Duke de Richleau – serie

Dennis Wheatley''s first published novel, introducing his modern trinity of musketeers in the epicurean Duke de Richleau, financier Simon Aron, and the wealthy young American, Rex Van Ryn.The Duke receives a coded message from his missing friend, Van Ryn who, while hunting for treasure lost during the Soviet takeover of Russia, is now in prison somewhere in that vast country.Along with the Duke, good friends Simon Aron and Richard Eaton set off on a secret mission to secure his escape. Without official papers they lead a thrilling caper, hunted by the Secret Police, through Siberia and across the plains of Soviet Russia.

The aristocratic Duke de Richleau faces new, sinister challenges in this macabre tale of the dark arts. When his good friend Simon Aron''s naïve curiosity is tested, the Duke, along with his ever-patient friends Rex Van Ryn, and Richard Eaton, must intricately plot a means of both physical and spiritual rescue. But with Van Ryn''s affections for a beautiful woman caught in the web of Satanists, and Eaton''s ongoing scepticism, they all risk being brought to the verge of madness through dabbling with the powers of evil.From London to the West Country, the slums of Paris to a Christian monastery, the action of this powerful occult thriller moves with fantastic, compelling force.

Spain is writhing in the torment of Civil War. In a Madrid bank lays ten tons of gold: and both sides want it. The lovely Countess Lucretia Coralles, known to the rebels as ''The Golden Spaniard'', leads the double life of a secret agent. And she has other secrets too… The Duke de Richleau''s mission is to retrieve the gold, hidden somewhere in the war torn country, before the communists. In calling on his usual companions for support he finds that their sympathies lie with his enemy, and very soon the formally indomitable trio are trying to outwit one another in a potentially lethal treasure hunt."He forcibly abducts the imagination." - The Evening Standard "The word thriller has never been more aptly bestowed." - The News Chronicle

Murder in the rich atmosphere of London's Clubland – here is Dennis Wheatley at his thrilling best in this classic, meticulous whodunnit.The detective force, always a step ahead of the police force, brings together the connoisseur Duke de Richleau, a husky American millionaire and a young man-about-town on a charge of matricide.

When the Second World War opened, the Duke de Richleau and his friends Simon Aron, Rex van Ryn and Richard Eaton – the indomitable four – were in Poland. How did they come to be there and find themselves, even before the outbreak of hostilities, involved in conspiracy? Scenes of intrigue, violence and escape in Warsaw are exceeded only by those which follow in Bucharest–whence the friends are carried in a desperate attempt to sabotage Hitler''s war economy, and force Germany to ask for peace before their full-blown assault on Western Europe.In 1963, Arrow Books began including this statement in all works of this title: It can now be revealed that the plot of Codeword–Golden Fleece is based on fact. Actually, it was given to Dennis Wheatley when he was a member of the Joint Planning Staff of the War Cabinet by a Foreign Office colleague there. On behalf of the Allied governments a French nobleman did actually succeed in acquiring a controlling interest in the Danube oil barges and their tugs. The Germans failed with the Vichy government in an action for its return and half the Fleet had been got out to Turkish waters. Supplies of fuel for the Luftwaffe were seriously crippled by this ingenious secret stroke.

Spring 1914. At a masked ball, the Duke de Richleau has an intriguing meeting with a beautiful woman - an incident that was to lead to a series of desperate adventures with a Serbian; a secret; a terrorist society; then as a British secret agent at the Austrian Supreme Headquarters. The capers culminate in the Battle of the Marne – the operation that shattered Germany's chance of victory. Through the violence, intrigue and hair's-breadth escapes, there runs alongside the story of a great love.

Why would a French aristocrat renounce his country and live in exile? The answer lies in the Paris of the 1890s; a world of superficial glamour but, under the surface, deep social and political strife. The army, discredited by the Dreyfus case, was being purged. The young de Richleau, cadet and then instructor at the military academy of St. Cyr, became involved in a conspiracy - to restore the French monarchy - with the Duc de Vendome being secretly coached in his future role of King.What happens if the conspiracy is betrayed? For some: death. For de Richleau, the life of a fugitive who has declared a single-handed vendetta against the government.

Spain, 1906. The Duke de Richleau has not yet succeeded his father, and is still the Count de Quesnoy. Anarchism permeates every country in Europe, and not a night passes without groups of fanatics meeting in cellars to plan attempts with knives, pistols or bombs against the representatives of law and order. A bomb outrage gives de Quesnoy ample cause to vow vengeance on the assassins. His attempt to penetrate anarchist circles in Barcelona nearly costs him his life. In San Sebastian, Granada and Cadiz he hunts and is hunted by them in a ruthless vendetta. A rich novel packed with true history, subtle intrigue, sudden violence, terrorism, blackmail and suspense, alongside the bitter-sweet romance between gallant young de Quesnoy and the beautiful Condesa Gulia.

First published in 1965, this is the final installment of the Duke De Richleau series… The years have moved on, and De Richleau has relocated from his London pad to an apartment in the Mediterranean. His great friends visit on occasion, and on this one both Rex''s son and Richard Eaton''s daughter (first seen as a little girl in The Devil Rides Out), paving the way for a young romance to blossom amongst the action. But interwoven with the the story of love is a strange inheritance that draws the whole party to Sri Lanka, where they are destined to face theft, murder, arson and blackmail. De Richleau, at the eleventh hour, is forced to take a last desperate gamble, alone, to save his friends.

The door was not locked, and opened easily. He switched on the light, and Richard followed him into the room. Nella lay on the bed. She had on the nightdress she had been lent, but the bedclothes had been pulled halfway down. Her head was twisted back grotesquely. Her mouth gaped open and her tongue had been cut out. It had been carefully placed in the valley between her naked breasts.The Duke de Richleau and his friends had faced many dangers in Russia, Spain and Nazi Germany. Now, a new and unexpected menace confronts them: the fourth member of their group, Rex van Ryn, is missing – and he has made off with more than a million dollars from the Buenos Aires branch of his family bank.Behind the conventional courtesy of Argentinian society lies a conspiracy of terror and silence – and a trail that leads straight to the Devil himself . . .

All 11 thrilling Duke de Richleau stories, available in one volume for the first time! Follow the aristocratic adventurer as he spies for the British in WWI, rescues friends from the Soviet Union and battles Nazi occultists in Haiti. THE PRISONER IN THE MASKVENDETTA IN SPAINTHE SECOND SEALTHREE INQUISITIVE PEOPLETHE FORBIDDEN TERRITORYTHE DEVIL RIDES OUTTHE GOLDEN SPANIARDCODEWORD GOLDEN FLEECESTRANGE CONFLICTGATEWAY TO HELLDANGEROUS INHERITANCETO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTERTHE SATANIST