/Landlady), John Banks (Professor Abraham Van Helsing/Inspector Lestrade/Policeman/Meinster/Silas Gardner), Giles Watling (Count Dracula/Matthew Boulton/Dr Collins).

In The Tangled Skein, Baroness Orczy does not paint Queen Mary nearly so black as she is usually portrayed. Indeed Mary is depicted as so passionately loving as to be almost lovable, a woman of strong emotions, invariably swayed by justice. The tangling of the skein is due to Mary’s supposititious love for Robert d’Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, whom the people of England desire to become King Consort. He is the embodiment of all chivalry, and every virtue dear to the heart of an Englishman. He is, so far, fancy free, but beyond deep respect for, and loyalty to, his Queen, he has no other feeling, and the idea of marriage with her merely for political reasons is repulsive to him. He is at the same time half betrothed, but not bindingly, to Lady Ursula Glynde, whom he has not seen since her babyhood. Wessex is repelled by the idea of having his wife thrust upon him in any way, and purposely avoids the girl, in which he is, unknown to himself, aided and abetted by the Queen, who tries jealously to guard him against falling a victim to Ursula’s undoubted fascinations.* Add to this trio, the powerful Cardinal Moreno and Phillip II of Spain and the skein only becomes more tangled. * - summary from Wikipedia

Here in this third complete-in-itself novel of the Incarnations of Immortality, Piers Anthony weaves a fascinating plot as tangled as any skein of fate. This is Anthony at his most ingenious, with another gripping fantasy of the struggle of the incarnations against the machinations of Satan.When the man Niobe loved was shot, she learned that she had been the target, in a devious plot of the Devil's. Hoping for revenge. Niobe accepted a position as one of the three Aspects of Fate, only to find that Satan's plots were tangled into the very Tapestry of Fate. Now the Evil One was laying a trap to ruin Niobe's granddaughter Luna, who threatened his plans—and he had tricked her son into Hell.Niobe's only chance to save her son and Luna was to accept a challenge by the Prince of Deceit—a challenge to be decided in Hell and in a maze of Satan's devising!

The Tangled Skein was Baroness Orczy's second novel. First published under the title In Mary's Reign in 1901, it was re-released under the title The Tangled Skein in 1907, following the success of The Scarlet Pimpernel. The book is a period romance and is dedicated to "my little son Jack" (who was born in 1899). In The Tangled Skein, Queen Mary is characterized as a loving woman with a strong sense of justice. Odin’s Library Classics is dedicated to bringing the world the best of humankind’s literature from throughout the ages. Carefully selected, each work is unabridged from classic works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or drama.