I read this in the 1967 John Long hardback edition. It really took me back in time to be reading a novel in large crown 8vo, a format that now seems to be reserved for "novelty" publications -- often to make a short novel look longer, as per some of the works of Nicholas Sparks. Of course, back i...
2012 Review:It was weird. I know, and distinctly recall the exact feeling, that I completely loved these men when I first read this long ago. I admired them and they were beyond cool and ingenious. I still think they’re ingenious. Thing is? I also think they are very probably in the wrong.They’re...
From BBC Radio 4 Extra:,Mr JG Reeder has the mind of a criminal, using it to uncover the peculiar circumstances surrounding a bank robbery, the death of the night-watchman and the part in the plot played by his beautiful daughter.This first story provides useful insight into the past of Mr JG Ree...
2012 Review:Short stories again. Mostly, but not entirely, consisting of more Leon antics.A little strange is the insistence that the three have now gone completely legit. As in, no more torturing and killing and stealing and kidnapping and all that fun stuff. Because supposedly Manfred promised ...
Scotland Yard is chasing the frog with the mask, the leader of a criminal organization that holds the whole of London in his grasp. Nobody ever saw the frog. One tracks him down - but he has to pay for it.
On the Terzo de Citta stands the Palazzo Festini in gloomy, dilapidated magnificence. Here in grandeur dwell the Festinis, a family not afraid to resurrect feuds first begun in the Middle Ages. This is a tale of the Red-Hand, a criminal organization that makes Count Festini, its secret head, the ...
The Joker aka The ColossusWhile the millionaire Stratford Harlow is in Princetown, not only does he meet with his lawyer Mr Ellenbury but he gets his first glimpse of the beautiful Aileen Rivers, niece of the actor and convicted felon Arthur Ingle. When Aileen is involved in a car accident on the...
The Guv'nor and Other Short Stories aka (US title) Mr. Reeder Returns When Larry O'Ryan decides to become a burglar he attends night school to study ballistics, then secures a job at a safe-maker's. After three successful robberies Larry is caught by Mr J G Reeder. An unlikely friendship develop...
J G Reeder is a shabby little man with red hair and weak eyes. However, his extraordinary mind is rapier sharp. Here are three thrilling episodes torn from his casebook: Red Aces about a man who gambles high and lives in fear; Kennedy the Con Man, reveals the impeccable mask stripped from a fiend...
“It’s Mason getting rattled, I should think,” said Elk fretfully. “Why I came here I don’t know. Madness! I get like that sometimes—just go dippy and do silly things.” “You came here,” said Inspector Bray heavily, “because you were told to come by your superior officer.” &...
He loved music generally, but his neighbours in Pennerthon Road, Hampstead, could testify with vehemence and asperity to his preference for that great battle piece. It had led from certain local unpleasantness to a police-court application, having as its object the suppression of Mr Homer Lynne a...
He would have liked to refuse point blank, to have indulged himself in a display of temper, if only to embarrass the girl; but he had sufficient command of himself to check his natural desire. He scowled at the young man with whom he was left alone, and answered in monosyllables the polite observ...
He had the general’s gift of foretelling his enemy’s movements. Jim called the next morning at the lawyer’s office in Theobald’s Road; and when the dour clerk denied him an interview, he produced his card. ‘Take that to Mr Ellenbury. I think he will...
Again Johnson shook his head and smiled. “There is nobody else in this flat,” he said, “except myself.” Elk took the paper under the light and scrutinized the date-stamp. The luggage had been deposited a fortnight before, and, as is usual in such ti...
said Monty Newton, lifting an eyelid for a second. “Get a blanket.” He turned fiercely to the whimpering girl behind him. “Shut up, you!” he said savagely. “Do you want to rouse the whole house?” A woebegone Joan was whimpering softly, tears running down her face, her hand...