At the Villa Rose: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

At the Villa Rose, credited to A. E. W. Mason, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of At the Villa Rose, by A.E.W. Mason. Read by Nicholas Clifford. Harry Wethermill, the brilliant young scientist, a graduate of Oxford and Munich, has made a fortune from his inventions, and is taking a vacation at Aix-les-Bains. There he meets, and immediately falls in love with, the young and beautiful Celia Harland, who serves as companion to the aging but warm-hearted Madam Dauvray of Paris. All this is observed by Julius Ricardo, a retired financier from the City of London, who spends every August at Aix, expecting there to find a pleasant and peaceful life. Imagine his consternation when he learns that Mme. Dauvray has been brutally murdered, and imagine Harry Wethermill's consternation when he learns that every finger of suspicion is pointed at the now vanished Celia Harland. Implored to do so by Wethermill, Ricardo asks his friend Inspector Hanaud, the great detective of the Paris Sûreté (who is also vacationing in Aix) to involve himself in the case so that the truth may come out. Hanaud agrees to do so (with the permission of the Aix police, of course), and goes to work. Will he be up to the job? And will Harry Wethermill ultimately be glad that he called in the great man? We can only wait to find out. But surely Hanaud will exercise his powerful little grey cells – one of several characteristics he shares with a famous Belgian detective of later decades, and indeed some scholars of mystery stories suggest that Agatha Christie, in her invention of Hercule Poirot, owes a debt to Mason and his invention of Inspector Hanaud. And indeed Julius Ricardo has than a passing resemblance to Arthur Hastings, Poirot's sidekick, who is invariably a few confused steps behind the detective. (Introduction by Nicholas Clifford)

Recording facts

• Recording title: At the Villa Rose
• Author credits: A. E. W. Mason
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 21
• Listed recording duration: 7:22:17

Catalogue topics

• fiction
• Mystery
• Romance

Track guide

1. 01 - Summer Lightning — 14:56
2. 02 - A Cry for Help — 26:26
3. 03 - Perrichet's Story — 6:17
4. 04 - At the Villa — 23:22
5. 05 - In the Salon — 19:24
6. 06 - Helene Vauquier's Evidence — 39:48
7. 07 - A Startling Discovery — 17:45
8. 08 - Chapter VIII The Captain of the Ship — 22:12
9. 09 - Mme. Dauvray's Motor-car — 20:06
10. 10 - Chapter X News from Geneva — 13:42
11. 11 - Chapter XI The Unopened Letter — 19:33
12. 12 - The Alumniinum Flask — 20:47
13. 13 - In the House at Geneva — 19:19
14. 14 - Mr. Ricardo is Bewildered — 19:34
15. 15 - Celia's Story — 27:51
16. 16 - The First Move — 17:28
17. 17 - The Afternoon of Tuesday — 17:51
18. 18 - The Seance — 29:01
19. 19 - Helene Explains — 24:41
20. 20 - The Geneva Road — 11:21
21. 21 - Hanaud Explains — 31:01

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.