Although Hornung writes very well to a formula when he condescends to do so, sometimes it seems that he just wants to do something different.
The first two-thirds of this novel are a sort of sordid drawing-room drama, the rest: a mystery with the unlikeliest of detectives and some staggering plot twists.
About 20 years after the death of Dickens, the author and his friend decide to travel around and find the real-life settings for scenes in his novels and stories. For the most part, they succeed; they did try pretty hard.
As for me, about halfway in I re-read Pickwick, just so as to keep up.
There are school stories, and then there is this one. Comprising the first three of four books, it is a full order of magnitude longer and more detailed than any other. Better? It would depend on what the reader wants of a school story.
Book IV, beginning half-way through volume 2, does perhaps qualify as a bildungsroman if one can start with a twenty-three year-old college grad of independent means. Using the most preposterous pretext, this young man determines to plumb the depths of the very worst of London society prefatory to marrying a whore, his ex-girlfriend. Neither is this the most implausible non-sequitur of the story.
That said, this is entertaining and well-written. Eerily reminiscent (or prefiguring?) Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet in both style and substance.
As Linda says, this is but the first of the series, and the writing does improve somewhat over the years, so you might want to keep going.
Although this is not the best Bulldog Drummond adventure (that would probably be the affair of the hunchback with the mask on Romney Marsh), neither is it the worst in terms of action.
Sometimes the criminals are just let go at the end, why not? Drummond is only in it for sport; he's not the police. In fact, he goes out of his way not to involve the police, in order that his own fun not be impaired.
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The first two-thirds of this novel are a sort of sordid drawing-room drama, the rest: a mystery with the unlikeliest of detectives and some staggering plot twists.
Not bad, overall.
Stands on its own for pure entertainment, though.
In my opinion, better than Raffles, WAY better.
As for me, about halfway in I re-read Pickwick, just so as to keep up.
Book IV, beginning half-way through volume 2, does perhaps qualify as a bildungsroman if one can start with a twenty-three year-old college grad of independent means. Using the most preposterous pretext, this young man determines to plumb the depths of the very worst of London society prefatory to marrying a whore, his ex-girlfriend. Neither is this the most implausible non-sequitur of the story.
That said, this is entertaining and well-written. Eerily reminiscent (or prefiguring?) Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet in both style and substance.
G.W. Cable is a heckuva storyteller.
Highly highly recommended.
Although this is not the best Bulldog Drummond adventure (that would probably be the affair of the hunchback with the mask on Romney Marsh), neither is it the worst in terms of action.
Sometimes the criminals are just let go at the end, why not? Drummond is only in it for sport; he's not the police. In fact, he goes out of his way not to involve the police, in order that his own fun not be impaired.
Could possibly serve students of creative writing as an example of how not to write a mystery novel.