The Secret of Chimneys

Anthony Cade, a charming drifter guiding tourists in Africa, accepts a simple courier job: deliver a dead diplomat's tell-all memoirs to a London publisher. Within days he's dodging armed strangers, improvising around a corpse, and tangled in the succession politics of Herzoslovakia, all of it converging on Chimneys, a great English country house where an international conference, a jewel thief of legend, and the imperturbable Superintendent Battle are about to collide.

This is early Christie in pure entertainment mode, more a comic thriller than a whodunit, with secret passages, coded letters, false identities stacked three deep, and a heroine as quick as the hero. Light on its feet and constantly surprising, it's ideal fun-listening, the literary equivalent of a caper film.

At roughly 79,500 words, The Secret of Chimneys runs about 9 hours at 1x narration speed. That figure is an estimate based on a typical narration pace. The exact length depends on the voice and the playback speed you choose.

The Secret of Chimneys is in the public domain, so the complete text is free on Project Gutenberg and LoudReader has the entire Project Gutenberg catalog built in. To listen:

1. Download LoudReader for Mac or iPhone (free, no account).
2. Search for “The Secret of Chimneys” in the built-in catalog and add it to your library.
3. Press play. A natural offline voice reads the book while each word highlights on screen, and your place is saved between sessions.

LoudReader reads with natural offline voices, so the whole book works on a plane or underground. It is fully on-device and private, your library never leaves your device. Listening is unlimited on the free tier.