MR WHEELS
The European Smash Cult Classic
The Sherlock Holmes of art crime
Mr. Wheels has been a huge smash hit in Eastern Europe for decades. 160 volumes of fan fiction (!), three cinematic releases (including one in 2023), two TV series.
But never a peep in English!?
Until now!
Unlike the English Sherlock Holmes or the French inspector Maigret, the Polish Mr. Wheels does not deal with serial killers or cannibals; he tracks gentlemen (and gentlewomen) thieves, forgers, and smugglers of… art. His mysteries come with the sort of original settings, fast action, humor, and attractive characters you expect from mystery best-sellers but also feature something unique: each has its own fascinating, richly detailed historical background.
Try it. It’s just $2.99 for the first one. I’m ready to bet you will read the whole series.
eBook: $2.99
paperback: $16.99
hardcover: $25.99
In 1310, King Philip the Fair of France found himself short of cash and decided to go and get it: he destroyed the Templar order and burnt its members at the stake in order to steal their gold.
But he never found it.
Forewarned, the knights had hidden it.
This hidden treasure has been the object of obsession and treasure hunts ever since.
And now, a document discovered in Scotland suggests the treasure may have been buried… in Poland!
eBook: $6.99
paperback: $14.99
hardcover: $24.99
In February 1945, the Soviet Front came suddenly to Frombork, the city of Copernicus on the Baltic. Too suddenly for SS Colonel Koenig to get away with his loot. In panic, the man in charge of robbing precious Polish art collections decided to stash away his loot, hoping to return to collect it after the war. Alas–he was killed by a stray bullet that very afternoon.
When his notebook unexpectedly comes to light, it sparks a race to discover his hidden treasure, a race between the detectives of the Polish Ministry of Culture and a gang of art thieves.
Will Mr. Wheels beat the thieves to it? Or will his colleague, Dr. Parsley, PhD, get the prize? And who will break the detectives’ heart this time, the mysterious brunette with an hour-glass figure and a red Ford Mustang? Or the petite blonde with a terrifying robot at her service?
And who is Cagliostro Count Balsamo?
eBook: $4.99
paperback: $12.99
hardcover: $24.99
In 1961, fifteen years after the end of World War II, the wounds of war are still fresh, including those inflicted by a gang of marauders commanded by a bandit nicknamed Barabas. For 18 months following the fall of the Third Reich, Barabas and his villains terrorized the countryside from a base of operations on an island on the Vistula, 70 miles north of Warsaw. They were eventually captured and imprisoned and this put an end to their robberies; but even from their prison cells, the gangsters’ tentacles still reach back to their old base to guard the treasure they had buried in the area.
And now, several mysterious agents compete to unearth the treasure and solve the mysteries of the Island of Bandits and–we are introduced to several characters who will become a permanent fixture in the series. Including Mr. Wheels’ eponymous Wheels.
Zbigniew Nienacki (1929-1994) was a Polish writer best known for his Mr. Wheels (Pan Samochodzik) series of novels. He has also written erotica and historical fiction. Expelled in 1952 for “anti-Stalinist conduct” from Moscow University where he was sent on an exchange program, he returned to Poland where he took up a writing career. He became and remained a staunch supporter of the regime until the end of his life.